Usually, when a radio station “goes dark”, all the equipment is removed from the location. The building is either sold to a new business. If it’s in extremely bad condition, the site is bulldozed to make way for new construction. Sometimes, however, the facility is simply abandoned. Years later, it still exists as it was except for the inevitable vandalism and weather damage.
Here are eleven abandoned radio stations. WARNING: If you love radio as much as I do, these photos will be painful to look at. These facilities are all in terrible shape, having been left for dead several years ago.
Interesting story regarding one of the stations: the building which originally housed WGGG-AM 1230 in Gainesville, Florida was later used by Entercom’s WKTK-FM 98.5. Licensed to Crystal River, WKTK required a STL hop of over 30 miles to their transmitter at Morriston. Local ordinances prohibited the construction of towers at the height that would be required for a microwave link at that distance. However, existing towers were grandfathered and allowed to remain. This is where WGGG comes in. Entercom took the lower half of the 1230 transmitting tower and used it to support the large STL dish which pointed SSW towards Morriston. Even though it was a self-supporting tower, the old WGGG stick was guy-wired to provide reinforcement. Because if that tower were to collapse in a wind storm, it could not be rebuilt. WKTK would then have no way of getting a signal from it’s Gainesville studio to the transmitter.
This facility was used for several years with excellent results. Now, of course, modern digital technology has eliminated the need for long distance analog studio-to-transmitter links via microwave. WKTK and sister station WSKY-FM 97.3 now broadcast from a new facility on NW 43rd St. Last time I checked, the old WGGG/WKTK building and tower is still standing at 1440 NE Waldo Road. The large STL dish has been removed.