Strange Doings At WNTN-AM 1550 Newton, MA

[Rob Landry]

Hmm. That suggests they may be using a simple timer to change between day 
and night modes. 1180 in Hope Valley, RI was running that way when my 
then-employer took it over.

Most of the stations I deal with have something like a Sine Systems RFC-1B 
remote control system, which can be programmed with sign on/sign off times 
for every month of the year. As long as the power doesn't fail -- in which 
case the unit forgets what day and time it is -- it will switch 
automatically at the correct times.


Rob



On Thu, 27 Mar 2014, Laurence Glavin wrote:

> For many years, WNTN-AM-1550 in Newton, MA had been not only a strict 
> daytimer even though they could have operated with flea-power (a la 
> WJIB-AM 740 in Cambridge, Ma for example) at night, but in the spring 
> and summer, they went off-the-air at 5:00 pm or so when local sunsets 
> were much later. I've observed a few other datimers that stayed on a 
> little longer in the evening after wintertime but nonetheless pulled the 
> plug early in June and July, but WNTN just seemed to call it quits at 
> 5:00 no matter what. Then I read that lately the station has been 
> broadcast with a mighty THREE watts overnight, so I figured that as the 
> hours of sunlight increased, they'd keep running at 10,000 watts until 
> local sunset. But no, at exactly 5:00 pm since the start of Daylight 
> Saving Time, WNTN seems to start running at its nighttime authorization 
> of THREE watts!