Question about waaf transmitter

[Jimmy128]

Can somebody show me a map of the former WAAF coverage map from Paxton when they were 20,000 watts?

And why would they move their transmitter and go to 9,500 watts? I know that it's closer to Boston, but I used to get the old WAAF just fine in North Shore.

And if the new transmitter is so great, then why do they need WKAF? It seems like a bonehead move. I read that the old transmitter would get into Vermont & NY.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

And why would they move their transmitter and go to 9,500 watts? I know that it's closer to Boston, but I used to get the old WAAF just fine in North Shore.

And if the new transmitter is so great, then why do they need WKAF? It seems like a bonehead move. I read that the old transmitter would get into Vermont & NY.

I don't have a map, but they desperately wanted to improve their signal in metro-Boston. That's where they believe that the money in New England is. They want it to be a Boston station. There's very little revenue for WAAF among all the pine trees of Vermont or upstate NY or the Berkshires compared to metro Boston.

The Boylston site apparently looked better "on paper" for improving their signal in Boston than how it actually turned out to work. The reason that they bought WKAF is because the Boylston site didn't get their signal into Boston as well as they had expected.

However, WAAF from the Boylston site still comes in *slightly* better in parts of metro Boston than the Paxton site did, so I'm guessing that's why they're staying with it. It's all about trying to cover Boston for them.

 

[ThatGuyOnTheRadio]

Can somebody show me a map of the former WAAF coverage map from Paxton when they were 20,000 watts?

And why would they move their transmitter and go to 9,500 watts? I know that it's closer to Boston, but I used to get the old WAAF just fine in North Shore.

And if the new transmitter is so great, then why do they need WKAF? It seems like a bonehead move. I read that the old transmitter would get into Vermont & NY.

http://www.ontheradio.net/waaf/map

 

[Jimmy128]

Thanks for the map.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

why would they move their transmitter and go to 9,500 watts? I know that it's closer to Boston, but I used to get the old WAAF just fine in North Shore.

And if the new transmitter is so great, then why do they need WKAF? It seems like a bonehead move. I read that the old transmitter would get into Vermont & NY.

Radio is a business, and the "killer" signal from Paxton didn't help, since they got exactly zero advertising dollars from Vermont, NY or anywhere else outside the Boston and Worcester metros. It's called "going where the money is." When they moved to the Boylston site, the antenna was mounted higher up, so the power had to drop to maintain the same ERP.

And just because YOU got WAAF from Paxton at your location doesn't mean others didn't have trouble with it. They could not move WAAF close enough to Boston to completely avoid shadowing effects in the inner metro, so WKAF was added to fill in those areas.

 

[Mattcatlover456]

The old signal map looks just like the new map so then which one is stronger

 

[WNTIRadio]

WAAF is pretty far out from the city... about the same distance as to Portsmouth, NH from the center of Boston.

107.3 having a strong signal in the center of Boston is a pipe dream, Paxton or the current site. I do contract work for another of the class B outside of Boston signals, which is closer to the city and the wall of concrete and steel is a real pain to deal with.

97.7 is a necessity for WAAF.

 

[DanStrassberg]

97.7 is a necessity for WAAF.

But apparently Entercom didn't discover that until all the money to move 107.3 from Asnebumskit (Paxton) to Stiles (Boylston) had been spent. So they bought 97.7 for $30 million, which was a lot of money for a Class A signal--even though it is a quite good signal for a Class A. (Today, WKAF would not fetch anything like $30 million.) With 97.7 to serve much of Boston and the inner suburbs, the large expenditure to move 107.3 closer to Boston can't be justified. The combination of 107.3 from Paxton and 97.7 from Milton would be just as good and would have cost $-millions less. The clowns responsible for the 107.3 move should have been canned.

 

[pqgeorge]

A lot of people forget that WAAF was also very popular with the college crowd especially in the Springfield area including Westfield, and Amherst, back in the day, in the 70's and 80's because of that killer signal. Many concerts were promoted by WAAF at the Springfield Civic Center as well as events in Worcester and Boston. It was all I listened to at Westfield State College back in the 70's. A lot of ads also were aired from the Springfield area as well. Today, since they moved to the Channel 27 tower, practically no signal covers the Springfield/Amherst area. If they got the 97.7 signal sooner, they would have blanketed Boston just fine on 97.7 and not had to move from Asnebumskit. It would have saved them the major cost of putting 107.3 in Boylston and keeping that 6 state coverage intact in Paxton. The nice thing about Paxton was, you could drive from Boston to the Berkshires and never lose it. Dumping Paxton was a BIG mistake. Unfortunately now, they are stuck.

 

[JustinT]

The nice thing about Paxton was, you could drive from Boston to the Berkshires and never lose it. Dumping Paxton was a BIG mistake. Unfortunately now, they are stuck.

