L
Laurence Glavin
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According to Allaccess.com, Steven Wendell plans to purchase WGAW-AM 1340 in Gardner, MA. He also plans to start up an AM station in Jaffrey, NH. Here's a guy who apparently has not given up on AM radio.
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Good for him. Hopefully the new NH signal will rimshot into the Athol-Orange no-mans land occupied by that 700 am signal whose call letters seem to change yearly.
The New Hampshire permit actually expired in 2009, it just hasn't been removed from the FCC database. There were some legal issues with building the tower site, and some challenges by WLIE. When the permit expired in August 2009, WLIE applied to upgrade within a couple of weeks, which pretty much eliminates any chance of the station ever being built.
It was a 250 watt station days, 330 watts night with a 3-tower array.
It was a 250 watt station days, 330 watts night with a 3-tower array.
The new 540 is licensed to Jaffrey, NH, 250 watts day, 330 watts night. The application has been kicked around for 8+ years now... kicked around by the FCC mostly due to the objection of co-channel WLIE-540 in Islip, Long Island. Jaffrey had about 2,800 people, and nothing else is around it. - There's more history... about 10 years ago, Wendell applied for a new station in Rockland County, NY (perhaps Suffern or Nanuet) on 550. That died after it was objected to by WLIE-540. (may have been WLUX at that time). Wendell also had a CP for Raymond, Maine on 670, which has died. Both 670-Maine and 540-Jaffrey are/were 3 towers. 540-Jaffrey's site is quite a distance from Center Jaffrey, but the signal is beamed to the town in the daytime, but not as much do, at nighttime. At least WGAW-1340-Gardner is an existing station; which has often been used to simulcast a Leominster-Fitchburg station (1280, I think?). Did you know that WGAW was once owned by the ASher family, along with WJDA and WESX? That was for a short time in the mid-60's.
I stand corrected... Wendell says in his WGAW application that he's currently awaiting a tolling decision on both of his New Hampshire CP's... I see the tolling info and petition for reconsideration for WXNH, but from the FCC info it looks like the permit for WZNH (780 watts day, 400 watts night, also from 3 towers) has expired.
Anastos bought the station in 2003 for $235,000, and this time around it'll go for $150,000.
Bob, I didn't know that!
Anastos bought the station in 2003 for $235,000, and this time around it'll go for $150,000.
Bob, I didn't know that!
JIBGUY said:
The 550 near Rockland County (WKNJ, I believe) was to be licensed to a community in New Jersey, right over the state line from Rockland County. I can't remember the name of the NJ town, though. Wendell's misadventures with that CP went on for much more than a decade--14 years, if memory serves. When the CP was in its death throes, Wendell located a consulting engineer who claimed (still does) that he can top-load AM towers to an electrical height at least twice as great as their physical height. Armed with that fairy tale (at least the FCC seems to believe it is a fairy tale because I don't think they have ever granted any apps that use the technique--although a 580 station somewhere in AZ may be using it), Wendell filed to modify the WKNJ CP to specify a diplex with the 910 station that is licensed to a community IN Rockland (I think that may be WRKL).
I'm pretty sure that Wendell's series of apps for Raymond Maine were for 650--NOT 670. When that CP expired unbuilt and WBIX (now WQOM) moved out of its Mt Wayte Ave site in downtown Framingham, WSRO, which is co-channel with Wendell's various proposed and unbuilt Raymond operations, applied to go directional and increase to 1.5 kW-D/60W-N. WSRO's app seems to be hung up at the FCC--perhaps because of fears that it would cause prohibited daytime overlap with WRKO.
The AZ station that is using the weird top-loading scheme that I mentioned in my previous posting is KSAZ Marana, which runs 5 kW-D/390W N DA-N (three towers). The CDBS records for KSAZ show that the towers are 80 degrees physically but are top loaded to 204 degrees. The efficiency does not bear out the claim of an effective height of 204 degrees, however. The nighttime (DA) efficiency is consistent with an electrical height only marginally greater than the 80 degree physical height. The daytime (ND) efficiency suggests an electrical height greater than 90 degrees (maybe 135 degrees or so), but nowhere near 204 degrees.
[quote Did you know that WGAW was once owned by the ASher family, along with WJDA and WESX? That was for a short time in the mid-60's.
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Bob, if that was the case, did the Rowe family (long time owners of WSRO, Marlboro) sell WGAW to the Asher family, and then buy it back? Judge Rowe owned it in the early 60s and his son Douglas had it in the 1990s. I know that as a fact.
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Bob, if that was the case, did the Rowe family (long time owners of WSRO, Marlboro) sell WGAW to the Asher family, and then buy it back? Judge Rowe owned it in the early 60s and his son Douglas had it in the 1990s. I know that as a fact.
The only reason I beliweve that the Asher family owed WGAW was back in 1965, I caught WGAW while DX'ing (in New Jersey!), wrote for a QSL Card, and got a letter response from WGAW confirming reception. The letterhead was the exact same logo as what WJDA and WESX had... the red slim call-letters several horizontal slim black lines through the call letters, the lines shifted slightly left-center. That same logo can be seen in Donna Halper's book, where such logo is on the WJDA building behind the image of Mr. Asher. - Also in the mid 1960's, the U.S.Postal Service experimented with straight-line postmarks, instead of the wavy lines usually seen. Those straight line postmarks looked so similar to WJDA's, WESX's, WGAW's logo. BTW, the straight line postmarks were discontinued because black ink would glob up on the left end of the postmark and soak into the envelope's contents. So straight-line postmarks ended soon after, but WJDA, WESX and WGAW live on!
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