Heard W234AL in Lowell yesterday in my car on 93. Decent signal as far as Salem, NH. From radio-locator, their antenna appears to be on the WLLH tower along the river in Lowell. I wonder if there will be a second translator to serve Lawrence. I always found it an interesting situation with the AM being licensed to both cities and having transmitters in each.
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W234al//wllh
- Thread starter aerie
- Start date
Double City ID's
They had an ID at one time: "WLLH, Lowell & Lawrence...America's ONLY station transmitting from TWO cities!"
They had an ID at one time: "WLLH, Lowell & Lawrence...America's ONLY station transmitting from TWO cities!"
What exactly does it mean that the two relatively close transmitters are "synchronized". I think WBZ and WBZA also said they were "synchronized". I figured it was something to keep the two transmitters from interfering with each other, but I've noticed when driving on a back road between Lowell and Lawrence through Dracut and Methuen that the two 1400 transmitters do make all kinds of weird noise on my car radio.
a FM radio will always detect the strongest signal and reject the weaker, which is why on FM in fringe areas where there could be overlap you hear one or the other, going back and forth but never two on top of each other. In that situation all you have to do is adjust for any delay in moving the audio from point a to b and you can do that with buffering in Winamp if you are going to use a Barrix Box to get the audio point to point.
AM is different, the signals will Hetrodyne and you can't get a clean sound out of them. I don't know how they synchronized the LLH AM's, but I thought that thee was some issue with them and the FCC over 2 transmitters.... and that program authority was never issued/documented for that 2 transmitter arrangement
Back in the '70s I visited WLLH in Lowell....I remember they were using (IIRC) a Gates BC-1 Series transmitter....and there was a rack of "processing" gear next to it-- with a full page of instructions for the operator-on-duty...regarding "phase adjustment"...??!
The guy who was showing me around TRIED to explain how the system worked.....but I remember walking out of the place still shaking my head....!!
My guess is that the WBZ/WBZA setup was somewhat different from the WLLH operation -- figuring the signal overlap would be stronger from WLLH, given the 2 cities are much closer together than Boston and Springfield...plus, WBZ was (and still IS -- ummm, sometimes....!!) running 50 kw while WBZA was only 1kw....BOTH WLLH transmitters are/were 1kw...
Interesting concept, nonetheless...albeit something from broadcasting's past -- not too likely to see another AM attempt this feat today.....
The guy who was showing me around TRIED to explain how the system worked.....but I remember walking out of the place still shaking my head....!!
My guess is that the WBZ/WBZA setup was somewhat different from the WLLH operation -- figuring the signal overlap would be stronger from WLLH, given the 2 cities are much closer together than Boston and Springfield...plus, WBZ was (and still IS -- ummm, sometimes....!!) running 50 kw while WBZA was only 1kw....BOTH WLLH transmitters are/were 1kw...
Interesting concept, nonetheless...albeit something from broadcasting's past -- not too likely to see another AM attempt this feat today.....
The River 92.5 will soon be doing something similar. Another signal also on 92.5 coming from the shared WAZN transmitter site Lexington/Belmont
Maybe I can shed some light on the synchronous operation, as I worked there for 4 years in the 1980s (1985-89) as a jock, music director and program director! Bear with me, as I'm writing this from memory and not documented facts in front of me.
WLLH Lowell and Lawrence was granted the synchronous license sometime in the 1930s, during their early years of operation. As the years progressed, many synchronous stations gave up those authorities, but WLLH hung onto theirs. "Grandfathered in". The license actually read "Lowell and Lawrence" thus the dual ID. During my first year or so there, the ID was rotated, "Lowell and Lawrence", "Lawrence and Lowell". It was later determined that since our studio was in Lowell, we would stay with the "Lowell and Lawrence." No one at the FCC wanted to commit to an answer as to whether we were allowed to flip the cities, so we played it "safe".
How it worked: Two separate transmitters, one in Lowell (Joan Fabrics building on Dutton/Broadway, later by the river) and one in Lawrence, the address escapes me. There was also a full size, lighted tower with each transmitter in each city. In the studio, the operator on duty (WLLH Jock) was responsible for THREE sets of transmitter readings: WLLH Lowell, WLLH Lawrence, and WSSH-FM, Lowell/Boston (99.5). There were three sets of remote controls, and three modulation monitors, thus we had to take three sets of transmitter readings every two hours. Audio processing for Lowell and Lawrence went through the same chain. We had an Audimax, a Volumax, AND an Optimod driving both transmitters. Oh, and don't forget the Orban reverb. (IMHO, we were the best sounding AM on the dial!) We also had to check tower lights for all 3 towers and notify the FAA of any burned out lights, which was a rarity, because the towers were well maintained. A lot of responsibility for an AM jock, but you get used to it! AM and FM had separate engineers, but each would pitch in to help the other when needed.
Synchronization: The transmitters were never PERFECTLY synchronized. But you could come very close! IIRC the engineer(s) would tune the transmitters every few months, and someone would take field strength readings along Route 133 between Lowell and Andover, and up and down 495. I had this wonderful duty ONE time with the field strength meter. They paid me TWICE what I was making as a jock to go out and do it!
Lots of work it was with the old mobile bag phone and writing readings on a clipboard! No matter how close you could tune them, and the engineer almost came dead on ONE TIME, there would always be that "hash", kind of a pulsing, swirling sound in the signal when you were midway between them, say on I-495 in Methuen/Andover.AM Stereo: WLLH fully intended on broadcasting in C-QUAM stereo, however try as they did, Motorola could not make it work on a synchronous arrangement in their test labs. Our studio, when it moved to 40-44 Church St. in 1986 (?) was completely wired for stereo: cart machines, turntables, production, the whole deal, even the newsroom!! We even had "AM Stereo 14" jingles made that sadly never aired. I do have copies of them somewhere. (WSSH had moved to Woburn by this time, but still did morning news from our production studio, because of their COL, Lowell. WSSH also maintained a phone number with us. I think it was "Line 5"
) Later, under the country format, WLLH simulcast it's overnight jocks with WORC 1310 in Worcester, which was a sister station, and THEY were in stereo! ("simulated" stereo overnight, since we fed them on a 15kHz phone line which was mono.) The jock had an interesting arrangement there, as the board had a "utility" channel. That would feed the WORC line, and the cart machines were split: 3 fed WLLH, (in "program") and 3 fed WORC. The generic "AM country" jingle would be played in one machine which would be "double-punched" in UTIL and PGM to feed both stations simultaneously. Weather was done live by the jock, kind of a regional type forecast not mentioning the temp, etc. in any specific city. Worcester would get their spots and IDs, and Lowell would get theirs, all timed out and clean as you please. The two stations had identical jingle packages, and the jock had to work with 2 program logs. It was such an interesting and innovative time for us! Recalling all these memories, I could probably jump right in now and do a shift, even though I haven't been in the place in 27 years! I STILL remember the format clock too. Strange how some things just stay with you.
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The move was 1986. Here is a tour of the WLLH/WSSH Studios in the Joan Fabrics building in Lowell. To my surprise, there's even a spot playing with my voice on it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPwaExfKigk
Was that in what is now the Hamilton-Canal District?
I believe that's what it may be called now. The Joan Fabrics building was on the corner of Broadway & Dutton Street.
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