With both WUNI and WUTF moving their facilities much closer to Boston, WUNI Candelabra and WUTF CBS tower, what will become of their old towers in Boylston and Marlborough? The Ch. 66 tower in Marlborough has WWJE, will that move also? Are there any operations outside of WAAF at the Ch. 27 tower in Boylston?
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WUNI and WUTF Towers
- Thread starter wcozBoston
- Start date
WBPX / WDPX moved a couple of months ago from Needham to the Hudson tower that WUNI is leaving, apparently to get away from the high leasing prices American Tower charges on the 3 Needham towers they own. WUNI must feel the higher Needham costs are worthwhile, while ION (WBPX) does not. WWJE channel shares on the WUNI signal.
Btw there is a Boston-Manchester TV board 
tho yes WAAF mentioned
tho yes WAAF mentionedThey were one of the few Boston market stations that were not required to change RF channels, or make any changes at all for the repack. Their approved move is to the Cabot St tower permanently. That may have been delayed due to the various issues the other stations temporarily on the tower have had. And per the latest filing, those stations will be staying there until spring.
Are you referring to WUNI or WUTF here? From the comments, it looks like there is a TV future for the Channel 66 tower in Hudson but not for the old WSMW tower in Boylston. Or will WUNI and WUTF maintain a back-up site there in addition to possibly WBPX? What was the motivation for both WUNI and WUTF leaving their owned sites in exchange for to paying rent in Needham?
WUNI and WUTF undoubtedly wanted to improve their OTA signals in the densely populated areas of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, etc. Also, for viewers to the north and west using roof antennas, the signals come from the same direction as the other Boston stations. WUTF, in particular will gain a lot, since the WSMW tower is much further west then the WUNI antenna. WUTF will be using 970 KW from the CBS tower when the work is done there, and that will be the same power as WBZ, WCVB, and WGBX. They are only using 50 KW temporarily.
There may be some income from WBPX to Univision and/or Entracom from the Hudson tower, though Univision is no longer listed as the owner.
WAAF-FM was, and probably still is, located on the Boylston tower.
Yes, but American Tower doesn't give these easily remembered names, the local street locations are not particularly well known outside of the Needham / Newton area, and using ASRN's is extreme for general discussions. So they seem to keep these old nicknames.
Going back far enough, the "CBS tower" was built by WBZ in the 50's, when it was an NBC affiliate owned by Westinghouse. The FM 128 tower was built by the original WHDH-TV, ch 5, also in the 50's, which lost their license to WCVB, but refused to sell the tower to them, so what remained was FM stations. Cabot St. seems to be the name used most often now, since the previous "Candelabra" nickname lost favor since most of that structure was removed from the top...
Wasn't the CBS Tower originally called the "Westinghouse Tower"? What was FM 128 called when WHDH-TV operated from there?
Appears that Entravision holds the ownership of the WSMW tower, be interesting to see what will ultimately come of it now that it is no longer used for TV operations. WAAF may have to stay unless it can find a way to move to the Hudson tower, but that may be impossible with spacing issues to other FMs to the east. Maybe they could return to Paxton? The Hudson tower is owned by Vertical Bridge Towers III, LLC.
The CBS tower work will now affect two FM stations located there - WBUR-FM and WKLB-FM. Their antennas near the top of the tower will have to be removed temporarily while the current, now unused top-mounted master antenna is removed and replaced. It is not entirely clear if that is an unexpected development, however WBUR, now running an on-air fund raiser, requested and received a delay from American Tower to wait until the end of December for that work to begin.
WNEU last week requested and was granted an FCC STA extension for us of their temporary antenna and today request that extension be extended until July 27, 2020. Interesting info in those requests:
https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/api/download/attachment/25076ff36efa9535016efb2244ca0341
https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/api/download/attachment/25076f916eff50b9016f0fbf01601b36
WNEU last week requested and was granted an FCC STA extension for us of their temporary antenna and today request that extension be extended until July 27, 2020. Interesting info in those requests:
https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/api/download/attachment/25076ff36efa9535016efb2244ca0341
https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/api/download/attachment/25076f916eff50b9016f0fbf01601b36
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