W1XAL shortwave station in Boston

[Scott Fybush]

> On 8 Jul 2006 at 22:46, Scott Fybush wrote:
>
>> Here's a website with LOTS of information about W1XAL/WRUL/WNYW/WYFR:
>>
>> http://www.northernstar.no/wnyw3.htm
>
> That's a great site.  And it also illustrates Donna's point about
> info on the Internet not all being accurate.  At the end, there's an
> excert and link to a site about WYFR, in which they claim that the
> original WRUL included WBOS in Hull, which we know was separate.

There's a grain of truth to that. After WBOS was shut down in 1953, its
transmitting equipment was sold to WRUL and moved from Hull to Scituate.
But to say that WRUL therefore "included" WBOS would be like saying that
WBIX 1060 "includes" WRKO because it uses RKO's old transmitter.

To answer the question about the WBOS timeline, it's my understanding that
shortwave operations at Hull began in 1940, with equipment moved from KDKA
in Pittsburgh. I believe the original programming was primarily a
simulcast of WBZ's mediumwave programming. Once the US was involved in the
war, the government took control of the private shortwave stations around
the country, but Westinghouse continued to produce at least some of the
programming for WBOS under contract. I was told once that some WBZ
staffers were involved in producing Spanish-language newscasts that were
broadcast over WBOS in the late forties or early fifties.

When the last government contract ended in 1953, Westinghouse shut down
WBOS for good. I have in my files the telegram from Westinghouse corporate
directing the transmitters to be shut down.

s