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Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

M

Me Venture Capital

Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

While they can deny it, don't want people to know it, or may not know it, but these stations owned by Citadel Broadcasting are being absorbed by Cumulus Broadcasting. Since 1974 WBLM has been using and abusing their air-staff making them work for slave wages... One of those employees didn't know he would become a wealthy radio baron and neither did they. Most of the main staff and management have been there [Captain Herb Ivy, GM Mike Sambrook, and the rest of their voice trackers] and have never worked at any other station, that wont go far on a resume will it? Cumulus stock (CMLS traded on NASDAQ) closed at about $6 a share for common stock. Buy a piece of Maine Radio HISTORY. WBCN in Boston lasted some 40+ years, doesn't look like the Blimb, WBLM will make it that far.. Sad
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

Jeez, no wonder Herb won't return Bill Fox's calls. BTW, which Blimp jock became a wealthy radio baron?
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

I don't think he wants to be known. ::) it could drive up the cost of the property and could be considered as insider trading. But I am fairly sure it is someone who they abused and discarded. Isn't karma great?
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

The 107.5 frequency signed on the air in April of 1974, (then calling themselves Stereo 108) playing Beautiful Music during the day and Album Rock at night. The studios were in Litchfield, until Fuller & Jeffery moved it to the top of the hill in Auburn, the transmitter move was made to New Glouster, in 1983, where it sat until they sold that frequency (107.5) for the 102.9 frequency (the old WMTW, then later WHOM A 100Kw Frequency with the ten foot tower on the top of Mt Washington) 100Kw from the top of Mt Washington had the largest radio coverage in America blanketing 3 states. But the Fuller/Jeffery Group had to relocate the Tx tower to get the frequency, and they moved the studios to one city center Portland. Fuller/Jeffery were not dumb after all the movement they sold it quickly as the station's ratings started edging downward. Sadly Frank FM with a softer album rock format blows the blimp (maybe that is how they move that huge thing, now??) With the job market being as it is, I would not want to be employed at WBLM or their other station Q-97.9 WJBQ!
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

This post is so full of errors,it's hard to know where to begin.

The studios were moved from Litchfield to a slight incline on Washington Ave. in Auburn.The transmitter stayed in New Gloucester for quite a while. It was Ron Frizzell who moved it to Poland.

""they sold that frequency (107.5) for the 102.9 frequency (the old WMTW, then later WHOM A 100Kw Frequency with the ten foot tower on the top of Mt Washington)""

107.5 & 102.9 were frequency swaps between Fuller-Jeffery & Beacon Broadcasting,with Beacon getting financial consideration.WBLM moved to 102.9 & WTHT moved to 107.5 as Thunder 107 a CHR.

""the old WMTW, then later WHOM A 100Kw Frequency with the ten foot tower on the top of Mt Washington)""

What has this got to do with WBLM? WMTW then later WHOM is on 94.9 @ 48,000 watts and the tower is @ 46 feet.


""But the Fuller/Jeffery Group had to relocate the Tx tower to get the frequency,""

Get what frequency?

""Fuller/Jeffery were not dumb after all the movement they sold it quickly as the station's ratings started edging downward""

Sold what quickly?
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

The thing i never understood was the reason for the swap of 102.9 and 107.5 at all. 107.5 shortly upgraded to 100kw and has comparable coverage. So what was the point?
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

Spend a summer in Portland and you will understand the difference in signals. The co-channel interference is something Fuller wanted to get away from completely in the metro. Even at 100Kw, 107.5 gets plowed under some days. That said, obviously 107.5's signal is very good 99% of the time and a proven success.



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Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

yelloradio said:
Spend a summer in Portland and you will understand the difference in signals. The co-channel interference is something Fuller wanted to get away from completely in the metro. Even at 100Kw, 107.5 gets plowed under some days. That said, obviously 107.5's signal is very good 99% of the time and a proven success.
Click to expand...

I work in a downtown office building in Portland and have found 107.5 to have a consistantly better signal.
102.9 should be better with it's 100kw @ 1427 ft. and 24 miles away.107.5 is 100kw @ 928 ft. and 27 miles away.
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

The 102.9 signal never was WMTW! It was WGAN FM. It's a grandfathered "A", and it's on top of the WGME (formerly WGAN) tower in Raymond. One of the tallest towers in the country.
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

wthorne said:
The 102.9 signal never was WMTW! It was WGAN FM. It's a grandfathered "A", and it's on top of the WGME (formerly WGAN) tower in Raymond. One of the tallest towers in the country.
Click to expand...

