Re: Some WBUR history

["Aaron 'Bishop' Read" <aread@speakeasy.net>]

My mistake, by "tower" I meant the "radio tower" on top of the "BU LAW 
tower building".   The radio tower was built in 1975-1976 because Warren 
Towers (the 18-story, 1600-student tri-towered dorm next door to the 
College of Communication/COM - then School of Public Communication/SPC) was 
built then.  Prior to 1976 the transmitting antenna was about halfway up 
the self-supporting tower on top of COM.  It's still there, actually...as 
is the microwave dish WBUR used to send audio to the Newton transmitter (on 
FM-128) when they still had studios in COM.   Anyways, Warren Towers is 
actually about 10-15ft shorter than the light on top of the COM tower, but 
the WBUR transmitter was only halfway up so it was WELL below Warren 
Towers.   That building would've essentially provided one hell of a null to 
the west! ;-)

WBUR wanted to get better reach and power anyway so when they were told 
Warren Towers was being built they started the whole process of moving to 
BU-LAW at 21 stories + another 20-60ft of tower and 50kW.   There they 
stayed until 1992 when they reduced power to 7200 watts ERP but moved up in 
height to over 1000ft at the FM-128 tower cluster in Newton.   The LAW 
tower transmitter is still there and still works...it's used but rarely (I 
think it's been fired up fewer than a dozen times - including false alarms 
& testing - since 1992).   I did hear that they tried to go to the LAW 
tower recently (within the last year) due to troubles at the Newton site 
and discovered that a whole lot had decayed at LAW and the sucker wouldn't 
start.   That's a big "Oh SHIT!"  :-)  Needless to say, an overhaul was 
done on the whole unit.   And I remember all the tower's guy wires being 
changed in 1998 or 1999 as I used to watch the guys doing it from WBUR's 
current studios when I wasn't doing anything at the moment.  Thought those 
guys were nuts going up on that old-ass tower with old guy wires and such a 
tiny footprint, but they finished the job without incident.

I've long argued that WTBU (BU's student-only, carrier-current & 
leaky-cable FM station) ought to put a Part 15 AM free-radiating 
transmitter at 0.10 watts on the top of the COM tower.  With a ground like 
that tower...which is close to a quarterwave antenna...you could get a 
decent reach for Part 15.  It'd cover most of campus (outdoors, at 
least...Part 15 doesn't penetrate buildings worth a damn) and then some.

- Aaron

At 11:38 PM 1/21/2002 -0500, A. Joseph Ross wrote:
>The Law tower, originally shared with the School of Education, was built
>in the early 60s.  I don't know when WBUR's transmitter was moved there,
>but the building was there when I was in law school in the late 60s.

______________________________________________
Aaron "Bishop" Read       aread@speakeasy.net
Fried Bagels Consulting   www.friedbagels.com
12 Walnut St. / Waltham, MA / 02453