ELY— The AM side of WELY radio returned to the airwaves this week, providing the first tangible evidence of the progress being made by staff from Wisconsin-based Civic Media, as they work to bring the long silent station back to life.
As a result, Ely-area residents have been able to tune into 1450 on the AM dial since last Thursday afternoon. The station has been playing non-stop pre-recorded R&B oldies and classic rock music programming to fill the airwaves while work on the FM side progresses.
The new AM transmitter is an upgrade from the old one. Civic Media Vice President of Broadcast Operations Kory Hartman told the Timberjay, “The AM probably has been running at half power for a decade. With the new transmitter, that will be back to full power and full capacity.” The AM station is licensed to broadcast at 6 kilowatts.
The resurrected power of the new AM transmitter caught people’s attention. Ely resident Lucas Landwehr felt the spirit of the day move him in a Facebook message posted on Easter Sunday. “On this holiday, please join me in celebrating the rebirth and second coming of our beloved WELY! Yesterday, driving south, I had crystal clear reception all the way past Virginia, through Eveleth, and could still hear Jim Croce reminding me not to mess around with Jim all the way in Cotton on AM 1450. I can only imagine the capabilities of the future FM transmitter. Here’s a toast to the future of WELY!”
FM proving a bigger challenge
While the AM side of the station is now up and running, the FM side has seen a parade of woes. The FM transmitter appeared to be on its last legs in February 2024 when the previous owner, Zoe Communications, fired it up for the first time in over a year. The results weren’t good. “It was breaking down like crazy,” said Ely radio personality “Trader Craig” Loughery at the time. After testing the old FM transmitter, Zoe Communications decided to replace it. That was the last solid bit of information from Zoe before the news that Civic was buying the station a year later.
Civic tested the FM transmitter in February and had the FM station back on the air briefly before Civic’s engineers determined it needed to be replaced. The firm has a new transmitter on order, which should arrive in May according to Hartman. Civic sent the refrigerator-sized transmitter off to be “scrapped” on Thursday morning. When the new transmitter arrives, it’s going to be noticed far and wide.
“We’re not just putting the FM back on at its original power level,” Hartman said. “We’re going to be putting out about five times the power because in the interim period, while the station has been off, we were granted an upgrade of power by the FCC. So, the FM station is not just coming back at what it was — it’s coming back more powerful.”
Hartman said he hoped to have WELY-FM on the air by Memorial Day. “In the broadcast radio business, that’s the date that radio stations like to be on the air before the summer.”
The antenna tower
The FM transmitter is not the only big piece of equipment that Civic needs to repair before the FM can get on the air. “We keep finding things to fix,” Hartman said, “like damage to the antenna.”
Hartman pointed out a stack of seven “bays” — thin metal tetrahedral frames —attached at the top of the tower. “Each one of those individual bays works together as the antenna part of the FM transmit system, and you can see the main connector piece is kind of hanging; so, you can tell that it’s slid down to the tower and pushed some of the bays together.” Hartman said they weren’t sure how or when the damage occurred. “We have conflicting information on how it happened.” Regardless, those bays are what guide the radio signal to broadcast at the FM station’s assigned frequency of 94.5 MHz.
Bogs and ground waves
Fortunately for Civic, the damage at the top of the tower has little impact on the AM transmissions, since AM functions with a much simpler set-up compared to the sophisticated antenna arrangements needed for FM.
“We could hook that transmitter up to a tree and it would put out 50 kilowatts. And all the squirrels around would be like, ‘Hey, wow, do your teeth hurt?’”
AM can use a simpler tower because its lower-frequency transmission method uses a ground wave to help propagate its signal. WELY’s AM signal also gets a helping hand from its location on Beacon Hill on the south side of Ely.
The transmitter building and antenna are located inside a small bowl at the top of the hill. The bottom of the bowl is a bog; Hartman pointed out that the wet ground improves the surface conductivity for the formation of the ground wave.
Eager public
So far, public enthusiasm about the resurrection of WELY has been enormous. Trader Craig asked for help to equip WELY’s new office at 25 N. First Ave. E. and Ely residents delivered, donating desks, chairs, and other necessities, anxious for the current venture to succeed.
Hartman said he’d received many offers of help from the Ely community and even other radio professionals after hearing the Civic was getting the iconic station back on the air. “The big thing is how much support and outreach we’ve had, even since the last time we were here (in February) from the community, and from engineers in the Midwest and nationwide, plus all the equipment that’s been donated.”
For those wanting to get news on the station in their inbox, Civic has set up an email newsletter to send out updates. Sign up at https://wely.fm/.