I read somewhere that the Channel 13 WGME tower in Raymond (on Tower Road off Route 121) is the second tallest man-made structure in Maine. Its height above average terrain is 1427 feet, nearly as tall as the Empire State Building. It also is used by WBLM 102.9, from the days when that frequency was co-owned with Channel 13. The two stations had once been WGAN-TV and WGAN-FM, owned by the Portland Press Herald, along with 560 WGAN AM. These days the newspaper, AM, FM and TV stations all have different owners.
I believe Maine's tallest man-made structure is the Channel 6 WCSH tower about 5 miles west in Sebego, at 1896 ft. HAAT. That one is also used by Maine Public's 90.1 WMEA. While most Portland-area FM stations are Class B (50,000 watts at 500 feet maximum), WBLM and WMEA are in Class A territory (100,000 watts at 1500 feet maximum). Only a handful of FM stations in the Northeast are Class A. The line is just north and west of Portland and Bangor, so both markets have some Class A stations, as well as the Burlington-Plattsburgh market.
My family had a cottage in New Hampshire, less than a mile from the Maine border. In both the analog and digital days, we had excellent reception of WGME 13 but not a blip from Fox 23. I once wrote to WGME asking why management doesn't put Fox 23 on a subchannel of WGME while still keeping its primary transmitter near Waterville, its city of license? After all, in NYC, co-owned Fox 5 WNYW and WWOR-TV 9 have subchannels on each other's main channels, just in case it would give some viewers better reception.
An engineer wrote back that it had been considered but would put Fox 23 too close to Fox 25 in Boston, according to the terms of the contract. I guess Fox feared some viewers in Southern Maine and Coastal NH would tune to the Portland subchannel instead of the O&O Boston channel. I suppose now that Fox 25 is no longer owned by News Corp, parent company of the Fox Network, perhaps the contract affiliation terms don't apply anymore.
