Say! I remember seeing this back in 1986 when Art was visiting Los Angeles to attend the Radiophiles convention at the time. He had a VHS camcorder and used it as a video player with hooking it up to a TV set in the hotel. The portability of showing videos back then was something to marvel at, as it pre-dated laptop PCs for displaying videos in a portable fashion. Viewing the video was so impressive that here it is, decades later, and I still recall this.
Back when the only thing around the tower was a row of homes across the street on Tylersville. On December 9, 1985, I was just over a year old, getting ready for my 2nd Christmas. I grew up in Mason about 1.5 miles from the tower.
Wow! Thanks for posting this video. I took a few tours and did my video here on RU-vid in 1997 with my Sony Handycam. So, now there are three videos of WLW on RU-vid that I am aware of. It's an operational and operating museum. It has played an important role in American Radio History, along with the now shut down VOA, which was still operational when this and my video were shot.
I'm at VOA. When we went on the air in 1942, we took over that half-meg monster transmitter and broadcast to the world from this stick farm. Ask the neighborhood earthworms and migratory birds what that thing felt like! Glad I wasn't an engineer on-site for the 500,000 RF machine. Glad I wasn't even within 50 miles. You could pick this thing up with a safety pin touching a razor blade and a diode!
Is VOA still broadcasting? I thought they shut it down! If it is, I'm GLAD, if not, I'm SAD! I used to listen to VOA when I was a kid with my Hallicrafters fake transoceanic radio!
@@seatboi Absolutely still broadcasting over the air in SW AM and FM. We have a number of stick sites overseas and here - the main CONUS site is in Greenville, NC. And we're also doing many channels through satellites. My dad gave me a Hallicrafters S-120 AM/SW when I was 10. It turned into a career.
I visited the WSM-AM Transmitter when Everett Lawson was C.E. Back then in my 20s, no fear RF causing cancer. I made it a point not to fool with any AM Box over 1000 watts. Today, I'm retired and still have that RF Cancer Fear, but I guess not everyone gets it.
There have been plenty of high power AM transmitters in Europe; here in Ireland we had a 500 kW site at Tullamore from 1975 to 2008. On the continent there were quite a few over a megawatt. But the stories I've read about WLW make it seem like a lot more. Do the US rate their transmitter powers differently to Europe?
There were two super-power transmitters in Europe about which I'm aware. 1. The "Aspidistra" transmitter broadcast from England with 500 kW normally. It was sometimes pushed to 600 kW during WWII to broadcast propaganda into Nazi Germany. 2. The "Goliath" transmitter was a 500-kW station in Germany. It was used by the Kriegsmarine to broadcast messages by radiotelegraphy to U-Boats.
Current news talent couldn't get past 6 words without stumbling and looking confused about what they are doing and saying in front of the camera. You see them every evening on the news stumbling over the teleprompter.
It's too bad all that wonderful old tube stuff is 90% gone now! I THINK the ONLY thing left is the Western Electric transmitter & I don't even know if that's 100% there anymore! Just a boring ol' solid state transmitter no bigger than a closet runs WLW now!
That's so doggone sad. Someone should open up an AM station as a museum and still run all tube stuff like the 60s... That would be really rad! Turntables, cart machines, 45s...
