WOR(AM) remains on generator power.
Photo courtesy of Tom Ray
CE Tom Ray reports the studios went to back-up power when utility Con Ed “pulled the power” on lower Manhattan Monday night for safety reasons.
“All phone lines, including regular and T1 lines, went out at the studios at around 10 p.m. We also lost Internet services. We stayed on the air with our microwave STL link,” according to Ray.
However that meant the station had “no outside sources of information of any kind” so he said WOR ended local coverage at Midnight that night and picked up Channel 4 (WNBC-TV) TV audio on Tuesday. WOR has an arrangement with WNBC-TV to carry that audio if necessary.
As of yesterday, WOR is on the air through the courtesy of Clear Channel’s Avenue of the America studios. Ray says: “We have a 45,000 mile STL link with ISDN to ABC/Cumulus satellite uptown. The downlink is at the transmitter. Programming such as Mike Gallagher and Dave Ramsey is running from the transmitter site because telco facilities here are down and I have no way to export audio from the satellite receivers.”
Photo courtesy of Tom Ray
WOR local programming comes from Clear Channel studios via the sat link. WOR takes it at the Rutherford, New Jersey transmitter site for syndicated programming. The water in the field was 10 feet above normal, to the tops of the tower roads as you can see in this photo of tower #3 (above).
The power company Con Ed has now restored power to the WOR transmitter building.
Ray says the station has brought systems back online and hopes to be operating from the studios later today, however it still has no Internet access.
On a personal note, Ray lost power at his Orange County, N.Y . home as well, and has a generator running. But his 30′ ham tower still stands.
Ray checked the nearby transmitter site for YMF Media urban WLIB(AM) for CE Alex Roman yesterday, and found a pole laying in the street right in front of that building in Lyndhurst, N.J. That station has no power, according to Ray. (See photo, left)