This is not true! WMTW 102.9 FM was the first call sign assigned when that frequency was authorized by the F.C.C. The studios were in the Ricker estate in Poland Springs, they played beautiful music, the transmitter only remained on Mt Washington as long as WMTW owned it; their television Tx is still there, I know because I worked there. After it's first sale back before you all were born the second call sign was WHOM. It was first bought from WMTW and sold to Guy P. Gannet Broadcasting then owners of WGAN TV Ch 13 Portland ME. WMTW TV was not going to allow WGAN TV to use their Tx stick on Mt. Washington, that is the reason it is on CH 13 Tx tower now, which wile a tall stick with an elevator, it is in a bad location, the 102.9 frequency has never sounded the same since it left Mt. Washington!
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

Andy Taylor said:
This post is so full of errors,it's hard to know where to begin.

The studios were moved from Litchfield to a slight incline on Washington Ave. in Auburn.The transmitter stayed in New Gloucester for quite a while. It was Ron Frizzell who moved it to Poland.

""they sold that frequency (107.5) for the 102.9 frequency (the old WMTW, then later WHOM A 100Kw Frequency with the ten foot tower on the top of Mt Washington)""

107.5 & 102.9 were frequency swaps between Fuller-Jeffery & Beacon Broadcasting,with Beacon getting financial consideration.WBLM moved to 102.9 & WTHT moved to 107.5 as Thunder 107 a CHR.

""the old WMTW, then later WHOM A 100Kw Frequency with the ten foot tower on the top of Mt Washington)""

What has this got to do with WBLM? WMTW then later WHOM is on 94.9 @ 48,000 watts and the tower is @ 46 feet.


""But the Fuller/Jeffery Group had to relocate the Tx tower to get the frequency,""

Get what frequency?

""Fuller/Jeffery were not dumb after all the movement they sold it quickly as the station's ratings started edging downward""

Sold what quickly?
Click to expand...

When were you born? WBLM signed on in April of 1974, the studios & Tx were on the same road as CH 10 in Litchfield, in a mobile trailer! It almost went dark when the first owners went Bankrupt. Fuller & Jeffery bought it and one of the first things they did was move the studios to Washington Ave. in Auburn, the Tx remained in Litchfield several years while the studios were still in Auburn. I was working at the station as they moved the transmitter to a stick Ron Frizzel owned in New Gloucester but Fuller/Jeffery continued to own the station and they did the frequency change / purchase themselves, Ron Frizzel only rented WBLM space on their tower. other than that Ron Frizzel never owned any part of WBLM before 2000 (or ever) that I know about, and I was THERE, and I saw it and lived through it, Fuller/Jeffery remained owners until 2000.

As I corrected myself: WMTW 102.9 FM was the first call sign assigned when that frequency was authorized by the F.C.C. The studios were in the Ricker estate in Poland Springs, they played beautiful music, the transmitter only remained on Mt Washington as long as WMTW owned it; their television Tx is still there, I know because I worked there. After it's first sale back before you all were born the second call sign was WHOM. It was first bought from WMTW and sold to Guy P. Gannet Broadcasting then owners of WGAN TV Ch 13 Portland ME. WMTW TV was not going to allow WGAN TV to use their Tx stick on Mt. Washington, that is the reason WBLM is on CH 13 Tx tower now, which wile a tall stick with an elevator, it is in a bad location, the 102.9 frequency has never sounded the same since it left Mt. Washington!

Know so much? What was the reason they picked WBLM as call letter? I have heard lots of theories and thoughts on this but only one is true, and you would have to have worked there or know the history of this once great station to know the correct answer.

NO ERRORS just bad composition of a posting... and skipping over decades of time and the history of who owned what, and when in Maine Radio. FYI: Persky had only been at WBLM about 2 1/2 years before I worked there. Didn't post to argue about the past...

