WWVA Towers down

[Mr. Tom Jones]

WWVA is off the air at the moment.

All three of their transmitter towers were blown down Wednesday by bad weather. Nasty winds.

No word yet from Clear Channel on a fix. Perhaps the insurance money might pay to fix the grounding radials? Seems one could hear WWVA in the courtroom over the court sound system without a radio.

We will see.

[Paradigm]

WWVA is now running on sister station WBBD on 1400 a real step down from 50 kw

[Paradigm]

http://wtrf.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=83934

[Paradigm]

Complete with pictures.

http://www.wwva.com/cc-common/mainheadl ... le=7439986

[contracteng]

I was working in Moundsville and turned on 1170 this morning as I was on the way to get WLVW back on and didn't hear anything. After gettin back from the WLVW site I stopped in at McDonalds for breakfast where I saw in the paper as to what had happened.

In the Mid 70's I had the pleasure of a tour of the transmitter building including walking around inside of the origional 50 KW transmitter.

[Paradigm]

I noticed WVLW was off the air, but didn't think much of it as it tends to happen from time to time. WKWK and WOVK were also off the air last night, but were restored by this morning, not sure what the problem was for them.

[Mr. Tom Jones]

In the Mid 70's I had the pleasure of a tour of the transmitter building including walking around inside of the origional 50 KW transmitter.

I've been told that every chief(?) engineer of WWVA that worked with the original 50 kW transmitter developed cancer of some sort. My source for this was someone who ended up stiffing me and my pals out of money he owed us, so go figure.

Wonder if CC will spring for a new 50 kW transmitter... somehow I doubt it. I understand CC has sent a team to help, and they plan to get temporary towers and transmitter of some sort up and running.

[genlock]

I'll bet that all smoked heavily in those days.
There was significant exposure at older transmitters tho.

[contracteng]

When I visited there in the 70's thay were running on a fairly new Harris but don't remember the model. Seems like they also still had an older transmitter for back up.

[Paradigm]

WWVA came back on the air today on a temporary setup. They have plenty of pictures of the wreckage, but not a picture of what they are running on now. Until yesterday most in Wheeling didn't even know that 1400 WBBD still existed, would be interesting to see the ratings for the last couple of days.

[Mr. Tom Jones]

WWVA came back on the air today on a temporary setup. They have plenty of pictures of the wreckage, but not a picture of what they are running on now.

I've been told the front-end bits of the transmitter site are okay. I also understand the engineering staff got a long wire up as antenna, and are putting out 5 kW through it. That's enough to keep the feds happy, and provide a local signal, I'm told.

New towers will be contracted out.

[The Interpreter]

http://www.wvmetronews.com/index.cfm?fu ... ryid=38553

Note also the photo gallery there.

[lastone]

Something's not right here. Look at the photos. All three towere buckled at the same point? The base should have broken before the steel bent. This needs investigation.

I'll bet the tri-pods don't go back up.