WBZ/Westinghouse/Springfield, MA

[Dale H. Cook]

At 01:22 PM 3/28/2008, Doug Drown wrote:

>Please excuse my ignorance, but for what purpose, then, were the 
>towers used?  To pick up the signal from Boston?

That site was originally WBZ. Like many early '20s stations it was 
located at an electrical manufacturer's facility, as were KDKA (at 
the Westinghouse plant in Pittsburgh) and WGY (at the General 
Electric plant in Schenectady). The towers held the transmitting antenna.

WBZA was licensed to Boston in 1924 and synchronized broadcasting 
began. In 1931 Westinghouse built the 50 kw site in Millis, and the 
calls were swapped, with Boston getting WBZ and East Springfield 
getting WBZA. The Hull site was built in 1940, and the WBZA site was 
finally shut down in 1962. I have been told that the equipment in 
East Springfield was maintained in working condition for several 
years after that. Donna Halper probably has much more information 
about the WBZA facility.

Dale H. Cook, Chief Engineer, Centennial Broadcasting, 
Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA - WZZI / WZZU / WLNI / WLEQ
http://plymouthcolony.net/starcity/starcity.html