Radio stations on the Hancock Tower...?

[Laurence Glavin]

>----- Original Message -----
>From: Bob Nelson
>Sent: 03/20/12 11:37 AM
>To: (newsgroup) Boston-Radio-Interest
>Subject: Radio stations on the Hancock Tower...?

 >The recent blackout in Boston led to backup transmitters being used >for several stations whose towers were on the >Prudential Building and it led me to thinking: what about the Hancock >Tower? Do any stations broadcast from >that skyscraper now, or did they in the past? I had thought at least >one did, and bostonradio.org confirmed it, in its >page about WZLX >>In 1980, the FM transmitter was moved to the Hancock Tower in downtown Boston. It didn't stay there for long, however: the transmitter burned up in 1982, and the Hancock people decided that they really didn't want broadcasters on their building if the equipment was going to do that  WBCN in its earliest incarnation, 1968 and thereafter, operated with an antenna atop the original John Hancock Building for many years. They first
 ran 20,000 watts horizontal up there with maybe a one or two-bay vertical antenna, took it down and boosted the ERP to 50K with perhaps
 the first circularly-polarized antenna I remember seeing. So Hancock management knew it was possible to run a radio station on the
 top floor without experiencing any fiery disaster...speaking of which: unless I missed it, the two Boston general-circulation
 newspapers never seemed to mention the problems with radio stations atop The Pru during the recent electricity outage in
 the Back Bay. Goes to show that every since the departure of regular radio columnists like Susan Bickelhaupt and Clea Simon,
 no matter how people here obsess on matters radio, it's a backburner-item for most journalists.