Strange Story of DC's Lost AM Radio Station Still Transmitting Road Closures From 2013

The more they are used the more they are ignored.... as stated..^^^.. That's why we will likely Die by a giant F5 Twister...! The best alert system is the one across the Cell System. But every Amber alert in Minneapolis wakes us up 200 miles away in Rural Iowa. The last thing some runaway parent with a kid under each arm from MSP would want to do is bang on OUR front door at 3:15 after we were sat up in bed 15 minutes earlier.... If the Russians are at the end of the street check back in at 6:00...

 

This is/was a Travelers' Information Station (TIS) and it's probably listed on the FCC website.

Some MW DX hobbyists try to log them - and - you can. As I might have said in an earlier post - before the FCC opened up 1610-1700 for MW broadcast, there were TIS stations at 1610 - 1620 - and in Massachusetts, with effort, I could pick up the TIS station at Wood's Hole, MA (around 100 miles from me) and the parking lot at JFK airport (around 190 miles).

Today - on 1710 - during sunrise - I can pick up a TIS station from northern New Jersey. Quite often, when traveling in normal times, I do flip to them if I see them listed on highway signs - Connecticut has a very effective traffic reporting system on theirs.

 

You think going off the air coincides with moving out of old buildings after new PD build was built? I was in Coronado from 85-03 before transferring with Navy. We had a Senior Chief in my Squadron that worked on the department, part time, the name eludes me.

 

Winner of this thread!

 

Hey, While we're busy discussing weird stuff... I was working out of town and needed something at the local car parts store... It might have been a NAPA or maybe a different store. Oh somebody walked off with my gas cap.... Well walking from the parking lot to the front door I passed a tower. It had a chunk of RG-8 dangling down from a Business band antenna at the top but that wasn't the original antenna. This was before my cell phone had a camera and I wasn't carrying a camera. I looked down first and then looked up.... up about a 120-140 foot tower... The car parts store used the thing for delivery trucks. It was painted red/white and the BASE was an Insulated base... A self supporting tower. It was very old. Three legs and a CENTER insulator setup pushing the tower down into the three outer insulators.

I remember when we put the 160m tower up at the farm it was 130' tall and we had resonated it as a 5/8 wave for giggles to see where it went.... and it just happened to TUNE at very near 2.7 MHZ.... Working in different but select major towns each one of those car parts stores had one of those towers. Nobody inside the stores knew what the towers were used for before the NAPA moved into the buildings... But they knew that was their dispatch radio circa 20 years ago. The Way Old Police band back in the late 20's and in some cases into the 40's was around 2.5-2.7 MHz so I started doing internet research on that stuff. This was in the state of South Dakota, and SDHP as in State Radio went right to 40MHZ and they don't list anything for an original 2.5-7 mhz State Radio before that. Also the history of Various Cop shops in those towns don't talk much about the history of Medium Wave police radios. There is a list of the original police systems around the country that was on the internet the last time I tried to research this decades ago...

I wish I had been able to take photos of those towers their Business band guy just jumpered across the base insulators for Lightning protection. Any body else ever see something like that? I was Intrigued.

Erika DD

 

Oh I do believe I figured it out it was an Adcock Antenna for a Low Frequency Radio Range.... Circa 30's 40's It was a 4 sided, I did see photos of systems that were still erected. They had a weird concrete base ... All of these things, One tower in each town was within spitting distance of the towns' airports.

 

"C'mon man, I was listening to that!"


... down the memory hole ...

 

Well. I guess it's a good thing that there are no people over the age of 50 that are alive anymore.

 

This topic piqued my interest, so I tuned around from my home QTH near Tampa Bay to see what I could hear. Quite prominent was this signal on 1650 kHz (audio clip), which identifies as WQVF594 a FL-DOT HAR station.

Searching the FCC ULS on WQVF594 turned up an interesting fact - the license for it has been TERMINATED since 2016

Browsing for more info I found that this is known to others that explore and log such activity.

"Calls noted changed in the opening compu-male ID as WQVF594 (defunct calls once assigned to the 1630 kHz WQQJ297 FDoT, I-75 near Exit 279, near Wesley Chapel transmitter (see entry)."

Searching the FCC ULS for WQQJ297 reveals an ACTIVE license, good until 2023, with two possible locations. (Sometimes a second signal can be heard on 1650 kHz under the one ID'ing as WQVF594.)

So, this transmission I am hearing on 1650 kHz may be coming from a different HAR location, but MISIDENTIFIED by the voice loop as the old terminated call sign. Perhaps using old equipment from the former spot?

In a new era where the FCC shall collect application fee's for Part 97 ARS licenses, a reasonable expectation would be that government and commercial licenses are first administered and enforced diligently.

These are FCC Part 90 TIS / HAR licenses, which usually carry a several hundred dollar fee, EACH. Hopefully, across the USA, are they all administratively up-to-date (fee's collected) and being used properly.

 

Actually, you're all off the track here. This is likely a licensed TIS (Traveler's Information Station). There are a number of these licensed to operate between 1600 and 1700 kHz, mostly at 1610, if memory serves and a 530 kHz

FCC link here: https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/travelers-information-stations-search

Although I do like the reference to the film "On The Beach" with the dangling curtain cord flicking the key

 

WW2BSA- The first "Fletch" is my favorite movie.. 73