[BC] WFIN Findlay OH loses tower

[Jerry Mathis]

I've been in touch with WFIN's Engineer. Here's what happened. Strong winds
from the NE at the time, the NE guy wire anchor broke off about 30 inches
underground. I believe there are two sets of guy wire anchors, the one that
broke was further away.

They had set new anchors in the ground last November, and were waiting on
some good weather to change the guy wires over. They'll be able to use those
for the new tower, I guess. They dropped the rest of the tower that same
day, for safety's sake. They are back on the air with a long wire and a
Gates transmitter that doesn't care what the VSWR is. And nobody was hurt in
the incident.

Scott is right, the FM antenna was not in regular use, but they did maintain
it for a backup.

JM


On 2/14/07, Scott Fybush <scott at fybush.com> wrote:
>
> In looking more closely at my photo and at Paul and Fred's aerial pics,
> I think I see 4 levels. I don't see an anchor in the middle of the FM
> array.
>
> I may have some video around that would show things more clearly; I'll
> see if I can dig that out tonight.
>
> Incidentally, those FM bays were not in active use when the tower came
> down. WKXA 100.5 has a separate, much taller tower of its own a few
> miles away, so those bays were at most an aux, and maybe not even that
> anymore.
>
> s
>
>