AM in Boston after WW II was: WBZ-AM Allston backup is no more

[Kevin Vahey]

My head hurts after reading KOA vs WHDH

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/319/239

On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 1:34 PM <aerie.ma@comcast.net> wrote:
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> I've always been interested in the KOA/WHDH case from way back when. For those unfamiliar, WHDH was originally a daytime station. In 1941 they were authorized to go full time, which brought a lawsuit from KOA in Denver and NBC on KOA's Class IA status being compromised. The case is online thanks to the law school at Cornell. Just search "KOA vs WHDH".
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Boston-Radio-Interest <boston-radio-interest-bounces@lists.BostonRadio.org> On Behalf Of Kevin Vahey
> Sent: Monday, October 19, 2020 1:58 AM
> To: Scott Fybush <scott@fybush.com>; Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>
> Cc: Boston Radio Group <boston-radio-interest@lists.bostonradio.org>
> Subject: AM in Boston after WW II was: WBZ-AM Allston backup is no more
>
> When you look at Boston radio history it is fascinating how signals evolved on AM - I am excluding the daytimers from this
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> 590 WEEI - Covered the market well plus the Merrimack Valley and South Shore - Only 5kw but at 590 that wasn't an issue - The weakness was in what would become Metro West because of WTAG at 580
> 680 WLAW/WNAC/WRKO - The owners of WLAW obviously found an excellent engineering consultant to pull off the upgrade to 50kw and moving the transmitter to Burlington.
> 850 WHDH - Same playbook as WLAW with the upgrade to 50kw and building the transmitter in what was rural Needham. They became a player thanks to sports and Bob and Ray
> 1030 WBZ - Moving to Hull from Millis before WWII solved most issues in the city and while they were a true 1-A clear channel they became directional by choice and thus had the strongest nighttime signal in the Northeast.
> 1150 WCOP -  Transmitter moved from Allston to Lexington in 1947 and their 5kw signal was very strong downtown but very weak on the North Shore which doomed them in their Top 40 years,
> 1260 WNAC/WVDA/WEZE - A solid 5kw signal and as WEZE they were the top-rated station in the city in the mid-'60s.
> 1510 WMEX - A decent 5kw signal by day - at night if you were only a few miles from the coast not so much
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> On Sun, Oct 18, 2020 at 11:29 PM Scott Fybush <scott@fybush.com> wrote:
> >
> > A couple of years ago, iHeart sold its tower portfolio to Vertical
> > Bridge, which is now one of the big national players in the tower
> > rental business, alongside American Tower, Crown Castle and SBA.
> >
> > On Sun, Oct 18, 2020, 9:27 PM Shawn Mamros <mamros@mit.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > Scott wrote:
> > > >I doubt they'll invest in a new off-site AM backup. Those are
> > > >becoming exceedingly rare, and especially now that iHeart doesn't
> > > >own its own tower sites, it becomes harder (or at least more
> > > >expensive) for them to, say, diplex a 10 kW WBZ signal into one WRKO tower.
> > >
> > > I may have missed this, but... who owns the towers in Hull now, if
> > > iHeart doesn't?
> > >
> > > -Shawn
> > >
>