WCAR, Dark ?

[k8jd]

WHAT's happening at WCAR AM 1090. For the last few days I hear NOTHING on 1090 kHz No signal, no carrier , Did the Transmitter down off Ford Road and Venoy blow out ? No standby ? loss of llicense by Birach ??
Anyone have any inside clues ??
Anyone drive by the site in Garden City and notice missing towers (should be ten of them !!!!)

[Deleted User 15688]

The station has been off for a while now, due to some technical issues caused by a fire.

[k8jd]

I recall another station with a major fire, Many decades ago, was WHRV, later WAAM in Ann Arbor !


1

[Kennelly Heaviside]

I recall another station with a major fire, Many decades ago, was WHRV, later WAAM in Ann Arbor!

I talked at length with Doug Boynton once about this.

They ran at 250 watts nondirectional for a couple of years as I recall.

After that, they moved to the Merritt Rd. and Platt Rd. site next to US 23. They built or moved a total of 7 towers to make two four in a line arrays, one a "Flat Parallelogram" for Day with large minor lobes, one toward Detroit. The Night array is a 4 tower multiplicative endfire.

When they did the Proof of performance, all of a sudden you could get WAAM fairly well in Genesee County. I didn't know what they were doing, as I was a teenager at the time. I just kept hearing it go off and on.

WITL had done POPs when they moved to Pine Tree Rd., the only time it ever came in decent in Genesee County, while doing omni proofs. When my family drove to Chicago by way of Lansing, I could never figure out why the WITL 1010 signal was never strong near either array. The old site was off, but the towers were still there with a billboard that said WITL. With the Pine Tree Rd. site, the 1010 array nulls from the 3 tower multiplicative cardioid pattern followed the interchange as you went from US 127 to I-96/I-69 at the time, to get to M-78 or I-69 at the time.

[k8jd]

Now two more stations have gone dark. Today I noticed WCAR and WCXI are both off the air . Since they share a site and towers I wonder if there is a power outage . Maybe a STL land line for each station is in a cut cable ? I know I was having no internet connection via Xfinity for a while and phone troubles too today. Common link in this trouble ?

[ZenithCKLW]

WCAR is near me in Garden City. I thought WCXI shared a site in Oakland County with WPON?

[k8jd]

Mistyped about WPON and WCXI gone off air now, as well a previoulsy noted WCAR !
Sorry about confusion...

[k8jd]

I have noticed the harsh sounding audio on 1160. Sounds like it's limiting to the rails. Operation un attended by a skilled engineer , no Doubt
Hearing long gaps of dead-air where local ads are probably supposed to be inserted.....No engineers OR Sales people around???

[k8jd]

Yes - WCXI 1160 and WPON 1460 share a site in Milford Twp., near Walled Lake.

I saw, over the years, WPON move from Pontiac (bloomield twp?) at telgraph and Squae lake Rds, to Wolverine Lake, to Milford township !!

[Art Van Damme]

[quote=k8jd post_id=686715 time=1639416811 user_id=10507]
[quote=MWmetalhead post_id=685635 time=1638573522 user_id=2]
Yes - WCXI 1160 and WPON 1460 share a site in Milford Twp., near Walled Lake.
[/quote]
I saw, over the years, WPON move from Pontiac (bloomield twp?) at telgraph and Squae lake Rds, to Wolverine Lake, to Milford township !!
[/quote]

Still dead as a door nail as of this afternoon.
Sima. Just turn in the license. Take down the towers.
Sell the land. Be done with it. You, sir, couldn’t understand public service if it hit you square in the head.

[Art Van Damme]

Yes - WCXI 1160 and WPON 1460 share a site in Milford Twp., near Walled Lake.

I saw, over the years, WPON move from Pontiac (bloomield twp?) at telgraph and Squae lake Rds, to Wolverine Lake, to Milford township !!

Still dead as a door nail as of this afternoon.
Sima. Just turn in the license. Take down the towers.
Sell the land. Be done with it. You, sir, couldn’t understand public service if it hit you square in the head.

[innate-in-you]

WHAT's happening at WCAR AM 1090. For the last few days I hear NOTHING on 1090 kHz No signal, no carrier , Did the Transmitter down off Ford Road and Venoy blow out ? No standby ? loss of license by Birach ??
Anyone have any inside clues ??
Anyone drive by the site in Garden City and notice missing towers (should be ten of them !!!!)

Though you would only see six of them.

The four WERB towers were never lighted (being shorter than 200' high).

Because many night time broadcasters need to beam close to the horizontal (to avoid co-channel interference), they need to avoid radiation skyward (which will reflect back toward Earth), causing interference.

[k8jd]

Hence the shorter towers (90 Degree length) with more low angle and not the 230 degree length with that higher angle lobe showing up.