| Brownie was WTEV's Transmitter Supervisor for many years, first at the original "Little Compton" site, and later at the Tiverton site. |
| Stories We Heard |
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from Dave Schutz, July 9, 2010 During the summer of 1970, I worked one-day a week babysitting the Tiverton transmitter, which is how I got to know Brownie. (Until 1975, all VHF TV transmitters in the USA had to have an FCC First Class license holder present at the transmitter site, remote control operation wasn't permitted). In 1970, WTEV had two GE transmitters, which were used in an "Alternate Main" configuration. The older transmitter, a TT-42, was WTEV's first transmitter, and was physically far larger than its newer (1967) TT-530. This resulted from the fact that the TT-42 was water cooled, and had a heck of a lot of copper plumbing associated with its "deionized" water cooling system. Some of the 42's amplifier cabinets were so large, you could walk into them. Brownie claimed that this transmitter was haunted, owing to its alleged propensity to mysteriously become energized while its doors were open for maintenance. With this in mind, I was always extremely careful when I was working around that unit. Brownie had quite a few stories regarding mysterious things that allegedly happened at the remote Tiverton transmitter site, many during summer thunder storms. Brownie's wife, Claire, worked part-time at WTEV as the weekend receptionist. |
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from Jack Crook, Aug 26, 2015
The first transmitter was on Narrow Ave in Westport, not in Little Compton. I'm just your normal ham radio geek (N1OHS), no connection to WTEV, nor WLNE. But I do have some of the little tool kits with WTEV stamped into them, that they used to sent out back in the 70's. |
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from Frank Clynes, Nov 23, 2015
It was my recollection both transmitters and towers were built on the same piece of property in Tiverton. The new one was 1,000 feet tall and a million watts. I think the old one was 800' and 800 watts. |
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from Les Brown, Dec 1, 2020
The original proposed site for the WTEV transmitter was on Martha's Vineyard Island. The purpose of that was to avoid The FCC's "short spacing" regulations which involved other stations, both Channel 6, in Portland, ME and Schenectady, NY. That plan came to naught and another site was chosen and purchased. It was in Freetown, a section of land now defined by Bullock Road, Winslow Way, Pierce Way, connected at the rear by Otta Way. Note "Ottaway" was the name of the newspaper chain that owned The New Bedford Standard-Times at that point. It was the highest point between the coast and Worcester. I became aware of this after I had bought a parcel and built a house where the tower (never built) was to have been located. I came across the information reviewing a stack of old maps stored in a desk in the engineering shop at the New Bedford studio site. The first transmitter site actually built was very close to the Massachusetts/Rhode Island line not far off Crandall Road. I've heard it described as being in Westport or Little Compton but haven't been able to positively identify the parcel. The original transmitter located there was the GE TT-42 described (above.) The tower was relatively short having to do with the FCC short spacing rules. There was a lot of work done toward relocating to Rehoboth, MA (near the WJAR-TV tower) but that couldn't be arranged to satisfy FCC requirements and the plan was dropped in favor of the Rattlesnake Hill site in Tiverton where the 1,000 foot Dresser/Ideco tower was built. The site was equipped with the new General Electric TT-530 transmitter and the older TT-42 was later moved from the original site shortly thereafter. The original site was sold to a railroad company that was branching out into "vertical real estate" - buying up towers for various communications purposes including the just-starting cell phone business. (I believe the tower was removed after deteriorating sometime before 2000.) Just before the sale, Maurice Wynne, chief engineer at the time, offered any engineer who wanted it for free: the contents of a good sized diesel oil tank from the site. It had to be removed before the sale. As I recall, there were no takers as the cost of having the fuel removed and hauled away was greater than the value of the fuel itself. |
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