I'm curious; if WAAF lost so much coverage to the west when it changed sites, is there the potential for any other station to upgrade in that direction? Surely 106.9 WCCC and 107.7 WGNA present some barriers, but could a class A be squeezed into Springfield on 107.5? Or at least a translator? :-\

 

[pqgeorge]

The nice thing about Paxton was, you could drive from Boston to the Berkshires and never lose it. Dumping Paxton was a BIG mistake. Unfortunately now, they are stuck.

I'm curious; if WAAF lost so much coverage to the west when it changed sites, is there the potential for any other station to upgrade in that direction? Surely 106.9 WCCC and 107.7 WGNA present some barriers, but could a class A be squeezed into Springfield on 107.5? Or at least a translator? :-\

Good question. I do know that since WAAF sacrificed their western coverage, there have been some changes with other full powered stations that make it impossible for WAAF to return to Paxton full-time again. Paxton is still a backup but only available for emergency use. They would have to return to Boylston.

 

[Mattcatlover456]

when did they move anyways

 

[Eli Polonsky]

A lot of people forget that WAAF was also very popular with the college crowd especially in the Springfield area including Westfield, and Amherst, back in the day, in the 70's and 80's because of that killer signal. Many concerts were promoted by WAAF at the Springfield Civic Center as well as events in Worcester and Boston. It was all I listened to at Westfield State College back in the 70's. A lot of ads also were aired from the Springfield area as well.

It's no longer the '70s and '80s. Since those years, Springfield, Amherst and the Pioneer Valley area have been covered for rock by WAQY, WLZX, WRSI (AAA), Hartford's WCCC, and others. With WAAF's studios now being in Boston (Brighton) and their focus on being the rock station for the major Boston market, they're not going to bother trying to compete for the much smaller amount of revenue 80 miles away with stations that are actually located in the western MA area.

 

[HHH]

97.7 is a necessity for WAAF.

But apparently Entercom didn't discover that until all the money to move 107.3 from Asnebumskit (Paxton) to Stiles (Boylston) had been spent. So they bought 97.7 for $30 million, which was a lot of money for a Class A signal--even though it is a quite good signal for a Class A. (Today, WKAF would not fetch anything like $30 million.) With 97.7 to serve much of Boston and the inner suburbs, the large expenditure to move 107.3 closer to Boston can't be justified. The combination of 107.3 from Paxton and 97.7 from Milton would be just as good and would have cost $-millions less. The clowns responsible for the 107.3 move should have been canned.

Yes, someone was sold a bill of goods about the Boylston site. There is almost no improvement around most of metro Boston vs the Paxton site. They certainly confirmed this themselves when they bought 97.7. As you say, if they retained Paxton and put on 97.7 that would have been a killer combination. As you know, Major Armstrong personally selected the Paxton site as the spot for some of the earliest FM transmissions. He knew what he was doing!

 

[WNTIRadio]

Paxton is no longer a licensed AUX site for WAAF, so they can't even use it in an emergency.

 

[KML0224]

Funny...I could never get a clean signal of 97.7 FM anywhere in downtown Boston. I guess the old HOT 97.7 wasn't so hot after all!

 

[Jeff Berlin]

When I was on WAAF in the late 70's the following stations weren't yet playing rock: WAQY Springfield, WGIR-FM Manchester, WHJY Providence, WPYX Albany. Once WAAF's Paxton signal got ratings in 10 markets, including Albany NY, Hartford CT, Providence RI, and Manchester NH.

You could receive WAAF's signal across all of Massachusetts - literally from Pittsfield to Provincetown. That's why the local music show is "Bay State Rock" - instead of something focused only on Boston.

So yeah, out in the dorms of Western MA the only choices for rock were WAAF and WCCC. WHCN's signal didn't really make up that far.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Funny...I could never get a clean signal of 97.7 FM anywhere in downtown Boston. I guess the old HOT 97.7 wasn't so hot after all!

What are you using for a radio? I get 97.7 well most everywhere in town except for just a few spots, and for its old "Hot 97.7" format, it was loud and clear from Blue Hill into the Boston urban neighborhoods south of downtown Boston where the main audience was. It was a perfect location for that format.

 

[KML0224]

I was on day trips, so I had either a Sony Walkman or something comparable from Panasonic. Even in LOCAL/CITY mode, the receiver could barely pick them up in downtown Boston. It had almost no chance in DX mode with the overload from the Pru.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

I was on day trips, so I had either a Sony Walkman or something comparable from Panasonic. Even in LOCAL/CITY mode, the receiver could barely pick them up in downtown Boston. It had almost no chance in DX mode with the overload from the Pru.

Practically all Walkman-type radios have junk tuners nowadays, even formerly quality brands like Sony and Panasonic. They've gone way downhill since a few decades ago. The only Walkman-type portable I know of with a half-decent FM tuner nowadays is the Insignia HD portable, in addition to HD it gets better analog reception than any other Walkman-type radio I know of these days. Mine has no problem with a good analog signal on WKAF in most of downtown Boston and it gets it in HD in many areas as well.