Moving from AM to FM (was : Uncle Dale's replacement)

[Dan.Strassberg]

50 kW ND from 143 Rumford Ave was to be used by day only. WKOX would
have become a dual-site operation and the CoL would have remained
Framingham. The night facilities were to be 50 kW from a new
three-tower array at the old 100 Mt Wayte Ave site. The three in-line
200' towers would have been spaced a rather tight 60 degrees from
tower to tower on a due east-west line. The town of Framingham had
other ideas however. The Zoning Board would never approve replacing
the two 440' towers with three 200' towers even though the tall towers
are illuminated and the short towers would not have been, and even
though the tall towers could do much more damage if they fell (as
actually happened in late August 1981, only weeks after construction
of the tall towers was completed).

When that proposal was rejected, WKOX tried the former Sperry Rand
property on Route 117 in Sudbury, but Sudbury was no more welcoming
than Framingham had been. There were other stops (actually,
non-starters) along the way. One was the former Dow Chemical (I
believe) property off Route 30 in Cochituate. I believe that there
were other proposed sites in addition to the ones I have listed, but I
can't remember them.

After Sudbury rejected WKOX's bid to use the Route 117 site, Alex
Langer filed to move 1060 there. He most likely used that application
as a placeholder while he negotiated with Fairbanks to for a triplex
that had his 1060 and 650 share the Mt Wayte site with WKOX.
Certainly, Langer must have understood that if Sudbury didn't want
1200 on Route 117 they weren't going to accept having 1060 there.

It is interesting to note that had WKOX succeeded in getting approval
for the three-tower night array on Mt Wayte Ave, WBIX, which uses the
two tall towers there by day, either would have very different
facilities or might have wound up back at Sewell St in Ashland by day
as well as by night. The Sewell St site is the one that 1060
originally developed for full-time use but from which it was first
evicted by what is now WAMG 890. 1060 later returned to the Ashland
site for its night operation, however.

As an avid reader of Scott Fybush's Tower Site of the Week, I now
realize how many broadcast sites have long and tangled histories that
involve multiple stations, but the attempted and real periginations of
WKOX and the real-life travels of WBIX and WSRO were my first
experiences with the re-use of AM sites. I consider the stories quite
fascinating.

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sean Smyth" <sean.smyth@yahoo.com>
To: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>; "Dan.Strassberg"
<dan.strassberg@att.net>
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2008 4:22 PM
Subject: Re: Moving from AM to FM (was : Uncle Dale's replacement)


> On Sun, 9/21/08, Dan.Strassberg <dan.strassberg@att.net> wrote:
>> I believe that, by Clear Channel's estimate, the
>> WKOX/WRCA move was in
>> the works for 12 years, and that may not be the whole
>> length of time
>> either, because Fairbanks started the ball rolling by
>> buying and
>> taking dark WNSW 1200 Brewer ME several years before CCU
>> bought WKOX.
>> Eliminating the Portland ME area signal was essential if
>> WKOX was
>> going to upgrade.
>
> Ah, yes, the plan to move to the WNTN tower and run 50kw-ND...who
> could forget that?
>
>
>