WGAN----FM?

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Fri, 28 Sep 2007 00:44:43 -0400, "Doug Drown" <revdoug1@verizon.net> said:

> WBLM and WTHT worked out a trade.  WBLM moved to Portland and to
> 102.9; WTHT moved to 107.5 and remained in Portland.  It ultimately
> became a country station.  That's the tale in a nutshell; I believe
> I've given it pretty accurately.

Except that WTHT remained (and its descendant remains, to this day) a
Lewiston-licensed station.  And they did eventually find a way to move
107.5 across the zone boundary into class-C-land; it's now a class-C1
with 100 kW ERP from 283 m AAT.  I believe that station could have
been a class-C when it was originally built, had the owners put the
transmitter on the proper side of the line.  (It would be advantageous
to do so, even without an increase in power, because class-C* stations
get stronger protection than class-B* stations.)

That zone boundary in Maine is a real oddity.  It runs right in
between Portland and Lewiston, then between Augusta and Waterville
(92.3 is a B, 98.5 is a C1), and passes right by Bangor (88.5 and
106.5 are Cs, 107.3 Old Town is a C2, and all the rest are Bs) before
heading out to sea somewhere between MDI and Calais.  

In the other direction, Concord, N.H. is south of the line and Laconia
is north, but there's not a whole lot of population in between and
pretty much everything in the Lakes Region is an A except for WLNH-FM.
The line in Vermont runs not far south of US 4 (Rutland has C2s,
mostly, although I'm fairly sure at least one of WJJR and WZRT used
not to be, but WEQX in Manchester is a B) and then heads through the
Adirondacks to the Canadian border.

-GAWollman