Central Mass observations/questions

["Keith Fornal" <kfornal@loa.com>]

Enjoying the spring like weather on Thursday, I decided to take a ride
and ended up driving through the Worcester County area.  Here are a few
observations & questions from my trip.

WCAT 700 Orange-Athol:  The station seems to be off the air again.  I
had read a few months back that the station had escaped deletion by the
FCC by getting back on the air after just under 1 year of silence.  I
believe Scott Fybush's site had said that the station was simulcasting
its FM counterpart WCAT-FM 99.9 Athol (Oldies 99.9).  I drove right to
the station in Orange and found an empty parking lot and what looked
like a quite new strobed & guyed AM tower.  There was a sign indicated
that the tower was owned by American Tower of Boston.  When I got home,
I checked their website and found information about the tower and even a
picture:
http://atcdmziis03.americantower.com/OASISPublic/SitePublicPagesADO/Site
Brochure.asp?lngSiteID=14061&lngTowerID=-1&txtCaption=Brochure .  The
FCC website has the station operating under a "Special Temporary
Authority" since 09/10/2001.  This authority has been renewed once and
expired on 02/20/2002 but there is an application to extend the
authority pending as of that date.  If anyone has any info on this
station either past, present or future, I'd be interested in finding out
more about the station.  I seem to have a soft spot for silent AM
stations.

WCMX 1000 Leominster:  This 1000 watt daytime-only station was operating
well after local sunset (5:45pm).  I began to listen to the station as I
passed thru Leominster around 6:30 pm.  I figured that the station
perhaps has some very low powered night service but was surprised that
the signal held quite strong on the 20 min ride south on I-190 to
Worcester.  

WARE 1250 Ware:  Looks like they have dropped the Spanish programming
and are calling themselves "Hometown Radio."  I briefly heard what
sounded like an oldies format complete with local spots, including one
looking for local sales people.  It's good to hear some local
programming on what was once a good local station.


Keith Fornal
Treasurer
Dutch Island Lighthouse Society
www.dutchislandlighthouse.org