The future of the once grand and powerful WBLM is what I am talking about, and they don't even know it yet, or if they do they are ducking and covering or ignoring everything and hoping for the best the way any staff would do if they know. Watch and see for yourself.
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

I wouldn't even know where to begin.

102.9 was WGAN-FM prior to becoming the Blimp, because I listened and heard the transition for myself.

And 94.9 prior to WHOM was of course, WMTQ, playing the same jingles and same beautiful music as the old WWEL-FM, Medford-Boston. I know this to be true because I remember hearing this for myself. As a kid with a Realistic AM/FM/SW/VHF radio with homemade headphones, I used to marvel about how the WMTQ and WWEL-FM jingles were the very same ones. I don't go as far back to the WMTW-FM days prior to WMTQ. BTW, in North Conway NH, other then the bumper stickers that looked like an FM radio dial, showing the call letters WBLM 107 1/2 stuck on many stop signs throughout that area, I only remember WBNC AM 1050 and WMTQ as the only listenable stations I could pick up in back of the old family wagon.
Being a full blown radio geek as a kid, I was amazed to hear the soft elevator music coming in so perfectly in North Conway with Mt. Washington straight in front of us. Not even so much as a pop in reception from the windswept snow covered summit.

(BTW, I always thought WBLM was for "Brunswick, Lewiston Maine" but that's only what I believe it to mean. I could be wrong about this point.)
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

Does anyone know who owned 107.5 WTHT when it went to 100kw on a new tower in Poland?

WMTW TV no longer broadcast from Mt. Washington.On Feb.5 2002 they went on the air at a new site in Baldwin Maine.
http://www.fybush.com/site-020213.html

So what did " 'B L M" stand for in that Beautiful city of Lewiston Maine?

Pretty interesting about 102.9 & 94.9 both having used the WMTW & WHOM calls.
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

Somebody needs to pick up the Batphone and ask Donna Halper or Scott Fybush about this one. I've never before heard that WMTW/WHOM, etc. was on 102.9 at any time in the past.
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

Posts like ME Venture Capital's remind me why you should never believe anything you read on the internet. Unless of course, it comes from Fybush.com. I second the call for a Fybush smack-down! Radio trivia fact wrestling! Now that's a HD sub I'd listen to.....

And a big P.S. - I have been in the position the staff at Citadel Portland is in. New owners, new corporate block-heads. While I'm the first to speculate, I'd like to think we're all big enough to recognize we're talking about real people, with real jobs, who are real assets to the community. Whether or not you agree with Tim or Herb's programming decisions - this is a cluster that still knows what it means to be creative and recognizes the value of live radio. Let's hope The Cloud doesn't rain on their parade.
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

No smackdown coming from this corner...one of my favorite experiences is finding out I've been wrong about something, because it means I get to learn something new that I didn't know before.

But having said that: I've found nothing at all to support the idea that WMTW-FM/WHOM was ever on 102.9. Everything I can find going back to the start of the present license in 1958 has the facility on 94.9. (There were previous incarnations of FM on Mount Washington, of course, in the Armstrong/Shepard/Yankee Network/General Tire era from 1938-1948, but never on 102.9. That facility started out on the old FM band at 43.9 mc and was later at 98.1 and 100.5.)

There's lots of good stuff on WMTW-FM's early days at the bottom of this page from Norm Gagnon: http://www.ggninfo.com/wmtw1.htm

There was never any connection between either incarnation of WMTW on FM and 102.9. They were competitors at the beginning: 94.9 belonged to channel 8, while 102.9 was the FM outlet of WGAN 560/WGAN-TV 13, signing on in 1966 from the channel 13 tower in Gray. Its history is incredibly straighforward after that - from WGAN-FM to WTHT and then the swap with WBLM's 107.5 facility.
 
Re: Q-97.9 WJBQ & 102.9 WBLM "The Blimp" are Floting away on a Cumulus Cloud!

ray ting said:
Somebody needs to pick up the Batphone and ask Donna Halper or Scott Fybush about this one. I've never before heard that WMTW/WHOM, etc. was on 102.9 at any time in the past.
Click to expand...

Donna Halper...LoL. Now that's a name I havn't heard for a long time, thankfully. I'm off to the magical land of Google and/or Wikipedia to see what she's been up to.
 
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