RE: Globe on John Garabedian

["elipolo@earthlink.net" <elipolo@earthlink.net>]

> From:  dan.strassberg@att.net
> Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2003 15:07:19 +0000
> To: elipolo@earthlink.net, boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
> Subject: RE: Globe on John Garabedian
>
> Gee, I'm ashamed to admit that, until I read your post, I knew nothing 
> about the Waltham 1060 pirate. 

I remember that the operator had a weekday 9 to 5 job, so the pirate "WEGN" 
Waltham was usually just on nights (with a horrible off-frequency
heterodyne 
with KYW) and weekend days between around late 1969 to early 1971, and even 
those times were very irregular.

There was another one on for a number of months in 1973/1974 from Watertown.
These guys in Watertown had an interesting idea for their frequency. This 
was back when WKOX in Framingham was on 1190 AM, daytime only. 

When this Watertown pirate felt like being on in the daytime, they were on
1210 AM, to avoid adjacent channel interference with WKOX. At sunset, when 
WKOX signed off, they moved over to 1200, which was a literally "clear 
channel" up here back then, there was otherwise nothing but a trace of CC 
flagship WOAI San Antonio on a very clear night. 

That way, they moved off 1210 by the time the co-channel skywave from WCAU 
in Philly started booming up here, and slid into a "clear" frequency
between 
them and the old WOWO on 1190. 

This station didn't have as much power as the Waltham pirate a few years 
earlier. They covered all adjacent suburbs to Watertown, Boston proper was 
a very faint fringe. Programming was real "free-form", a typical evening 
would range from hippie country-rock bands such as the New Riders Of The 
Purple Sage and the Flying Burrito Brothers to Balinese Gamelan music. 
Again, this pirate wasn't on much daytime weekdays due to the operators
jobs.

They were a couple of licensed ham radio guys in Watertown who knew what 
they were doing technically, and did this for a while as a lark. I think 
they shut down intentionally after a while, perhaps becoming concerned 
about risking their legitimate licenses.

Eli Polonsky



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