Radio antennas rise above the WNPV Radio complex on Snyder Road in Towamencin in March 2020, the month the station announced plans to go off the air that April. Photo by Dan Sokil | The Reporter.
Four of five radio towers to be removed, likely in June
Part of the skyline near North Penn High School could change within weeks.
School board members voted last week to award bids for the removal of four of the five radio towers at the former WNPV Radio site adjacent to the school.
“We’re using that field area there as a lay-down area for construction, for the duration,” said district Director of Facilities and Operations Bill Slawter.
“In doing so, we’re removing four of the five towers that are not in use, and leaving one tower to continue operations,” he said.
WNPV Radio, a local news station found on the dial at 1440 AM and 98.5 FM, covered local news from the site from October 1960 until April 2020, when the station went off-air for the final time citing the poor economy and reduced support from local businesses. That summer, the district bought the 13-acre property that contained five 165-foot-tall radio antennae, one cell tower, and a brick building that contained WNPV’s studios for $2.3 million and said they had plans to integrate it into the high school campus as major renovations were planned. District officials initially said the site could be used as the location for a district healthcare center, before that facility opened at Penndale Middle School in Lansdale in 2023, and the radio callsign went back on the air in 2022 as a student-run station broadcasting from inside the high school.
Aerial photo showing the former WNPV Radio antennas and cell tower adjacent to North Penn High School. (Image courtesy of North Penn School District)Since that sale, the WNPV parcel has been included in several versions of the renovation plans for the nearby school and campus, and district officials have said the site will likely be converted into athletic fields to minimize the impact on surrounding neighbors.
“At some point, we will replace that tower with a self-supporting tower, that does not have guide wires, in order to facilitate the rest of the renovations to take place there,” Slawter said.
Superintendent Todd Bauer said cell coverage of the high school shouldn’t be affected.
“If you see that site, there are those five skinny little towers. There is also a cellphone tower: the cellphone tower is remaining; the four of the five thinner towers are the ones coming down,” he said.
District Coordinator of Communications Media Bob Gillmer, who heads the high school’s NPTV channel and all communication efforts, Gillmer said that the towers will likely come down in early June, and “NPTV will be on the scene” as it happens.
North Penn’s facilities and operations committee next meets at 7 p.m. on April 28 and the full school board next meets at 7 p.m. on May 6; visit www.NPenn.org for more information.
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