wandering in the North Country

[Kevin Vahey <kvahey@megsinet.net>]

Work brought me up to New Hampshire today.......(amazing how much money is
spent to protect the VICE president....

anyhow.... I was amazed, at the intersection of Elm and Hanover in downtown
Manchester, Oldies 99.1 was nowhere to be heard but WPLM was doing quite
nicely. ( actually lost WNNE at the WGIR towers)

It is also amazing, 30 years ago WHDH put a nice daytime signal into
Manchester, but now you would think they were running 10k, not WBZ ( which
by the way was doing quite nicely all day...until I got near Concord and the
1020 daytimer just killed them)...best AM signal in the Concord area
 outside of the locals belonged to the mighty 640 in Westfield, MA)

Same goes for WROR, which had a nice signal into Manchester back when it was
WKOX-FM ( ok showing my age here)...but vanished just before Manchester.
 the other Boston FM's were doing fine)

and Bob, I can report that WJIB was (daytime anyways) holding its own :)

One thing I found "odd"... both WGIR and WRKO were running Rush between
12-1....WRKO was roughly 25 seconds behind WGIR. Is that hour fed earlier
for broadcast later or does WRKO just have a mega-delay system online now?
(I checked the time on 2 breaks)

Biggest surprise was CJAD which was listenable from Derry north ( just blew
WCCM away at Exit 4..and this was earlier in the day)

It is hard for me at times to go back to a city that I once worked in,
remembering how good Manchester AM radio was in the late 60's. WGIR was a
first class operation ( fair to say Knight's flagship), WFEA took pride in
being on 24 hours, and WKBR wasn't that bad either. Because of my "ticket",
I did overnights at WFEA for awhile, and I wonder whatever happened to their
morning man "Pete Steady", who was no kid then. Bill Lawrence of WBZ fame
was there then as well, and Manchester was a good "AA" market to learn the
craft, as were Portland and Worcester. The Manchester people took pride back
then, because listerners were used to "Boston" quality, and for the most
part all 3 stations put out a good product. ( we won t talk about TV back
then )

Forgive me for feeling a little sad tonight :)





Kevin Vahey   kvahey@megsinet.net
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