[BC] Re: WVKZ-AM Tower Site (picture)

[Scott Fybush]

wmroradio at bellsouth.net wrote:
> This one has me puzzled? Are you guys/gals too, sure that there is an
> insulator there? If so, it would have to be those 3 legs near the
> bottom. The caption says the transmitter is in there. We'll that is
> possible, but I wouldn't put my BE in an old box like that. I wonder
> if that tower has an impedance of straight 50 ohms, if not how in the
> world did they get a transmitter and some sort of ATU in there?
> 
> Yes it seems like no audio or power lines out there either. If the
> power is underground from a padmount transfomrer (which is probably
> not the case) this would be the only way to send the power to that
> old wooden box.
> 
> I wonder WHO took these pictures? This can't be the whole site? There
> has to be much more to this than what we are able to see. There is no
> way they could be operating without a base insulator, not that small
> of one, where the legs going to the cone are insulated.

The pictures were taken by my good friend Mike "NECRAT" Fitzpatrick, and 
there are more of them here:

http://www.necrat.com/wvkz_proam.html

The pictures are a little deceptive, because they were taken from a 
distance and from a bit of elevation above the tower base. What you 
can't clearly see is that the tower and the little building are down in 
a swamp, and that they're both surrounded by VERY high rushes that 
completely obscure the tower base, where there is indeed a conventional 
base insulator hiding down there.

The pictures also don't show you that the tower base is less than 500 
feet from the edge of the parking lot of a busy shopping mall. Search 
for "Rotterdam Square Mall, Schenectady, NY" on Google Earth and you'll 
see it. The tower is in a little clearing just east of the mall. I 
suspect the power line and phone lines go under the parking lot and out 
to the tower, but don't know for certain. I know the site predates the 
mall, in any event.

s