Article View: sci.electronics
Article #9097Re: Commercial radio transmitters
From: Joel Lessenberry
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 1990 13:52
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 1990 13:52
63 lines
3284 bytes
3284 bytes
In article <1990Dec20.172920.7325@phri.nyu.edu> roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes:
>
> In New York, two radio stations (I think it's WCBS and WNBC, both
>50 kW AM stations) transmit from the same tower. How do they do that? Are
>there two independant antennas supported by the same physical structure, or
>do they somehow mix their signals to feed the same antenna?
>
> As far as I know, there are no studios at the transmitting site;
> There are actually two towers, one rather smaller (1/2 as high?)
>than the other. I've always assumed that the smaller tower supported a
>second antenna element to provide some directionality to the signal, as the
>tower is at the extreme NE corner of New York City (actually on a tiny
>island in Long Island Sound). Is that likely the real reason for the
>second tower? My knowledge of antenna theory is pretty weak, so I'm not
>really sure if my guess is even reasonable.
>--
>Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
Yes, the studio and transmitter site are linked by either phone line,
microwave link, or just radio link. (Probably two different methods
for backup purposes. WEXL in detroit (I am Chief Engineer) uses phone
lines.
AM stations are at a very low freq. compared to FM stations, 1 Million
Cycles per Second, compared to 100 million Cycles per second.
The frequency determines the antenna element size, the lower the
frequency, the longer the element.
FM stations use antennas supported on towers, FM being more or less
limited to line of site, the higher the tower, the farther the
antenna can see. Elements at these freqencies are only a few feet.
At AM frequencies, this is houndreds of feet, therefor AM station
uses the tower itself as the antenna.
Broadcasting two different signals on the same tower is easy in
principle, you insert into each trasmitters feed line tuned notch
filters, which keep out all other signals except your own. I have
never done this at AM freqs. but have installed FM sites.
Yes, the shorter tower is probable a tuning stub, buy varying
the power split and phase relationship of the signals between the
two towers, you can control the pattern.
Is there any one out there interested in forming a Commercial
Radio Mailing list, or starting some discussions??
My current home is WEXL 1340 am in Detroit
1Kw DA-D
1KW ND-N
I have worked at WLDM 95.5 FM in detroit
70KW
and WOMC 104.3
Joel Lessenberry, Distributed Systems | +1 313 948 3342
joel@cfctech.UUCP | Chrysler Financial Corp.
joel%cfctech.uucp@mailgw.cc.umich.edu | MIS, Technical Services
{sharkey|mailrus}!cfctech!joel | 2777 Franklin, Sfld, MI
Technical Details
Message-ID:
<1990Dec21.135235.22887@cfctech.cfc.com>Path:
arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!umich!sharkey!cfctech!joelReferences:
<1990Dec20.172920.7325@phri.nyu.edu>Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!umich!sharkey!cfctech!joel From: joel@cfctech.cfc.com (Joel Lessenberry) Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: Re: Commercial radio transmitters Summary: The towers are the antennas. Message-ID: <1990Dec21.135235.22887@cfctech.cfc.com> Date: 21 Dec 90 13:52:35 GMT References: <1990Dec20.172920.7325@phri.nyu.edu> Reply-To: joel@cfctech (Joel Lessenberry) Organization: Chrysler Financial Corporation, Southfield, MI. Lines: 63