Deerfield Abandoned Transmitter Site

[K4MIC-Mike Turner]

Good morning fellow Hams. I have a question for my Augusta County neighbors. Yesterday I was on a motorcycle ride and I went down through Deerfield toward Bath County. Just south of Deerfield on the left I came upon an old abandoned AM broadcast transmitter site. The driveway going into it had a road sign, and it was named "Radio Park Lane". I can't seem to find any mention online of any radio stations that were ever licensed to Deerfield. Anyone know the callsign and history behind this?

Thanks,
Mike
K4MIC

[K4MIC-Mike Turner]

Actually it was on the right, not the left. 🙄

Mike
K4MIC

[Colin Hester]

Hey Mike, contact Jeff W4PJW. He has operated from that location for 160m contests before. He'll give you the scoop on that site.

Colin
N4zfq

Sent from my iPhone

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[Hartz Roofing, LLC]

Mike,

Let us know what you learn about it.

Thanks,

Jon
KD4OCN

[Jeff Rinehart]

I know a little bit on this subject.

The current Churchville AM radio station has it's roots in that station.  I don't remember any of the callsigns from back then however.

Many years ago, I was part of a 3 ham team who rented the antenna and studio ($50) for the weekend of a 160M CW contest.  The group included Joe W4XD, Dave AB4RI and W4PJW.  I remember that Joe and Dave put a tuner at the base of the antenna and another tuner where the radio's were.  We used Joe's Swan radio with separate transmitter/receiver. 

We took 1st place in the contest 4th call district using that antenna.  This was many years ago when 160M CW competition was not nearly so tough.  We were right up with the times though, using contesting software called CT written by K1EA.

I have my copy of the certificate here somewhere but I can't lay my hands on it right now.  I was just new to CW contest operating at the time and primarily just provided "moral" support to the two "real" cw ops.

I used to know the name of the owner (probably deceased by now) and I think his family still live on or near the antenna property.

Jeff

Jeffrey M. Rinehart W4PJW
e-mail: W4...@arrl.net
540 294-0976 (Jeff cell)

---

From: K4MIC-Mike Turner <k4...@comcast.net>
To: Valley Hams <valle...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2016 7:54 AM

Subject: [Valley Hams] Deerfield Abandoned Transmitter Site

[Ellsworth Neff]

Hello Mike,

The AM transmitting tower in Deerfield, Va. belonged to WABH-AM back in the 1960s and 1970s on 1150 KHz. at 1 kilowatt daytime. The owner's name was Ralph Hamilton who lived across the road from the station. I was a weekend announcer for him and performed his engineering duties as the engineer had to be licensed by the FCC with a then 1st-class Radiotelephone License which I still have, except it's now a General Radio Telephone License.

Ralph Hamilton did not look to me like a radio station owner as he was portly and always wore bib overalls. He was very good to work for. I was working (2- 21 hour days a week) full time as an engineer for WSVA-TV now WHSV-TV located on Big Mtn. near New Market, Va. where the Big Mtn. (146.625) repeater is now located. I operated 2-meter FM from there while on duty at the WSVA-TV site before the repeater was installed in the early 1970s. WSVA-TV was a sister station to WSVA-AM and WSVA-FM and was owned then by Gilmore Broadcasting. The daytime licensed station had to sign off at night but Ralph held dance parties in the complex by the tower on Saturday nights. It became the Deerfield Community Center. Ralph fell into ill health and sold the stations in the 1970s to my WSVA boss, Vince O'Connell and his then partner, Bob Dean. Bob Dean later owned WHBG-AM that was located behind Belle Meade in southern Harrisonburg. The tower was located along I-81.

I assisted Vince O'Connell and Buddy Lowe, K4AVW, when the transmitter was moved to the present WNLR-AM transmitter site along Rte. 250 east of Churchville, Va. The studios were in Churchville proper.

Vince and Bob later sold the station and I assisted in moving the studios to the transmitter site at the present WNLR transmitter site on Rte. 250.

Vince O'Connell later died of a heart attack on Elliotts Knob where the 147.045 repeater is. I was with him along with another engineer. I am a CPR instructor and we performed CPR on Vince to no avail. He was in his 40's and was younger than I.

There are many other stories. I hope that this helps.

73,
Ellsworth
K4LXG



Sent from my iPad

[Ellsworth Neff]

Sorry, but I have no idea how the duplication happened. ?? I had not intended for it to happen.

