The WTOP-TV Tower is located in northwestern DC at Mount Reno, near the official high point for the District of Columbia. It is also NGS Benchmark HV4186 WASHINGTON TV STA WTOP TOWER: (
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"HV4186 DESIGNATION - WASHINGTON TV STA WTOP TOWER
HV4186 PID - HV4186
HV4186 STATE/COUNTY- DC/DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
HV4186 USGS QUAD - WASHINGTON WEST (1983)
HV4186
HV4186 *CURRENT SURVEY CONTROL
HV4186 ___________________________________________________________________
HV4186* NAD 83(1993)- 38 57 00.08061(N) 077 04 45.66596(W) ADJUSTED
HV4186
HV4186_MARKER: 43 = RADIO/TV TOWER
HV4186
HV4186 HISTORY - Date Condition Recov. By
HV4186 HISTORY - 1956 FIRST OBSERVED CGS
HV4186 HISTORY - 1969 GOOD CGS
HV4186 HISTORY - 19950601 GOOD USPSQD
HV4186
HV4186 STATION DESCRIPTION
HV4186
HV4186''DESCRIBED BY COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY 1956 (MLC)
HV4186''THE POINT LOCATED WAS THE TOP CENTER OF THE TOWER WHICH IS
HV4186''373 FT. ABOVE THE GROUND.
HV4186''
HV4186''THE STATION IS LOCATED AT FORTY-FIRST STREET, AT BRANDYWINE,
HV4186''NEAR THE NW BOUNDARY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
HV4186''
HV4186''THIS IS AN INTERSECTION STATION.
HV4186
HV4186 STATION RECOVERY (1969)
HV4186
HV4186''RECOVERY NOTE BY COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY 1969 (JBJ)
HV4186''THE STATION IS THE CENTER OF THE TOP OF THE LIGHT ON TOP OF THE
HV4186''MAST OF THE WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA TELEVISION STATION
HV4186''WTOP. THE MAST IS ON A FOUR LEGGED SELF-SUPPORTED TOWER THAT IS
HV4186''373 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND AND THE MAST IS 157 FEET ABOVE THE
HV4186''TOWER. THE STATION IS ABOUT 530 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND
HV4186''SURFACE.
HV4186''
HV4186''THE STATION IS LOCATED AT THE CORNER OF NORTH-WEST 40TH STREET
HV4186''AND NORTH-WEST BRANDYWINE STREET IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA."
From the Greg'ssandbox blog site: (
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"WTOP-TV
Channel 9, Washington D.C.
The original Broadcast House was first occupied in 1954 and is on the corner of Brandywine and 40th Streets NW, Washington DC. It was purchased by the Washington Post and known as WTOP-TV. WTOP was a CBS affiliate and transmitted on channel 9. Originally broadcasting in black and white, it was later involved in a series of tests to enable the FCC to pick a standard method for transmitting color signals. CBS chose to use a mechanical color wheel mounted in front of the TV tube. NBC chose to place different color dots on the TV tube and precisely aim the beam to hit the dots corresponding to the color being transmitted. Since you don't see a color wheel in front of your picture tube you can guess which method was chosen.
In 1978 the Washington Post swapped this station for a Detroit station and it became WDVM-TV. Gannett (USA Today) bought the station in 1986 and the station was renamed WUSA. In 1992 Broadcast House was moved to a new location. The original transmitting tower is still located on top of the original building, but for many years, WTOP-TV shared an antenna with WMAL and WTTG television.
In 1972 WTOP-TV joined with the Evening Star Broadcasting Company (owned by the Post's rival, the Washington Star and licensee of WMAL-TV channel 7, now WJLA(TV)) to build The Joint Tower, a new and much taller 1040' HAAT (height above average terrain) 3-sided tower across the alley from Broadcast House at 4010 Chesapeake Street, NW. Transmission lines were extended from Broadcast House's transmitter area to the new tower for both WTOP-TV and WHUR (FM) (the former WTOP-FM 96.3, which had been donated by Post-Newsweek to Howard University in 1971 but whose transmitter remained at Broadcast House). The old tower continued to serve as the backup antenna for channel 9 until the station sold Broadcast House in 1996.
