WBIX testing IBOC

[Dan.Strassberg]

It has been quite a while since WBIX CE Grady Moates announced that
WBIX would add IBOC once WKOX left the building (that is, the building
at 100 Mt Wayte Ave in Framingham that is home to WBIX's daytime
transmitter, had been home to WKOX's transmitter from the time the
station first signed on in the '40s, and until a year or two ago, was
also home to its studios). Well, WKOX's transmitter has decamped for
the five-tower triplex (with WUNR and WRCA) at 750 Sawmill Brook
Parkway in Newton, and though all three stations there are still
transmitting at less than full power, I have to assume that there is
now enough room at the Framingham site for the additional equipment
required for WBIX to run IBOC. Although WBIX does not appear to have
IBOC on as I write this (Thanksgiving day morning), I am pretty sure
that that was what I heard yesterday (can't recall whether it was in
the morning or afternoon). Since WBIX is third adjacent to WBZ, which
runs IBOC full time, I had the dubious pleasure of hearing contiguous
loud hash on both 1040 and 1050 (not to mention 1020 and 1070). No
telling when Grady will run the next tests, but if you want to know
what the AM band will sound like if this misbegotten technology ever
really takes hold, this is a must-hear;>( Try to restrain yourself
from pitching your radio through a closed window!

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Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367