Ells

Sent from my iPad

> On Jul 10, 2016, at 9:46 AM, Ellsworth Neff <cenk...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Hello Mike,
>
> The AM transmitting tower in Deerfield, Va. belonged to WABH-AM back in the 1960s and 1970s on 1150 KHz. at 1 kilowatt daytime. The owner's name was Ralph Hamilton who lived across the road from the station. I was a weekend announcer for him and performed his engineering duties as the engineer had to be licensed by the FCC with a then 1st-class Radiotelephone License which I still have, except it's now a General Radio Telephone License.
>
> Ralph Hamilton did not look to me like a radio station owner as he was portly and always wore bib overalls. He was very good to work for. I was working (2- 21 hour days a week) full time as an engineer for WSVA-TV now WHSV-TV located on Big Mtn. near New Market, Va. where the Big Mtn. (146.625) repeater is now located. I operated 2-meter FM from there while on duty at the WSVA-TV site before the repeater was installed in the early 1970s. WSVA-TV was a sister station to WSVA-AM and WSVA-FM and was owned then by Gilmore Broadcasting. The daytime licensed station had to sign off at night but Ralph held dance parties in the complex by the tower on Saturday nights. It became the Deerfield Community Center. Ralph fell into ill health and sold the stations in the 1970s to my WSVA boss, Vince O'Connell and his then partner, Bob Dean. Bob Dean later owned WHBG-AM that was located behind Belle Meade in southern Harrisonburg. The tower was located along I-81.
>
> I assisted Vince O'Connell and Buddy Lowe, K4AVW, when the transmitter was moved to the present WNLR-AM transmitter site along Rte. 250 east of Churchville, Va. The studios were in Churchville proper.
>
> Vince and Bob later sold the station and I assisted in moving the studios to the transmitter site at the present WNLR transmitter site on Rte. 250.
>

> Vince O'Connell later died of a heart attack on Elliotts Knob where the 147..045 repeater is. I was with him along with another engineer. I am a CPR instructor and we performed CPR on Vince to no avail. He was in his 40's and was younger than I.

[Wayne Bowyer]

I'll add my little bit of experience since the WNLR tower in Churchville was referenced by Ellsworth. I started in the tower business in the very early 90's. The following happened just before I started work with the tower company. They were performing an annual maintenance on the WNLR tower consisting of plumbing the tower and retensioning the guy wires. At that time the tower was 320' tall and had I believe 6 guy levels. One man climbed and did a visual inspection while the rest of the crew worked in unison to properly check each guy level for proper guy wire tension and make adjustments to ensure the tower was plumb from bottom to top. Our goal was typically +/- .25-.5" from top to bottom. While they were pulling the tensions up on the last level (and one man just finishing inspecting the top) there was a sudden shudder felt in the guy wires as well as by the man on top. All work quickly came to a stop. It was discovered that the lower 3-4" of each leg had collapsed due to rust within the leg itself. The tower was well protected with paint but the "weep" holes in the bottom of each leg had been painted over not allowing condensation/water to drain out. The legs basically collapsed within each other and dropped several inches. It was nothing short of God's hand of protection that prevented that tower from collapsing. The fella on top quickly and gently climbed down 320' to the ground. Plans were then put in place to replace the tower. The station had fund raisers to purchase a new tower. In the meantime new anchors were dug and plans made to cut the tower down and erect a new one. The job of cutting down and raising a new tower became my very first job as a supervisor. The tower design and corresponding antenna system changed somewhat. The new tower was shortened to 280' and a folded unipole was installed. I spent one very long week dropping, cutting up and removing the old tower (some of it is still around the valley as I salvaged maybe 100' of it.) The rest didn't survive the fall very well. We then proceeded to erect the new 45G. Lifted maybe 140' with a crane and then gin poled the next 140.  At any rate by the end of that week and into Saturday.........very, very long day and well into early Sunday morning the new system went on the air in time for Sunday morning broadcast services. Every time I drive past that tower my mind goes back to that week and all the fun I had.  Lots of great memories!

73's

Wayne

n4eyz

Nu

[K4MIC-Mike Turner]

Wow Elsworth! Thanks for that info! Greatly appreciated. And to Jeff, that was exactly what I was thinking when I drove by it, great spot to work 160 from. Maybe some local hams should get together and do that again. And to Wayne, I can imagine the fellow at the top made his way down the quickest and most gentle anyone has ever climbed down a tower.

Thanks again to you all for the responses.

Mike
K4MIC

[Bob McCracken]

That is an AWESOME Story Wayne.. thanks for remembering and sharing the history.

N4JGO

Bob

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From: Wayne Bowyer <wayne....@gmail.com>
To: Ellsworth Neff <cenk...@comcast.net>
Cc: K4MIC-Mike Turner <k4...@comcast.net>; Valley Hams <valle...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2016 8:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Valley Hams] Deerfield Abandoned Transmitter Site