The Glow

You would have thought bringing power to the site would have been hard and expensive. But it wasn't. Three phase power was available on the street just below the site. It required about four poles to get to it. When I checked the route, I found the line went thru the guy line path! Couldn't have that, so I asked it go straight up beside the guys. I learned a lesson quickly. Never trust a sub-contractor! The studio equipment had come in and I was spending my time installing it. When I went back to the site, the last pole had been placed within 30 fet of the tower. I didn't like it but there was little I could do at the time. (AEP was paying for it)

The tower people were pros. They put up 200 feet of tower in one day! And they hung a 60 watt 'red' bulb at the top. (Remember we were one mile from the airport) That night got to be very interesting. At 2 in the morning I got a call from Williamson police. "What had we been doing on top the mountain"?, was the question. The guy acted as if he had never heard of the new FM! "Well, what have you got up there"? He was kidding, right. Wrong!! So I explained the whole thing to him. "Well, you need to go up Vincent Stret and talk to the neighbors. The're very upset"! So up the street I went and there they were. Several were standing in the street pointing. I got out of the blazer and one of them said "Look, look there"! Atop the mountain, thru the trees, you could see a "glow". It pulsated now and then. Must have ben the fog moving in. A tall man said "It's been hovering there all night"! They had called the police, the newspaper and all the TV stations for there was a UFO in Williamson!! And they were dead serious! I explained it was a red bulb on top a 200 foot tower that the next night would be twice as tall and have more lights and a huge 'beacon' on top. The 'bubble' burst and all went home, except me. I drove to the South Williamson side to get a better view. And sure enough, there was a strangeness to the red glow. (Years later, before a severe thunderstorm one spring night., the entire tower glowed orange for several minutes. Someone called it "St. Elmo's Fire")

In four days the tower was up. The antenna (a 6 bay) hung and the coax connected to the transmitter. The transmitter was a rebuilt Harris FM20H with an MS15 exciter, making it a FM20K model. I had taken great pains to ensure everything was wired right. The moment was at hand. Time to fire it up! There was a switch on the seperate high voltage power supply that reduced the input by about two thirds. A low power start to tune it, as it were. So I reached up and pushed the 'start' button on the transmitter. BANG !! POW !! And a blue streak shot thru the room. I was crushed. What had I done wrong? I opened all the building doors and let the smoke out. (This then is the real meaning of "smoke test") I just couldn't understand what happened. Whatever it was, it was in the high voltage supply.

With the power off, I slowly opened the cabinet. I saw the problem. There were burn tracks all over the HV filter board, but why? The answer became obvious quickly. At the factory, someone had oiled the fan. The fan was over the HV filter board. Oil conducts. Damn! I called Harvit and explained it to him. He called the factory. They tried to tell him I oiled the fan, that they knew better. He didn't buy it and they sent us the new board complete. Three days later, I pushed the button again. WXCC was born. A few minutes later, with Frances (the traffic lady) and a few others listening, I hooked up the RCA remote mixer to the exciter input and did the first station ID. A salesman asked to play music so he could guage the signal, but that would come later. The STL's had yet to be hooked up.

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