Re: WMEX/WITS/WMRE

[dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net]

The reason for moving the 1510 TX to Waltham was to 
increase the night power from 5 kW to 50 kW. Nighttime 
coverage from the old Squantum site was always awful in 
most of the market.(Both first adjacents, WTOP and 
WKBW/WWKB, are very strong in this area.) In addition, 
when CJRS was built, it added co-channel interference.

Then the State St South office complex was constructed 
just to the west of the Squantum site. It absolutly 
killed the nighttime signal in most of the market. The 
signal was so bad that, for a year or two, WDLW 1330 
simulcast the Red Sox night games because you couldn't 
hear WITS in the western suburbs at night. (Areas that 
still got a good night signal included Quincy, Milton, 
Dorchester, Mattapan, Everett, Chelsea, Revere, Peabody, 
and Danvers--places that were either very close or had a 
clear salt-water path.)

With the signal constrained to the southwest by WLAC and 
WNLC and to the north by CJRS, the site _had_ to be 
northwest of Boston. And with the then-existing 
requirement of a 25 MV/m signal in the main business 
district of the COL, the site could not be more than 
about 9 miles from the main Post Office in Boston. That 
just about pegged the location to the site that was 
found, the 411 Waverley Oaks Rd Industrial Park on the 
Belmont-Waltham line. The site had several things going 
for it: it was zoned appropriately and the owners were 
willing to have the radio station on their land. Also, 
somewhat surprisingly, because the year was 1980, there 
were no environmental protest that I know of.

The site is almost legendary for its unsuitability. It's 
sourrounded by homes and businesses really close in, 
resulting in exhorbitant costs for remediating 
interference within the 1 V/m contour. And the soil 
conductivity is abysmal--especially when contrasted with 
the salt water path to the north shore and parts of 
Boston from the old site. Moreover, the land is leased 
(at $15,000 per month) significantly raising the 
station's break-even point. (The station owned the old 
site outright.)

Moreover, as soon as the 1510 TX went on the air, the 
owners of the site began constructing a large three-
story office building RIGHT ON a portion of the ground 
system. Although the building's steel framework must be 
bonded to the ground system, the building did a pretty 
good number on the coverage to the north and west. Even 
though WITS put in 190+-degree towers to increase the 
antenna efficiency (compared with the shorter towers at 
the old site), and even though, from the old site, a 
_lot_ of the day pattern was wasted over open water, the 
daytime coverage suffered big time.

Nevertheless, coverage of the Boston proper and a lot of 
close-in suburbs is just fine day and night. And there 
can be no denying that, in much of the market, the 50-kW 
nighttime signal is a huge improvement over the old 5-kW 
night signal. Still, I wonder whether any of the 
incarnations of 1510 has made a dime in the last 20 
years.

> On the subject of the 1510
> frequency, can anyone fill me in on the reason for moving the transmitting
> site from Quincy to Waltham.

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