I was looking through some screen shot pictures of TV stations on several DX web sites. The majority of them were from the analog days of TV broadcasting. This summer marks two years since full power analog TV broadcasting in the United States ceased. You can still fine some low power stations still broadcasting with analog, but many have already either ceased broadcasting all together or are converting to digital or have converted to digital broadcasting. many believe that even these low power analog broadcasters time is very limited. With only tens of months left and all TV broadcasting in the United States will be digital only. To me it seems hard to believe we have been broadcasting digital only for almost 2 years. It many ways it doesn't seem that long. But in other ways, it seems like a life time.I admit it. I do miss the analog days. I didn't think I would. Too many nights at the transmitter tuning up finicky exciters and outright defiant power amplifiers. Logging a list of signal readings a mile long. Snowy 4:3 standard definition pictures. Working with technology first developed in the 1930's and added to in the early 1950's. Being amazed we got a picture of any quality to broadcast. Ah, the "good ole days."
I was walking through the old transmitter building the other day replacing a repaired power supply in the back up transmitter and thinking about the television history that was made from that little building. And it was 99% analog history. The building was built in 1963 when the station was built. The third station to come on the air for the air. It was just big enough to surround the RCA TT-25DH (D-Line) transmitter. A monster in size compared to today's technology for the power level. In those days the site was manned whenever the station was on the air. Day one on the air made history. Not only for the fact it was the first day on air, but it was also the day the station went off the air. After being on the air for only a few hours, the main power bus in the circuit breaker panel melted taking the station off the air. It was hastily repaired and that patch lasted until that power panel was gutted in an electrical rewire of the building in 1993.
This picture is of a TT-25DH that was at WQAD channel 8 in Moline, Il. There are no surviving pictures that I am aware of for WGHP's TT-25DH. Interesting sidebar, WQAD became a sister station to WGHP in July of 2008.In 1981, the original transmitter was replaced by a Harris TVD-50H dual tran transmitter and the building was enlarged to install the Harris while staying on the air with the RCA. The old "D-Line" was sold to a PBS station in Washington State on channel 9 that had the same model transmitter and was looking for another one to use in back up service. A few years later, the site was converted to unmanned operation as the era of wide sp
read manned transmitter sites drew to a close all over the industry. Several of the transmitter engineers moved to the studio and remained with the station for many years while others moved on to pursue other interests.For the next 10 years, the site was maintained by one man basically, the late Roy Allman. Roy came to work at the station just as it was signing on for the first time in 1963. Roy worked as a transmitter engineer until the early 80's when he was named Transmitter Supervisor. But by then, there wasn't much to supervise with the site now unmanned. But he was responsible for the maintenance and operation of the transmitter. Roy passed away at age 73 in 2008, just months before the cessation of analog broadcasts.
In February of 1992 I graced the transmitter building for the first time. I was being interviewed to replace Roy upon is retirement in early 1993. My first thought was, "thank God the transmitter isn't a RCA." I had dealt with several old RCA radio transmitters in my career and I had heard the stories of the TV transmitters that made my experiences with the radio transmitters pale in comparison. The TVD-50H was very similar to the Harris FM-25K FM transmitter I was used to. Later I found out the trip to the transmitter was to see if I would run when I saw the transmitter and to see how comfortable I was around it. Guess I passed since I was hired in April of 1992. I spent the next year "apprenticing" with Roy on TV engineering which for me was to learn the video end of it since I already knew the RF and audio side of it.
March 1993 saw Roy's retirement and the mantle of "transmitter supervisor" being passed on to me. I got started by cleaning out 25 years of stuff that was lurking in hidden places and equipment that really wasn't useful anymore. The interior got a paint job and we rewired the electrical of the building. The next year we replaced the old shallow 20 inch RCA equipment racks with new 30 inch deep equipment racks and a rewiring of the audio and control cabling for the building. In 1995 we replaced the old reflector microwave receive antenna system with direct antennas mounted on the tower and added stereo generators and processors to the on air chain and began stereo broadcasting for the first time. Over the next few years life turned to planning for the digital transition.
In 1999 plans were to increase the size of the building to include a new digital transmitter and replace the tower with a stronger tower that would hold multiple antennas for both analog and digital since no one knew how long we broadcasting both. Plans were proceeding when 9/11 occurred and changed everything. Being owned by FOX at the time, FOX lost 3 transmitter sites on World Trade Center 2 when it came down that day. It was decided that if a station had viable analog facilities that could be converted to backup facilities, then it was better to build a new site for digital. That put in motion the two site concept that was eventually built. But on that Tuesday, I spent the whole day in that building watching the events unfold in New York City. Not knowing if another attack was coming and to keep the transmitter running at all costs.
On April 29th, 2002, we fired up digital channel 35 for the first time from the building with a super low power transmitter. A whopping 4200 watts total!The Harris "dual tran" was finally retired in 2005 with installation of half of the new Larcan TTP-44H channel 8 transmitter for the new transmitter
building that was being built at the same time.The Larcan transmitter ran in the old building until March of 2006 when it was joined with its other half in the new building and main operations switched to the new tower and building on the other side of the property and the old building was relegated to auxiliary service. The old building was cleared out and a new 6 kw auxiliary channel 8 analog transmitter was installed along side of the low power channel 35 digital transmitter. In August of 2006, digital operations moved to the new tower and building with the low power channel 35 transmitter becoming a auxiliary transmitter.
After the digital transition, the plan was to remain on channel 8 digital and the analog channel 8 transmitters would be converted to digital. Two of the three transmitters were converted but due to signal problems with digital VHF, channel 8 was abandoned for channel 35. The two big VHF transmitters, one that had be converted to digital and the other which was never converted were traded in for a 5 kw channel 35 auxiliary transmitter that was installed in the old building. The low power channel 8 transmitter in the old building is being shopped around. The transmitter room that held the channel 8 analog/digital in the new building is now empty and is used for storage.
Strange how fast that much history can run though ones brain while taking only ten steps.
