Re: WBZ Reception Is Worsening

[dan.strassberg@att.net]

I don't know if there's anything left of the WMEX site, 
but that ought to be the site that WMEX/WITS used until 
1510's move to 411 Waverley Oaks Rd in Waltham in 1981. 
As for a WNAC site that predates the current WMKI 
facilities in Milton, that would be a historic find 
because, as I understand it, WNAC and WAAB were diplexed 
from the same tower. Surely, that must have been one of 
the earliest examples (if not _the_ earliest) of 
diplexing on the AM band.

I'm surprised that nobody has noted that before WBZ 
AM/TV ever mover to 1170 Soldiers' Field Rd, the site 
had another radio use. It was the TX site of WCOP 
(probably on 1120 then) before that station moved its TX 
to 75 Concord Ave in Lexington, near the Belmont line. 
Conceivably WBZ's auxiliary tower at 1170 Soldiers' 
Field Rd was one of the WCOP towers. (I'm assuming that 
when WCOP transmitted from 1170 Soldiers' Field Rd, it 
used a long-wire antenna suspended from two short 
towers.) Most likely, though, WCOP's towers were long 
gone before WBZ moved to the site.

The reference to WBZ's move to Brighton in the 
Batchelder quote is a red herring. Aside from the 
current auxiliary TX at Soldiers' Field Rd, WBZ (AM) 
never transitted from that location. WBZ's TX moved from 
Millis to Hull.
 
> >Rob wrote--
> >According to J. Leonard Batchelder, secretary of the Mass. Bay Railroad
> >Enthusiasts, WBZ once had a transmitter site in Millis.
> 
> Yup.  They moved there in 1931, the same year they swapped WBZ and WBZA-- 
> originally, WBZ was the call for the Springfield station while WBZA was for 
> Boston, but in March of 1931, the two were switched, and the new tranny was 
> to help get the station heard better in Boston-- there had been endless 
> complaints throughout the 20s about poor reception, and this was supposed 
> to fix it.  Of course, by 1941, the station's transmitter was in Hull, and 
> there you are.
> 
> Btw, does anything remain from the old tranny sites?  I visited the remains 
> of the WEEI/Edison operation in Weymouth and found very little that is 
> recognisable.  I am about to check out the site of the WMEX and WNAC 
> transmitters in Squantum, having finally gotten actual addresses, but doubt 
> I'll find much left.
> 
>