Work Being Done On WNNW-AM 800 Tower

[Laurence Glavin]

Recently, I made reference to the fact that the former 93.7 FM antenna that for
decades was attached to the AM 800 tower in Andover had been removed.  For several 
hours today (Tuesday, Election Day) WNNW-AM has been off-the-air.  In the days when
it was the home of WCCM-AN and operating with 1,000 watts days, apparently the station
did not have an auxiliary transmitter, so I've observed several occasions when it
was silent in those days.  But now they have a 3kw transmitter with IBOC, and on at
least one occasion, I've observed that they were using an auxiliary transmitter because 
there was no hash, and if I turned my radio "sideways" to Andover, I got a slight signal
from Schenectady's WGY.  So on a hunch, I drove over to West Andover, and sure enough,
there were several trucks parked at the base of the tower, and two men were installing what 
looked like a cellar antenna.  Undoubtedly, Costa-Eagle is promoting their tower to
cellular and other entities as a place to position their antennas.  So a whole day
of broadcasting is expendable to grow their revenue by renting tower space.  Of course
it's a warm, sunny, windless day, ideal for such work.  I wonder how many times AM 800 will be
silent so the riggers can install new antennas.
BTW, Providence's AM 790 is coming in quite well all over Lawrence and Methuen, and I got a faint 
signal from CJAD in Montreal at mid-day (between 11:30 am and noon this time of year); and of course WGY 
is, as usual when AM 800 is absent, quite audible.
 

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