markow202 wrote:

....    But, why remove these parts if the tower will just come down anyways?

  

The components being removed still have value...  Corus probably wants the FM antennas.  CHCH has some other UHF sites where the SC antenna might be of use...  or maybe YES TV would want it ?  might be a spare assembly?

The Rigid transmission line is also of value, even on the scrap market.  LED strobes could also be re-used or sold as used.   $$$

When the tower drops... it will be scrapped...  again, lots of value on the scrap market.



 

Will the tower be imploded or dismantled? There are houses surrounding the area so I assumed implosion would be out of the question, unless I'm wrong....?
 

Just an FYI, the round LED strobe light sitting above the old RCA VHF Hi antenna radome was turned off yesterday. All the others remain on at this time. 

Last edited by CN_Brendan (November 16, 2023 1:25 pm)

An update from today. The gin pole is now in proper position for removal too get started. The upper portion of the “slick stick” which contained the old CHCH TV Radome Antenna was removed. Also, the upper portion of strobe lights were turned off this afternoon and remain off this evening while in full darkness. Only one set of the lowest section of lights is operational as of now.

Last edited by CN_Brendan (November 18, 2023 6:39 pm)

These last pictures are of the original "tower" built in 1954. The tower just dismantled was built in 1960 when CHCH disafilliated from CBC to become independent.
The 1954 installation is based on a unique Canadian design, the Wavestack,  by RCA in Montreal.  The "tower" was actually steel pipe, which had a paddle probe at the bottom to excite it as a waveguide.  At the top, the cylinder had resonant slots cut into it to give skull-shaped pattern.   
When colour TV arrived, the bandwidth of the cylindrical waveguide was inadequate at the higher frequencies where the colour subcarrier information existed, so coaxial cable was retrofitted to the outside of the cylinder, and connected to the slotted antenna at the top.
RCA made these antennas for the entire VHF band.  The Channel 4 version (Sydney, Nova Scotia) was about three feet in diameter.
The Wavestack Antenna – The History of Canadian Broadcasting (broadcasting-history.ca)
 

markow202 wrote:

Great info - I also remember the RCA Turnstile antennas "batwings" used for low band VHF - CKVR used one.

So did the now-dark CJOH (CTV Ottawa) rebroadcaster on channel 6 near Deseronto... got some clear photos of the antenna years ago when I was doing some transmitter work for Napanee's CKYM-FM 88.7, which is on the same tower.

CN_Brendan wrote:

An update from today. The gin pole is now in proper position for removal too get started. The upper portion of the “slick stick” which contained the old CHCH TV Radome Antenna was removed. Also, the upper portion of strobe lights were turned off this afternoon and remain off this evening while in full darkness. Only one set of the lowest section of lights is operational as of now.

What are the devices (antennas?) attached to the side of the tower just below the radome antenna?

Something that looks similar to this is installed at the side of the CHCH tower near Alvinston On. 

Glen Warren wrote:

This is the SIRA UHF TV Antenna system that was on the one of the near top faces of the tower (iirc it was on the north face, just below the top mount of the tower). The frequency range of the antenna was sufficient for CITS when originally on RF 36, and also for CHCH when they moved to RF 15 for digital in 2012.

After the ATSC 3.0 re-pack, CITS was re-assigned to UHF 14. The antenna was able to handle UHF 14. T
In both situations, CITS and CHCH used mask filters for their signals, and were on a combiner. CITS also had to purchase a specialized filter to avoid causing potential interference into wireless/cell spectrum at the lower end of RF 14 ( Thanks to Mr. In Phase for explaining this filter requirement to me...) A recently retired engineer from CITS used to joke that it was "their North Korean missile launcher" 

The side mount of the antenna was required due to CITS originally being on air as RF 36 UHF, while CHCH was still on RF 11 VHF.  Later when Toronto 1 launched, their Hamilton re-transmitter was on RF 15 UHF, and Craig / Toronto 1 were able to combine their signal and use the CITS antenna.

After the demise of Toronto 1 and Sun TV, CHCH was able to obtain the RF 15 UHF assignment, and use it for their digital transition.

Both CHCH and CITS maintained their same RF assignments and power levels for the move to the new tower in Flamborough. CHCH chose to purchase the same model/series of the SIRA UHF antenna, largely because they had experience with it and performance would be predictable, The new SIRA UHF at Flamborough is Top Mounted, instead of Side Mounted like it was at Stoney Creek.

