One By One, They Returned to Air
New York Stations That Lost Facilities on
World Trade Center Ponder Longer-Term RF Implications
by Randy J. Stine
NEW YORK Long-term solutions eventually will
have to replace short-term fixes for New York City radio broadcasters
that lost transmitter sites in the World Trade Center collapse.
Five of the city’s FM stations had transmitters
and antenna facilities atop the north tower when it crumpled after
suicide pilots flew commercial jets into the twin structures on
Sept. 11.
FM stations WKTU, WPAT, WKCR, and WNYC lost
main transmission facilities, while WQCD lost its auxiliary transmitter.
The financial impact upon the stations is still
being measured. WNYC alone lost two 10 kW transmitters, STL receivers,
HVAC equipment and power control equipment. Broadcasters’
insurance coverage likely will offset some of the losses.
The 360-foot broadcast mast atop the Trade Center
also was home to nine television antennas. An RCA BFF master wide-band
antenna was built in the mid-1980s and held elements for WNYC,
WKTU and WPAT.
Fire up the backup box
On the morning of Sept. 11, Clear Channel’s
WKTU immediately switched to its full-power backup transmitter
at the Conde Nast building in Times Square. The other stations
found temporary locations for low-power transmission installations
across the city within days of the tragedy.
The FCC issued several Special Temporary Authorizations
allowing the stations to make needed arrangements. One engineer
said the FCC was "very helpful" and helped cut down
on the necessary paperwork normally required for such filings.
The next challenge for the stations will be
searching out permanent transmission sites. Options include the
Empire State Building, the Conde Nast building and the Alpine
Tower in New Jersey.
Mike Tocco, WPAT chief engineer, said the Spanish
Broadcasting System station was off the air for nearly 60 hours
before finding a Bext 500 W transmitter and tower space on the
wide-band port of the master FM antenna at Empire. The station
did not have an auxiliary transmission site.
"It was around-the-clock work to basically
move and rebuild our station’s transmission system in two
and a half days," Tocco said.
The station also ordered a Broadcast Electronics
1 kW FM-1C1 transmitter to see the facility through at least early
November, when it should be back to full power at 5.4 kW with
a permanent home on Empire. WPAT’s auxiliary transmission
site will be the Shively Master FM antenna at 4 Times Square,
Tocco said.
Another affected station, WNYC, licensed to
the WNYC Broadcasting Foundation, is considered by some as National
Public Radio’s most-listened-to station in America. It was
off the air for five days after the collapse.
Making do
Laura Walker, president of WNYC, stated on the
station’s Web site that employees were evacuated from WNYC’s
studios at the New York Municipal Building. The station temporarily
broadcast from makeshift studios in an office at NPR’s New
York bureau.
In the days following the outage, WNYC’s
programming aired on WNYE at 91.5 MHz, licensed by the Board of
Education for New York City.
Ralph Woods, deputy director of operations for
NPR distribution, said WNYC’s programming originally was
routed to NPR’s Washington facility via T1, then returned
to WNYE in New York by ISDN.
"We eventually figured out a better system.
We took signal from the T1 and put it on a spare NPR distribution
satellite channel for WNYE to receive," Woods said.
WNYC(AM), which simulcast the FM programming,
was forced to use a standard POTS dialup line from NPR’s
New York Bureau to its transmitter in Kearny, N.J., just north
of Newark.
Woods said engineering ingenuity was used to
improve the AM audio’s quality.
"NPR sent out a truck with a Ku-band satellite
dish receiver to the AM transmitter site. One of our guys set
it up, acquired the signal and put it up on the AM," he said.
"The dish rested on a tripod base with sandbags to hold it
down."
WNYC’s service was restored at 93.9 MHz
five days after the terrorist attack, employing a Harris Quest
1 kW solid-state transmitter and ERI two-bay antenna on the Alford
backup FM antenna at 1,220 feet atop the Empire State Building.
The FM master at Empire has an elevation of 1,360 feet.
Columbia University’s WKCR was silent for
approximately 80 hours before reestablishing service with temporary
transmitting facilities on top of a 10-story dorm building on
the school’s campus on the upper west side of Manhattan.
