Re: WBUR signal

["David W. Harris" <dwh@totalnetnh.net>]

Laurence from Methuen wrote:
"I haven't been in the vicinity of New Bedford-Fall River since the
summer, and I know WSMU was still on 91.1 then."

And it's still there, as of my visit Sunday to my mother's house in the
Fall River area (the Pottersville section of Somerset if you desire more
precision).  For many years WSMU has made it hard for me to get my daily
dose of All Things Considered when visiting Mom as WGBH-FM does not
carry the show on weekends and my trusty traveling radio (Sangean ATS
818CS/Radio Shack DX-392) can get a readable signal from WBUR-FM only on
the top floor with the antenna "just so" to avoid interference from
WSMU.  WRNI  is a big help in delivering ATC et al. to the Land of Mom.
The nighttime signal on 1290 is subject to interference but is still
easier to listen to there than WBUR-FM.

On 12/11 in NERW, Scott Fybush wrote:
"...WERI will become WXNI, a 24-hour relay of WRNI (1290 Providence),
which is itself a relay of WBUR-FM (90.9 Boston) with some Rhode Island
news inserts in drive time."

Although my lifetime total Time Spent Listening to WRNI is less than 12
hours, I don't believe it is accurate to characterize it as a relay of
WBUR-FM.  The signals come from the same building and the program
schedules look alike, but throughout the day WRNI has its own local
breaks, its own announcers, its own promos, its own
adver...oops...underwriters.  Although the breaks are probably
voicetracked at times (as it sounded on Thanksgiving Day) they are live
(or darned close to it) in most dayparts.  This past Sunday afternoon
WRNI listeners could hear time, Providence temperature, and Patriots
score updates during cutaways in programs like Living on Earth.  The
announcer was not the same as on WBUR-FM.  'RNI's breaks don't exactly
parallel those on 'BUR;  I imagine that because WRNI has far, far fewer
underwriters than WBUR, the Rhode Island station doesn't have to squeeze
announcements into every possible cutaway opportunity and thus can allow
the network feeds to run without interruption more often.

In the normal course of events, WBUR-FM listeners will hear no reference
to WRNI; WRNI listeners will hear reference to WBUR only when it's part
of network programming, e.g., when Chris Lydon says "From WBUR Boston
this is The Connection."  There are exceptions to this.  Apparently
something wasn't quite right this past Sunday night:  there were some
unadvertised program substitutions and the announcer who was on 1290
during the afternoon was now on WBUR-FM (and WBUR and WSDH and WKKL and
WCCT) in addition to WRNI.  I did not have a tape rolling but I'm pretty
darned sure I heard the following joint ID at 9 pm: "From Boston
University this is 90-point-9 WBUR-FM Boston, 12-40 WBUR-AM West
Yarmouth, and **12-30** WRNI Providence, also broadcasting on WSDH...."
Somebody must be anticipating the addition of WERI's frequency.

I also heard WRNI relay WBUR-FM for an awkward minute during ATC on
Thanksgiving.  Apparently somebody forgot to reprogram things for the
holiday so WRNI would carry the full network newscasts at the top and
bottom of the hour rather than cutaway for local news.  Where the WRNI
newscast normally would have been there was dead air.  I heard this
happen three times that afternoon.  After a minute or two the network
newscast was rejoined in mid-syllable except one time when the silence
on WRNI gave way to a Boston traffic report and some WBUR underwriter
announcements before switching back to the end of the network newscast.

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End of boston-radio-interest-digest V2 #265
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