Re: WITS (was: Fenway Park)

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

Yes, the RFI from the Waverley Oaks Rd site was a PR disaster, but the
technical constraints that existed on 1510 at the time absolutely forced the
transmitter (at least the nighttime transmitter) to be located in the
close-in northwest suburbs. I don't know whether a diplex with 1150 was ever
considered, but I doubt whether the Town of Lexington would have permitted
the new towers that would have been necessary. It probably would have been
better had the station kept its day site in Wollaston and used the Waverley
Oaks Road site for nights only. People laughed at the day facilites in
Wollaston. Pretty much all of the signal appeared to go out over the Ocean,
and the construction of the State St South office complex immediately to the
west of the site had done a number of the (already weak) signal to the
southwest. But the fact was that even with the short towers and "all" of the
signal going out to sea, the salt water path to Boston and the North Shore
and the 50-kW day power gave the station decent daytime coverage of most of
the market. OTOH, a night power increase was ESSENTIAL and it was possible
only from the close-in northwestern suburbs. There was a station in
Sherbrooke PQ due north of Boston that required protection and the Quincy
site was due south of Boston, so from there, improving the night signal over
Boston was impossible. Also, WNLC in New London imposed severe constraints
on improving the signal to the south. Meanwhile, the coverage requirement
for the COL necessitated delivering 25 mV/m to Boston's main business
district. Given the poor soil conductivity and the high frequency, the site
could not have been much further west than the Waltham-Belmont line.

A six-tower setup at the WRKO site might have been another possibility but
covenants on the land to protect the aquifer beneath it (the wells that
constitute the water supply for the Town of Burlington are beneath WRKO's
ground system) probably ruled out the construction of the new towers that
would have been needed. (Only one of WRKO's towers could have been used by
1510.) Also, I'm not sure that, even with half-wave towers, a six-tower
tear-drop pattern from the Burlington site could have delivered the
requisite 25 mV/m to downtown Boston. Meeting the relaxed 5 mV/m requirement
now in effect would be a piece of cake, however. Siting a high-powered AM in
a densely-populated area with so many constraints is, at best, nearly
impossible. Despite all of the problems with the Waverley Oaks Rd site,
Mariner they did the best it could.

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
617-558-4205, eFax 707-215-6367


----- Original Message -----
From: Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>
To: Kevin Vahey <kvahey@tmail.com>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2003 1:44 PM
Subject: WITS (was: Fenway Park)


> Kevin wrote:
> >Sometime around 1980 WITS left Broadway and moved back to the old
> >Brookline Ave studio which BTW now used by NESN.
> >WITS was run in Boston by a Joe Scanlon and I seem to faintly recall
there
> >was a tie in with WLW in Cincinnati but I can't recollect what it was.
>
> Ah yes, good old WITS with the most bizarre signal in the history of
> humanity... I worked for them briefly in 1981 when their efforts to boost
> power resulted in everyone in Belmont and Waltham picking up the station
on
> electric blankets, toothbrushes, and toasters as well as on many
> telephones-- the RFI was such a public relations disaster!  When I was
> there, Bob Richer was the GM-- he is still in radio somewhere.  WITS was
> the first local station to air vodka ads, as I recall (in the spring of
> 1982, if I recall correctly).  Pat Whitley worked for the station for a
> while, but then, didn't he work almost everywhere?  The station abandoned
> talk in mid October of 1982.  Mariner Communications, which owned it, took
> it nostalgia (WMRE) and then went bankrupt in 1984 and sold it.  At one
> time, Mariner had owned about 5 stations, some of which were in the
> midwest, but I don't recall exactly where-- I don't think they owned WLW,
> but anything is possible.  I'll check my files.
>
>
>