" The place where the radio
junkies play!"
Ed O'Rourke - 10/09/00 13:10:50
My URL:http://www.angelfire.com/il/EdibleImprov
My Email:yesanded@yahoo.com
Favorite Radio Station?: WBET of course!! 1000 watts of pure POWER!!!
Comments:
Remember 1988?
I would be in the process of retreating to my coffin to escape the cursed sunlight, just as you were arriving to entertain the early weekend risers?
Bob Allison - 09/28/00 02:16:41
My URL:http://www.nbc30.com
My Email:Bob.Allison@NBC30.com
Call Sign: WB1GCM
Favorite Radio Station?: WBCQ
Comments:
Hi Pete, I've been with 30 for 21 years and was the last person to service our CH 79 translator in late 1986. It was a 100 watt pep job on the outskirt of Torrington that hardly made it to downtown. It only had a few viewers that depended on it, one being
the Ch 30 transmitter engineer's mother. We couldn't even see it from the studio here in West Hartford. It had an audio oscillator tied to the carrier...as the video level changed, the audio freq changed with the osc. This was fed down a phone line to our
main
studio. As a master control op, one had to turn up
a monitor speaker every hour to make sure we could hear the tone (still on the air).
Channel 59 went off the air I think at the end of
1991. (W59AA) and (W79AI). Channel 59 started up
about 1971. It first was only 100 watts, then in
'72 it was upgraded to 5,000 watts. It's only purpose was to impress advertisers that our signal
(channel 30) could cover all of New Haven, CT.
Ch 30's signal was marginal in West Haven, so that was where the transmitter was.
Pete, have you ever heard of channel 56 ? It
was the old WATR and was located on West Peak in
Meriden, CT. You know WATR became WTXX-20 in
Waterbury, CT. Channel 20 was once a translator
for Channel 30 in the early to mid 60's. For a
short time, there was a channel 56 on West Peak.
The building still exists. It was on the air
not too long after ch 30 came on the air in '53
(WKNB). Anyway, according to old timers I knew,
CH 56 biggest moment on the air was a live show
outside the transmitter building.
Cowboy shows were big back then (Tex Pavel on CH 30) and they had one on a horse right
outside their building (next to a cliff). Well the
show was going fine until a snake spooked the horse, which, being startled, jumped the wrong way. Live on the air, the horse and cowboy dissapeared off the side of the cliff. THE END.
Not too much else is known about this station and
it might be worth researching further.
I am ch 30's historian and am on the CPTV video,
"You're on the Air". TV history does not make any
money for a station. It only matters what commercials are coming up next. ALL film and video
of the old days was literally fished out of the dumpster by me. I did it out of the respect of all those TV engineers that came before me. BA
Thanks Bob for your brief history of Channels 30, 59 and 79. If you would like, we would
love to put Channels 59 (W59AA) and (W79AI) 79's history in the UHF Morgue. Please contact me when you can and thank you for stopping by!! All the best!! - Editor
- 08/12/00 18:16:04
Comments:
Pete,
Web-site is very impressive.
The Wendlands
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