You ask, “why do I need a calendar in 2013 at all, when there’s one right on my smartphone?”
Does your smartphone, even your tablet, include in its calendar full color, full size glossy pictures of some of the most interesting radio and television tower and transmitter sites, and broadcast facilities in North America and beyond?
Does it note famous dates in broadcast history, anniversaries and other dates of interest?
And you just try putting a nail through your smartphone or tablet’s screen to hang it on your favorite office or home wall.
Yep, it’s that time of year again… long-time personal and professional Friend of OMW Scott Fybush (“NorthEast Radio Watch”) has come out with another Tower Site Calendar.
We’ll let Scott and his wife Lisa do the honors with all the details on the 2013 Tower Site Calendar, which hangs in some of the best engineering shops, studios and homes in America.
And this picture is familiar to many locals, particularly those who endured frequent visits of the OMW Mobile while the facility was under construction in Parma…it’s a shot of the WKYC/3 transmitter site.
We’re pretty sure we were alongside Scott at the time.
Anyway, if you’re convinced by now, order one…and if you remember, tell Scott you heard about it from OMW…
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POPULAR CALENDAR SHOWCASES BEAUTY OF BROADCAST TOWERS
Twelve years later, what started as a lark is still going strong
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – To some, they’re eyesores on the landscape. But to one man, radio and television towers are landscapes, and beautiful ones, too. For a dozen years now, journalist/photographer/broadcaster Scott Fybush has created an annual wall calendar featuring artistic photos of important and historic broadcast tower sites from coast to coast, and he’s just released the 2013 edition.
“Some people may think all radio towers look alike, but the Tower Site Calendar shows every year that that’s not the case,” says Fybush, who has worked in radio and television news for more than two decades. The calendar began in 2002 as an outgrowth of his weekly industry news column, NorthEast Radio Watch, and its offshoot, “Tower Site of the Week,” a weekly feature at his fybush.com website.
“It has developed a passionate following in the broadcast engineering community,” Fybush says. “Engineers are notoriously underappreciated for the hard work they do, and the calendar is one little way I can help show some recognition for the infrastructure that engineers design and maintain to make sure all of us have easy access to radio, TV and our cellphones, too.”
The 2013 edition, now shipping from the Fybush Media store (store.fybush.com/store) features a fresh new page design, a spiral binding, and 13 new pictures taken from Fybush’s travels all over North America and beyond. Some of the highlights this year:
* The Sandia Peak TV/FM antenna farm high above Albuquerque, New Mexico. At more than 10,000 feet above sea level, this is the highest-elevation site ever featured in the calendar.
* WFXJ (formerly WJAX), Jacksonville, Florida. This historic site, built in the 1930s, sits amidst the greens of a golf course.
* KWAL, Wallace, Idaho. This unique site features two towers split down the middle by a busy coast-to-coast highway, Interstate 90, as it threads through a narrow valley.
* WVJS, Owensboro, Kentucky. A reminder of the impermanence of broadcast infrastructure, this calendar photo features three towers that were dismantled in 2011 after 65 years at the same site.
* WXXI-TV, Rochester, New York. A dramatic night photo showing a massive crane in action, removing an analog TV antenna from its 400-foot-high perch after the digital television transition made it obsolete.
In addition to tower photos, the calendar’s monthly pages include significant dates in radio and television history, as well as civil and religious holidays.
The 2013 calendars cost $18.50 each ($19.98 including sales tax for New York State residents) and can be purchased by check (payable to “Fybush Media”) or money order to 92 Bonnie Brae Avenue, Rochester NY 14618. Orders can also be placed with major credit cards, or online at www.fybush.com.
“Engineers email me all the time to ask if their towers can be a featured site or a calendar page,” says Fybush, who also anchors newscasts for NPR member station WXXI in Rochester.
Back to Radio Lane…WABQ 1540 and WXEN 106.5 FM and Booth Broadcasting originally converted the former manufacturing plant for the first broadcast use as described in the 1960’s after their WABQ/WXEN studios on Carnegie Avenue caught fire while they were on the air. WABQ was an R&B station, WXEN was brokered foreign language programming. WABQ’s DJ broke into a record announcing “WABQ’s on fire!” before signing off and evacuating!
I toured their studios in the early 1970’s and watched the great Mike Payne doing his afternoon show on WABQ. WXEN (which originally stood for Xenophon (SP?) Zapis, who owned WZAK) dropped ethnic and became top forty WZZP “Zip 106” for a time in the 1970’s before Booth sold off WABQ and 1540 moved out to an old church as they became a religious/gospel station.
WZZP became WLTF “Lite Rock 106.5”. At one point, WRMR “Warmer” 850 also shared the building when they were easy pop/Music of Your Life. 850 and 106.5 left as owners changed and WDOK and later WQAL moved on in. I might have misssed someone, it got rather confusing with all the station swaps at the end of the century, but I don’t think so.
At least CBS is staying downtown and not fleeing to Independence like others have. They deserve kudos for that.