| |
|
"Wavescan" is a weekly program for long distance radio hobbyists produced by Dr. Adrian M. Peterson, Coordinator of International Relations for Adventist World Radio. AWR carries the program over many of its stations (including shortwave). Adrian Peterson is a highly regarded DXer and radio historian, and often includes features on radio history in his program. We are reproducing those features below, with Dr. Peterson's permission and assistance.
New York Radio During 9-11
The tragic events of September 11 are indelibly etched into the minds of all people throughout the world who watched the unfolding of this international saga on their television screens. As the two tall towers in New York City burned and then collapsed, an unnumbered multitude of people died helplessly in the conflagration.
All of the TV networks in the United States, together with many others in many countries throughout the world, gave almost full time coverage to these events, which have indeed changed the flow of modern day history. Likewise, the international radio networks, such as BBC London, Deutsche Welle Germany, and the Voice of America, also turned their emphasis into an almost full time coverage of these American events. These shortwave networks have also increased the duration of their language programming into several countries in the Middle East.
Another question comes to mind. How did the electronic media fare in New York itself? What happened to the radio and television stations during the heat of this massive crisis? It has taken a few weeks for us here at Wavescan to assemble all of this information, and in this edition we present at least a partial picture of the radio scene in New York City on that eventful day.
New York City is listed in the trade catalogs with more than 40 radio stations and a dozen TV stations. Some of these stations are electronic giants with wide coverage areas, while others serve regional localities within the large city itself.
The twin Trade Center Towers in New York, with their 110 stories each, stood at 1350 ft. high. In addition, upon the top of the North Tower, Tower No. 1, was a multi-purpose antenna that added another 360 ft., to the total height of this building, making it the tallest in the world. These two modern-day wonders took 10 years to build, and they were completed in the year 1976.
The tall antenna tower on top of the north building radiated the programming from eight television stations and five FM stations, and it also carried many additional communication services. The south tower had only a few minor radio antennas on top.
At 8:45 am on September 11, American Flight AA11 crashed into Tower No. 1, the north tower, and less than two hours later, it collapsed. Tower No. 2 received the second crash, about 20 minutes after the first, and it collapsed just three quarters of an hour later.
Immediately, the vast electronic networks switched to emergency news coverage, and the devastating news hit the world headlines. Very soon after the first impact, all 13 of the radio and TV stations were knocked off the air, and much of the telephone traffic in New York also came to a halt.
In an email despatch, Larry Magne of "Pasport to World Band Radio" states that the only TV station left on the air was the CBS station with the appropriate callsign, WCBS Channel 2, which apparently was able to cross over to an emergency transmission facility at a different location.
The five FM stations fared a little better. The 20 year old WKTU is licensed to Ocean City in New Jersey, though its transmission facilities have been located in New York City. They quickly switched over to their back up facility on top of the Conde Nast Tower in New York City and they dropped all commercial advertising, as did most of the other stations serving the areas of the tragedy.
Station WPAT, with its programming format entirely in Spanish, obtained the usage of backup facilities on top of the Empire State Building and returned to the air 59 hours later.
Station WKCR erected an emergency antenna on the campus of Columbia University; and station WQCD had maintained the twin tower site merely as a backup facility and thus they were able to continue on air from their main location.
The NPR affiliate, station WNYC, with 52 kW on 93.9 MHz, took over the transmission facilities of an educational station, WNYE, and returned to the air with emergency programming on these alternate facilities with 40 kW on 91.5 Mhz. A few days later they also moved their transmission functions over to the Empire State Building.
In view of the fact that the transmission facilities of the AM mediumwave stations require a different form of antenna system, none of these were located on top of the tall buildings in New York. However, many of these AM-MW stations also moved quickly into emergency programming. Station WCBS on 880 kHz was noted at our AWR location in Indianapolis with an exceptionally strong signal, though it is not known whether this was due to an increase in power, or whether propagation conditions just happened to be particularly good.
The AWR Historic Collection in Indianapolis contains several cards of significance to the New York scene. Among these cards are several postcards that portray the twin World Trade Center buildings with the tall antenna on top of building One; and also QSL cards from two stations that were destroyed in the day's events: WCBS TV Channel 2, and WKTU with 24 kW on 98.3 MHz.
We acknowledge with appreciation several sources of information for the compilation of this feature on New York Radio. These sources were:
This Week in Radio History - Voice of Russia, October 29, 1929
Wireless experimentation began very early in Russia, and the inventor Popov is credited with making and demonstrating a wireless transmitter and receiver in the year 1895, just a few months prior to the work of the better known Marconi in Italy.
Radio broadcasting in Russia also began quite early, and the first regular broadcasting station went on the air in Moscow on October 29, 1924. This pioneer venture was soon followed by the launching of several other stations in the larger cities of Russia.
In Moscow itself, three stations were launched almost simultaneously; two at 2 kW and one at 12 kW. Two of these stations operated in the standard longwave band and one on mediumwave, at 207 kHz, 297 kHz and 750 kHz. Only one of these stations was licensed with a callsign, RDW.
In this early era, a large number of radio listening clubs were established throughout Russia, and in fact it was stated at the time that "Moscow was practically swamped with listener clubs". The government installed 2,000 loud speakers throughout the country so that people could listen to the programming from these new media ventures. Early programming consisted of live concerts interspersed with propaganda information.
The modern counterpart of these early wireless stations is the official government station, Radio Rossii, and today they are remembering their 77th anniversary.