KLOE Radio

 Good morning.

As you may have heard by now, the radio transmitting tower of KLOE AM radio in Goodland, Kansas toppled over in the windy weather we’ve had over the past week or two.  Free-standing for over 75 years on four large insulators that kept the tower isolated electrically from the ground, the tower first leaned, then after a few days fell over.

Apparently, one of the insulators failed either due to age or the stress of the wind…or both…and caused the eventual demise of the tower.  Efforts were ongoing to provide temporary support and repair, but those efforts didn’t come soon enough to mark the end of a remarkable era of radio broadcasting in the Tri-state area.  The cost of replacement of the tower would be more than it would be worth to keep the station on the air.  AM Radio isn’t what it used to be, and although KLOE Radio was still an important part of the Tri-state area, other radio stations have sprung up in the past few decades to deliver continuing local news and weather.  So, the owners have decided to silence the airwaves at 730 on the AM dial.

I am well-acquainted with that tower.  I worked at KLOE from the mid 1970’s into the early 1980’s.  As an FCC-licensed broadcast engineer, my job was to maintain and service KLOE radio, and secondarily to do the same with KLOE TV channel 10.  There were three of us engineers on staff at the time, and we were each given a primary responsibility.  Mine was the radio station.  I’ve been up close and personal with the tower, the tuning shack at it’s feet, and the transmitters that sent voice and music over the airwaves though that structure.

AM Radio is a little different than television or FM radio.  Most broadcast stations utilize a tower with a broadcast antenna at the top of the tower.  The antenna is separate from the supporting tower.

With AM Radio, the tower IS the antenna.  The entire structure is a broadcast antenna.  That’s why this tower, like all AM radio towers, is insulated from the ground by large (in this case) ceramic insulators.  The broadcast signal is fed directly to the metal of the tower.

I had other responsibilities at KLOE.  I did a stint as a DJ on KLOE AM as well as doing the weather cast on KLOE TV for awhile.  The operation was one of those small-business operations where everyone pitched in and did whatever was necessary to keep things going.  That time at KLOE was one of the most enjoyable times I’ve ever had in a work setting.  The hours were long, but the work was satisfying and enjoyable.

When I heard that the tower had fallen and that KLOE would be silenced, a kind of a melancholy feeling came over me…as if mourning the passing of something that was important to me.  And, I suppose, that feeling is entirely appropriate, because several years of my working life were taken up in that place, working with the very thing…KLOE Radio…that no longer exists, represented by the now-defunct tower that broadcast the signal of KLOE AM.

However, I also think about this.  You may not realize it, but every kind of electronic signal that is put into the Earth’s air has a small part of that signal that escapes the Earth and begins a speed-of-light travel into the universe.  My voice and my picture, coded into electromagnetic radiation,  are somewhere in our galaxy, about 45 light-years away from the Earth.

You may think that strange, but the same concept of capturing stray electromagnetic radiation is what brings to us stunning images and troves of information about the universe though our telescopes and other equipment.  It’s not at all inconceivable that, should there be some kind of signal-capturing equipment “out there” somewhere, that someone may be watching or listening to my radio show or the TV weather from Earth in 1980.

And somehow, that makes things just a bit better.

Blessings,