AM radio on Cape Cod?????

[wattagecottage]

Did Cape Cod ever have AM radio ? I don't remember any, if they did, why did they go dark?

 

[DonReelSteal]

It has AM 1170 and 1240/

1240 being licensed to West Yarmouth.....

They are both simulcasting public radio outfits

 

[TXengineer]

> It has AM 1170 and 1240/
>
> 1240 being licensed to West Yarmouth.....
>
> They are both simulcasting public radio outfits
>

1170 is WFPB being licensed to Orleans, and one of the towers has WKPE 104.7's antennas on it. I believe 1170 was once WKPE and I know at one time they simulcasted WKPE-FM when they where CHR.

1240 is WBUR West Yarmouth and has transmitters behind the WXTK studios.
(WXTK shares the tower)

 

[Eli Polonsky]

> > It has AM 1170 and 1240/
> >
> > 1240 being licensed to West Yarmouth.....
> >
> > They are both simulcasting public radio outfits

WFPB Orleans 1170 (and WFPB-FM 91.9 Falmouth) simulcast WUMB, the Public Radio folk music station based at U. Mass Boston. WFPB 1170 is daytime only.

WBUR West Yarmouth 1240 (obviously) rebroadcasts WBUR-FM Boston, the NPR news station based at Boston University 24/7.

> 1170 is WFPB being licensed to Orleans, and one of the
> towers has WKPE 104.7's antennas on it. I believe 1170 was
> once WKPE and I know at one time they simulcasted WKPE-FM
> when they where CHR.

I remember 1170 as WVLC in the early 70's, and 104.7 came on as WVLC-FM in the mid-70's. They soon became WKZE, and later WKPE.

> 1240 is WBUR West Yarmouth and has transmitters behind the
> WXTK studios. (WXTK shares the tower)

WBUR 1240 used to be WOCB West Yarmouth. WXTK was WOCB-FM in the past.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

The old WOCB-1240 had a monopoly on radio on the Cape for decades (yes, they launched the then-94.9 FM, but I believe it was a 100% simulcast until sometime in the very late 1960's or very early 1970's).

Even after it got some competition, I think it still was extremely popular until the 1980's. I seem to recall from my Summer visits down there that in the early-to-mid 1970's, WOCB-AM was at the time a full-service AC and must have had by far the largest staff of any station on the Cape. Although a 1,000-watt (once 1,000 watts day/250 watts night) signal at 1240, it's transmitter location on a little piece of land in West Yarmouth that juts out into Nantucket Sound gave it one of the best signals of any "gravayard" AM station in the Eastern United States. The station's signal covered (and still covers as WBUR-AM) just about all of Cape Cod as well as Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.

Today, it's interesting that both AM signals on Cape Cod are now noncommercial, and both of them are rebroadcasting Boston stations.