In 1974 WTOP-TV adopted the Post-Newsweek TV stations group (WPLG, WJXT, and WFSB Hartford) image campaign slogan of the time, "The One and Only." The moniker was part of a trend toward group identification of stations, with each station being "The One and Only TV (channel #)." Staff members from the "One & Only" period usually refer to themselves as "the one and onlies" as a source of pride. The slogan was dropped from active use in the late 1990s and has not been used as part of an image campaign since the last image campaign in 1996. The slogan no longer appears on the air."
From Wikipedia: (
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"WUSA, channel 9, is a CBS-affiliated television station located in the American capital of Washington, D.C.. The station is owned by Tegna, Inc. (based in the suburb of McLean, Virginia) and effectively serves as the flagship television property of the company. WUSA's studios and transmitter are located at Broadcast House on Wisconsin Avenue in the Tenleytown neighborhood on the northwestern side of Washington DC. . . .
History
Early years
The station first went on the air on January 11, 1949 as WOIC, and began full-time operations on January 16. Nine days later, WOIC broadcast the first televised American presidential inaugural address, given by President Harry S. Truman. WOIC picked up the CBS affiliation upon signing on, replacing WMAL-TV (channel 7, now WJLA-TV) as the network's Washington outlet. . . .
In June 1950, a joint venture of CBS and the Washington Post purchased WOIC from Bamberger/Macy's for $1.4 million. The new owners, WTOP Incorporated (the Washington Post owned 55%, with CBS holding the remaining 45% stake), changed the station's call sign to WTOP-TV, after its new sister station WTOP radio (then at 1500 AM). Since WTOP took the callsign from the radio partners at the time, the callsign was a coincidence under ownership of the publisher, since they never stood for "WashingTOn Post"; they instead stood for the fact that what was then known as WTOP-AM was "at the TOP of [the city's] radio dial" (WTOP-AM has been known as WFED-AM since 2006, and is now owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, not by the Post).
In July 1950, WTOP-TV became the first television station in Washington authorized to broadcast color television in the 405-line field sequential color standard, which was incompatible with the black-and-white 525-line NTSC standard. Color broadcasts continued for nearly 30 months, when regulatory and commercial pressures forced the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to rescind its original color standard and begin the process of adopting the 525-line NTSC-3 standard, developed by RCA to be backwards compatible with the existing black-and-white televisions.
In 1954, the WTOP stations moved into a new facility, known as "Broadcast House", at 40th and Brandywine streets NW in Washington. The building was the first in the country designed as a unified radio and television facility. Its name was in honor of Broadcasting House, home of the BBC in London. The building was well known to WTOP's president, since he had spent much of World War II assigned to the BBC. Previous to the move to Broadcast House, the radio stations operated out of the Earle Building (now the Warner Building, home of the Warner Theatre), and WTOP-TV had operated out of the small WOIC studios at the same location. When Broadcast House was completed and the new television studios were inaugurated, the old studio became the garage for Broadcast House and the old master control room became both the master control and transmitter room for channel 9, since Broadcast House had been built around the station's original, four-sided tower. The building with the tower remains in the middle at the same location, although it is now an office building and retail store front.
The WTOP-TV tower was known in Washington for two things. First, at Christmas time, the tower was strung with Christmas lights and glowed brightly on top of Mount Reno, the tallest point in the District of Columbia. Second, the tower tended to sway much more than three-sided towers. In a strong wind, the tower could be seen swaying back-and-forth, and during the winter ice from the tower fell quite often on the streets below.
In October 1954, . . .CBS opted to sell its share of WTOP, which it had purchased in whole in 1932 before selling controlling interest to the Post in 1949.
After the sale closed, the Post merged the WTOP stations with its other broadcast property, WMBR-AM-TV in Jacksonville, Florida and changed the name of the licensee from "WTOP Inc." to "Post Stations, Inc." . . . In 1972, WTOP-TV joined with the Evening Star Broadcasting Company (owned by the Post's rival, the now-defunct Washington Star and licensee of WMAL-TV) to build the Joint Tower, a 1,040-foot (320 m), three-sided tower across the alley from Broadcast House at 4010 Chesapeake Street NW. Transmission lines were extended from Broadcast House's transmitter area to the new tower for both WTOP-TV and WHUR-FM (the former WTOP-FM, which had been donated by Post-Newsweek to Howard University in 1971). The old tower continued to serve as the backup antenna for channel 9 until the station sold Broadcast House in 1996 . . . ."