WESX day in Salem Sunday?

[Dan Strassberg]

Could WESX Day be an attempt by listeners to keep the new owner from
attempting to move the station? Rumor has it that the new owner thinks he
can move WESX to the WLYN site and sell off the WESX real estate, which is
probably valuable enough to pay for the acquisition of both WESX and WJDA. I
suspect that the new owner is going to discover that his idea is technically
infeasible. When and if he discovers that he can't move the transmitter,
WESX is likely to go dark because I believe that the whole acquisition makes
economic sense only if the new owner can convert the real estate to cash.
There are several technical problems: (1) Can't deliver the requisite signal
to Salem from the WLYN site--especially at night. (2) Prohibited overlap
with WKOX. (3) Increase in prohibited overlap with WBUR (AM). I don't even
think it would be feasible to operate WESX from the WLYN site with 125W or
so by day and 500W or so by night. That would probably take care of the
prhohibited overlap and, because of the height of the WLYN tower and the low
efficiency requirement for Class C AMs, it would result in a signal that
meets Class C requirements. But WESX would not deliver the requisite signal
to Salem. A COL change is out until the FCC opens another AM major-change
filing window. An FCC speaker at the just-concluded NAB convention in Las
Vegas placed the date of such a window opening at 2008 at the earliest.
Since WESX owns the current site, I don't think he can claim hardship
because "the station lost its Tx site." If the hardship claim worked, it
might enable WESX to run a non-conforming operation until a COL change
became feasible.

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Nelson" <raccoonradio@gmail.com>
To: <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org>
Sent: Friday, April 28, 2006 11:48 AM
Subject: WESX day in Salem Sunday?


> A friend told me there's some kind of WESX Day in Salem on Sunday (I
> believe) with a broadcast from Salem City Hall (1 pm); I checked Salem
> News website and saw nothing but maybe it was in a previous paper. Had
> heard that both WESX and WJDA (sold) have gone to
> nothing but satellite oldies in anticipation of new owners taking over.
>
> Saw not much at WESX site, pretty bare bones; while WJDA's site had
> some "scrapbook"
> pictures and details on other stations carrying certain shows (for the
> benefit of listeners who still want to hear them after the sale goes
> through).
>
> Here's a Salem News article about WESX's upcoming demise, from
> February; it estimated the station (as we know it) would cease to be
> "around May":
>
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1580302/posts
>
> We'll see what this WESX day is all about; I'll actually be down the
> street at WMWM
> from noon-3 pm doing a show but may check out later.
>