Looking back...

Saturday's post gave a glimpse of the repair work in process at WSYR-AM's transmitter site, particularly at the south tower, where the foundations are being replaced. The original two towers date back to the 1930s, before Onondaga Creek was straightened; the south tower came later. I've been looking at old maps to see where the creek originally ran, but the precision for terrain features was rather low in 1860. As it turns out, you can see some of the course of the original creek bed in current aerial photos, more than fifty years after the work was done.

This is a clip from Microsoft's Live Local imagery, looking south. You can see where the Army Corps of Engineers filled in the old creek — it's the browned grass that swings out next to the south tower. No wonder they have had problems with the ground settling! I am supposing that the brownoff is the result of salt that has leached up from the original bed -- the creek carries an enormous amount of brine and mud from the Tully salt deposits.

In the course of looking for information, I ran across this: someone's unofficial history of WSYR, containing all sorts of photos, which I wish had more information! There's the transmitter site on Valley Drive, and I'm placing the date in the 1930s. The photographer must have used a red filter on the lens to get such sky contrast! Notice the call letters on either side of the door: WSYU, and W8XHW.

And a view from inside the building:

That's the transmitter to the right: it's an RCA BTA-1C, good for 1,000 watts. That model was current up to the late 1930s, which is how I fixed the date. The "old" transmitter I remember was a 5,000 watt BTA-5D, and was built into the wall to the left, if I have my bearings straight — that must have been installed in the 1940s. I don't know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if the increase in power was accompanied by the third tower, to direct the signal away from New York City and Youngstown Ohio, which also had stations on 570 kHz.

It's funny about perspective: what I think of as the "new" transmitter was a late 50s or early 60s vintage BTA-5T like the picture below. But that's been gone for a number of years.

Things certainly change.