New STL
"It just so happens that we have been working
with Harris on a new studio build on campus, and were in the process
of mounting a new STL on top of the building to hit WTC when it
happened," said Roger Koziol, WKCR chief engineer.
Koziol instead mounted one bay of an ERI LPX
two-bay antenna to the STL mast, operating at a mere ERP of 250
W, to get the station back on the air.
"We had run a new piece of half-inch transmission
line from the tech room to the roof for the STL, so instead I
used it to couple the new transmitter to the temporary antenna,"
Koziol said. WKCR purchased a Quest 1 kW solid-state transmitter
from Harris.
Koziol said the new hardware was shipped from
Harris’ facility in Illinois to New York by truck. The delivery
had to be coordinated with FEMA officials, Koziol said.
"It’s been so hard to get around in
the streets. Security is so tight. The school is probably 10 blocks
from where the World Trade Center stood. It was hard getting equipment
in," he said.
Koziol said he felt lucky not to have been in
the north tower when the plane struck that Tuesday morning. He
had made many visits in the preceding weeks, preparing for WKCR’s
new STL.
"I certainly will miss the people I worked
with and saw there so often. But I will also miss the building
itself. Because as engineers we get to go into all of the odd
places … the nooks and crannies, so to speak. I think you
have a more intimate involvement with a building," Koziol
said.
John Lyons, chairman of the master antenna group
at Empire and chief engineer for Clear Channel’s WAXQ(FM),
said the facility at Empire could accommodate additional FM stations.
"We’ll be working with ERI to upgrade
their system to accommodate more stations," Lyons said. ERI
designed and installed the Empire wide-band master antenna and
combiner. He said talks between the building’s commission
and WKTU, WPAT and WNYC for permanent tower space at Empire were
continuing.
Antenna alternatives
Lyons said stations could also consider the
52-story Times Square location. With an antenna height of 907
feet, the master FM panel has room for seven additional stations.
"The Alpine Tower in New Jersey is another
alternative. That’s where the TVs have put all of their emergency
stuff for now," he said. The tower is just west of Yonkers
across the Hudson River.
With the loss of the World Trade Center master
FM antenna, fees for new transmission sites eventually could prove
expensive for broadcasters.
"Right now, Empire has frozen their prices
where they were before the World Trade Center collapse. Nobody
wants to price-gouge anyone. There are some location options left,
just fewer than before," Lyons said.
Lyons applauded the New York broadcast engineering
community for pulling together and helping other broadcasters
restore their signals.
"I think we were all grieving by helping
and staying busy. We are a pretty tight-knit group. We all knew
the television engineers who didn’t make it down from the
109th and 110th floors," Lyons said.
As of late September, six television technicians
were missing from the north tower: Donald DiFranco of WABC; William
Steckman o fWNBC; Steven Jacobson of WPIX; Gerard "Rod"
Coppola of WNET; and Robert Pattison and Isaias Rivera, both of
WCBS.
Supplier rush
Broadcast equipment suppliers immediately offered
assistance to the New York broadcasting community following the
attacks.
Scott Beeler, director of worldwide sales for
Electronics Research Inc., said the antenna manufacturer worked
around the clock on the day of the disaster to finish and rush
an order for three two-bay antennas for WPAT, WKCR and WNYC.
"We basically built the things from scratch.
Then we tuned them to frequency and put them on the truck,"
Beeler said.
"We are in discussions with some of those
broadcasters affected for long-term solutions," said Matt
Leland, FM product line manager for Dielectric. "We also
expect broadcasters to pay even more attention now to auxiliary
sites."
Leland said one major broadcaster in New York
that was not knocked off the air ordered a spare antenna for its
backup at one of its stations as a result of the terrorist attack.
It wasn’t just RF gear that was rushed
to the city.
EZ UP Inc., for instance, helped with the emergency
relief in New York. The fold-up canopy maker, whose products are
used by broadcasters to cover remote gear, sent 60 canopies to
the NYPD to use as emergency shelters.