CHCH Alvinston re-transmitter also use a SIRA UHF panel type antenna. Again, due to the ATSC 3.0 repack, CHCH-DT2 was re-assigned to RF 14 UHF. The original RF 51 UHF antennae at Alvinston would not function at the lower UHF frequency. The Alvinston SIRA is side mounted. While the original CH 51 top mount antennae is still in place at Alvinston, the interior elements were removed once the new SIRA went into service.(July 2000)



 

Great info.  Any reason they didnt remove the analog antenna on the old CHCH tower at the time of digital switch and top mount the SIRA?
 

CN_Brendan wrote:

I believe the entire tower was demolished early this morning.

Indeed it has. There's a video on the former employees' FB page which will probably be posted on CHCH.com later today.

After the fall...

url for

The before:







And here is the fall of the remaining 600 feet:


 

Last edited by Ida Spencer (March 13, 2024 9:36 pm)

The FCCdata.org still shows the original transmitter location for 95.3 FM. Is there a way to contact them to update the transmitter location?

https://fccdata.org/?lang=en&canfm=CING-FM

CN_Brendan wrote:

Thanks for those pictures Glen. Would you or anyone else have pictures of the old tower that was sitting beside the tower just demolished? It was a short tower I remember seeing as a kid. I believe it was removed sometime in the late 1990's? Secondly, what was its purpose? 

Second question first. It was the aforementioned wavestack antenna, the station's original tower. When TV started in Canada, there was a rule that B contours couldn't overlap, which ruled out an omni antenna in the early years. Of course Toronto was where the money was so they had to find a way to work within those rules. And most of Toronto got enough of a signal to make it a two-station market. I have a reception report from 1957 or so comparing CH reception to VR, WGR, WBEN and WBUF. (WKBW-TV didn't exist yet.) But it wasn't until the big tower went up that they were able to send a full-power signal in all directions, thanks to the BBG (which succeeded the CBC as regulator in the Diefenbaker era.)

There was a fourth smaller tower on the CHCH Stoney Creek site.

It was a shorter microwave tower with one dish/element. The tower was approximately 40 feet, and stood immediately on the front N/E side of the transmitter building. (The larger Bell Microwave H frame was slightly / further north of the building. The two micro towers were separated by the driveway curving around on the north side).

My understanding is that this smaller tower was used for relay of the CKDS signal when it launched in '66 (?) although I am not totally certain on this fact. Like CHCH, CKDS could not get a clear shot (LOS) to the Stoney Creek tower from the Main St. E / Springer Ave. studio location, so CKDS probably had to use another point for micro transmit feed (perhaps from a Bell CO rooftop that was not in the shadow of the escarpment).



The picture above is from the late 60s or early 70s.  The small Microwave tower will be visible on the right of frame.   The picture also shows the Wavestack, and the newer main tower in the background.

The main tower was built and supplied by Dominion Bridge which was a major manufacturer of large steel transmission structures. DB built many of the CNCP Microwave network towers (both guyed, and self supporting).  Dominion Bridge was a competitor to LeBlanc and Royal of Oakville.



 

A detailed CHCH-TV history is in this link. Hamilton, St. Catharines, and Brantford were in the original coverage area. 

https://broadcasting-history.ca/television/television-stations/ontario/toronto-and-vicinity/chch-dt/

The Maclean Hunter system in Sarnia tried to pick them up with an antenna in the 1980's. The reception was useless. About a year before The Weather Network was about to begin, a microwave relay cleared CHCH-TV up.

Here are some shots of the recently dismantled Wavestack antenna from the former CHCH Stoney Creek site (lovely 3 bedroom, 1 bath designs coming soon!)

The photos are in the approximate location as the original sections were when the original construction was occurring in 1954.

The closeup views show the interior waveguide / paddle, and on the upper section shots show the radiating slots for the signal to emit from. The lower sections of the wavestack were simply for structure/height. There would be no point in radiating the signal at or near to ground level. The "magic" of the antenna design occurred towards the upper height of the wavestack. 

In on of the photos, the connection point for the rigid RF Transmission line is visible. The rigid feed line was secured to the exterior of the stack, and was then connected using an right angle connector.

Yes, Skywave is correct. The original height of the Wavestack was 565 feet. I was told that after it was retired from TV use, it was partially lowered to approximately 400 feet in height. I cannot confirm if this actually true or not.  I do know that the structure was left to be the standby antenna for CKDS FM. The exterior of the stack had FM antenna elements secured on the upper sections of the original structure.

From the same RCA advertisement, it mentions that the transmitter was 10 Kw, and there was an ERP of either 30 Kw or 50 Kw.

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