WJJY TV Mast

The WJJY-TV Mast was a 1,610-foot (491 m) guyed mast used for TV transmissions at Bluffs, Illinois, United States. It was used by Look Television Corporation for the broadcasts of WJJY-TV in Jacksonville, Illinois.

The antenna was an experimental RCA "Vee-Zee" antenna, one of only three ever built. A second, smaller unit was bought by WAND-TV in Decatur, while a third sat unused at an RCA testing facility. Since WJJY broadcast on channel 14--the lowest position on the UHF dial--the radiator elements were very large. This resulted in a 26-ton antenna, the heaviest antenna ever built for a commercial UHF station at the time. It had to be manufactured in three separate sections and shipped on three different trucks. Most UHF antennas built during this era only weighed between two and nine tons. However, this massive antenna allowed WJJY to broadcast with 4.5 million watts of effective radiated power, making it far and away the most powerful UHF station in the world at the time. The most powerful UHF stations usually transmitted at 1.5 million watts. The tower was built on the bluffs of the Illinois River, on some of the highest ground in west-central Illinois. It was one of the three tallest man-made structures in the Northern Hemisphere at the time. This, combined with the antenna's power, gave WJJY one of the largest coverage areas in the country, with a city-grade signal covering parts of Illinois, Iowa and Missouri.

Ironically, while this massive antenna was supposed to be an asset, it turned out to be a substantial liability. A few weeks before the station planned to sign on, a connecting "bullet" in a six-inch transmission line failed after two hours of full-power testing, damaging the upper section of the antenna. Sign-on was delayed for almost a month--to August 18, 1969. When the station finally signed on, the antenna was a voracious power hog. Unfortunately, Look Television was badly undercapitalized, and had not anticipated the high costs of using such incredibly high power levels. They also expected WJJY to be profitable right away--a ludicrous assumption for any television station. The station was off the air several times because Look Television didn't pay the power bill. The only thing that kept the station from going under was an understanding that the Western Illinois Power Cooperative was responsible for an unlighted 1,600-foot airplane hazard.

WJJY went off the air for good in April 1971 after Look Television was placed into receivership. The tower was later purchased by Convocom, a consortium of educational broadcasters in the area. It was intended to be used by WJPT, a PBS member station. Unfortunately, the tower collapsed during a massive ice storm on March 26, 1978. The ice on the tower was three feet thick in some places. The antenna began to lean to the left, and the strain snapped the coupling bolts connecting two sections. One section fell to the ground, snapping several guy wires. The tower folded up like an accordion and fell to the ground. The collapse exposed a serious design flaw in the tower. Although the antenna was the most massive UHF antenna ever put into service at the time, the tower had been designed for a much lighter antenna and couldn't handle the additional weight of the ice on the tower.

The collapse delayed WJPT's sign-on by almost five years. The storm also brought down WAND's tower.

ee also

* List of masts

External links

* [http://www.brainmist.com/wjjy_tv/wjjy_tv.htm Rise and Fall of WJJY-TV Channel 14] (by a former WJJY engineer)