Re: did i hear this right?

[dan.strassberg@att.net]

Yes, you heard right. The COL is to be Watertown. WAMG's 
three 280' towers at 75 Concord Ave in Lexington are 
almost perfect for WSRO's night operation. The azimuth 
of the line of towers differs by only 9 degrees from 
that at WSRO's old site on Fitchburg St in Marlboro. The 
night pattern will be quite similar to WAMG's and will 
use a power of 3.4 kW. So although the night signal over 
Boston won't be awe inspiring, it will be audible.

BTW, because of the greater height and hence higher 
efficiency of the WAMG towers, the night signal will be 
equivalent overall to what WSRO was proposing with 5 kW 
at night from Hudson. The day signal will be something 
else, however. Protecting first-adjacent WBET (and 
perhaps also first-adjacent WSAR) requires "turning the 
signal around" during the daytime and using a much lower 
day power (1.4 kW). Most of the signal will go northwest 
with the equivalent of only about 100W going south and 
east.

I have no idea what Langer plans for programming. It's 
been suggested that 1470 will simulcast WBIX 1060 which 
is still a daytimer. Even if Langer builds WBIX's CP for 
2.5 kW-N and gets it on the air, 1060 won't have much of 
a night signal inside of Route 128, so the 1470 night 
signal might be a replacement. The day signal would be 
redundant with 1060, though, so maybe Langer would 
broker out the station during the day. Brokered religion 
would seem to be the most obvious choice. As you know, 
Langer brokered 1060 to a religious broadcaster when 
that station was only 500W and is still brokering 
mornings on 650 to the same broadcaster.

My suggestion, which I think is more creative, is to LMA 
WSRO to Clear Channel who could run it //WXKS (AM). This 
would take two "half" signals with adjacent dial 
positions and create, in effect, one station with a more-
or-less usable signal day and night throughout most of 
the market. WXKS's 5 kW ND day signal covers the market 
reasonably well, but the night signal (1 kW directional 
to the east on the very noise 1430 from a site east of 
the market's population center) merely covers Everett 
and parts of a few adjacent communities, but not much 
more. 1470's night signal would take up the slack--
inside of 128 anyhow. Even 1470's rather pathetic day 
coverage would compliment 1430's.

As for how Langer pulled of the coup of getting a COL 
change to Watertown--well, I guess the operation from 
Lexington will meet the COL signal requirements in 
Watertown. What's less clear is how he pulled off the 
move given that WRCA was also granted a CP for a COL 
change to Watertown. Since both stations apparently got 
the COL changes on the basis of providing a first local 
service to Watertown, one of them can't be first. My 
money is on WSRO to get on the air before WRCA's new 
night facilities (shared with WKOX) at the WUNR site. 
Both Hoffman, who owns WUNR and its TX site, and the 
Newton Zoning Board of Appeals are likely to have 
something rather friendly to say about replacing WUNR's 
two towers with five. On the other hand, WSRO's move 
involves no tower construction.
 
> WSRO Marlboro is moving their transmitter to LEXINGTON??????????
> 
> How did they pull off that?
> 
> and what do they plan for programming?