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WBTY (105.3), BENTLEY UNIVERSITY & WNBY (540), NEWBURY COLLEGE

E

Early Byrd

Regarding WBTY (105.3 FM), Bentley University, Waltham and WNBY (540 AM), Newbury College, Brookline: Has anyone ever heard these stations in an over-the-air capacity (as opposed to streaming online)? What's the coverage of the Bentley station like?

I'm surprised that a school still keeps just an AM alone, as evidentally is the case with WNBY. I assume it's a carrier current operation that you can hear if you're in or close to the buildings on Fisher Hill in Brookline. Any other info?
 
WBTY's coverage should be better than it is, last time I was at Bentley (literally in the parking lot) I could still hear the pirate blaring reggae on 105.3 instead of the WBTY broadcast.

I was pumped that they were booming with their FM (they were carrier current AM when I was there), only to find out it was just a pirate hijacking the airwaves.
 
When I was a grad student at Emerson (79-80)
they were located in the Back Bay, and I spent some
time at carrier current WECB on 640. It was run on a
tight format clock, it was great training, and it was alot
of fun..
 
I installed WBTY's studios in ~2000 and worked on WNBY's setup back in 2004 or 2005...something like that. Last time I looked, WNBY's carrier-current transmitters were not operational and there were no plans to fix them; the cost/benefit analysis didn't justify it, and there were more concerns about trying to get the station to be webcasting.

WBTY's radiating-cable FM setup was after my gig there, but like WNBY's carrier-current, the system...like all CCAM and RCFM systems...is designed to be in-building listening only. Exterior reception is going to be measured in feet, usually. Maybe a few tens of feet, but that's it. A pirate wouldn't know about WBTY and probably wouldn't care anyways...but WOULD also blow away the weaker (and legal) WBTY signal.

I don't want to speak too much for WBTY or WNBY, but I know the kids at WTBU (Boston University) don't really care about their 640AM CC and 89.3FM RC systems; all the listeners are either through the web or through the audio on one of the TV channels on the campus cable system. I'm not surprised. While it is perfectly POSSIBLE to have a viable Part 15 AM or FM transmission system...WLOY at Loyola College, Baltimore comes immediately to mind...it is very difficult and more expensive than most people think. You have to "over build" the heck out of the system to get through the rampant RFI on the AM band from cellphone chargers, CFL bulbs, etc...and the crummy tuners in most non-car radios has a hard time getting the inherently-weak FM signals from a Part 15 FM system.

BTW, it's been a few years, but I think Weck-bah (WECB) is still around but only in webcast form.
 
I think it's legal to have a free radiator FM station as long as the signal is below Part 15 levels at the property line.

It's not fair to have to deal with interference from a pirate several miles away that could care less if it's interfering with a legal station (whether or not the legal station has a license or is a Part 15 unlicensed station)
 
i didnt even know Bentley had a station even though its carrier cable. Ya learn something new every day.
 
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