J.J. Jackson at WTUR

[Eli Polonsky]

As far as I've heard, Tufts radio under the WTUR call
letters was always a closed-circuit or carrier current
operation on AM, save for the infamous railroad tracks
incident which happened perhaps a year or two before the
station made it onto the public airwaves as WMFO 91.5 FM.

I believe that any accounts claiming that WTUR was on the
public airwaves on AM (with 20 watts?) either legally or
illegally are incorrect, and may be confused with WMFO's
original power on FM of 18 watts ERP (10 watts w/antenna
height gain) as of it's official sign-on in 1970 until
about 1982 when they got the present 125 watt directional
signal on the air.

WTUR may have also had a "leaky cable" or other very low
power transmitter operating on FM prior to their legitimate
Class D signal signing on as WMFO but I don't know of that.

Their station website claims the first song broadcast on
WMFO in January 1970 was The Beatles "Here Comes The Sun",
but the first thing I remember hearing on the station at
around that time was testing/stunting with a repeating
loop of "Rubber Ducky" by "Ernie" from Sesame Street.

EP


> > From: Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>
> To: boston-radio-interest@rolinin.BostonRadio.org
> Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2007 12:25:56 -0400
> Subject: J.J. Jackson at WTUR
> 
> I found an article from an old (1970) Boston magazine about
> WBCN, and it said J.J.Jackson first worked at WTUR at Tufts.
> The article says the station was an FM-- but I thought it was
> an AM.  Do any of you recall the station?  I  know the story
> that is on Wikipedia about it, but before it got in trouble
> with Tufts, was it in fact a regular college station, or was
> it always an illegal station?  Does anyone remember it?