Re: WUPI/WUPY?

["Dan Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@att.net>]

WUPY operated from probably about 1961 to 1963 on 105.3. It was licensed to
Lynn with transmitter atop a hill somewhere in Peabody or Saugus. WUPY was
somewhat more powerful than the Class A FMs of the day, which were limited
to (I believe) 1 kW at 250' HAAT. I seem to remember facilities something
like 3.3 kW at 270' (less than half the power of most of today's class As).
The owner was a _real_ whack job. Harvey <something>. Can't remember his
last name. He also had a station in Miami--WUPI. If memory serves, the Miami
station was a full Class B on 95.7. As I remember what happened, WUPY went
on the air first and went belly-up first. The owner then transferred the
WUPY calls to the Miami station. He later lost the Miami license for some
rule infraction--maybe misrepresentation on the application or an
unauthorized transfer of control.

The programming on WUPY was as unprofessional as anything I've ever heard on
the air; it made most of the 10W Class D FMs of the day sound like WGN or
WABC. I remember a contest: Someone on the staff was going to drive from the
Lynn studios to (I think) Needham. They gave out a description of the car
and the approximate route, which included a stretch of Mt Auburn St in
Watertown. I remember that because I was living only a couple of blocks away
in Belmont. The idea was for listeners to go out and wait by the side of the
road for the car to pass. If you recognized the car, yelled out the driver's
name, and he heard you and stopped, you'd win something like a car-wash
coupon. Yeah, right! My wife had only a few words for me: "You're not
thinking of going out there, are you? If you do that, you're nuts!"

Over the years, some of the smaller stations in the Boston area have done
some pretty unprofessional radio, but I don't think the market has ever seen
a commercial station that was quite as bad as WUPY.

----- Original Message -----
From: <arusso@smcvt.edu>
To: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 4:34 PM
Subject: WUPI/WUPY?


> I read somewhere on the web that there was once a station with the call
> letters WUPI/WUPY (which stood for "Whoopie!") licensed to Peabody MA that
> played a jazz format and had a short life-span. I was hoping someone had
> some historical info on this "lost" North Shore station.
>
> DR
>