WCAP off air

[beantownradio25]

Unless WCAP could get an FM translator for the Lowell metro, is replacing the transmitter REALLY a wise investment in the long run? A shrinking minority of the general population even listens to AM Radio anymore. Why deal with all that interference and static in 2013? I see FM translators as the only way small and mid-sized AM stations will be able to survive over the next decade or so. AM Radio is becoming more obsolete by the year...

 

[Eli Polonsky]

WCAP is back on with low power again. I was in Lowell tonight, it was loud and clear there of course, but it started oscillating with WOFX Troy, NY only by Routes 495 and 93 just outside Lowell, and it was pretty much gone by Route 128/95. I normally get it fairly well here in Somerville at night, it's inaudible now under WOFX and other distant 980's.

 

[raccoonradio]

>>I see FM translators as the only way small and mid-sized AM stations will be able to survive

Yesterday while in Merrimack Valley I noticed WCCM 1110 Salem NH running news, etc. It's a daytimer, etc. Signal pointed toward northwest, etc. They are on full time though if you're one of the few
who have HD radio--on the HD 2 of the 102.9 translator of WNNW 800. That AM 800 has a fairly
good signal, but people want FM. So you have the main signal of 102.9 as "Power" with the
news/talk of 1110 on the HD 2. (they also have some Spanish language news/talk on WCEC 1490
I believe)

http://power800am.com/ (the Power 102.9 logo is centered and slightly bigger!)

 

[thirdendorsed]

The Harris was purchased new in 1980 when the station went full time 5000 watts. The Bauer I believe was the original transmitter that the station signed on with at the former Dracut location in 1951.

My understanding from a deceased former chief engineer is the original transmitter was a Raytheon and the Cohen boys bought the Bauer off the floor of an NAB convention in Las Vegas. It was assembled during the convention as some kind of demonstration to prove how easy the kit was to build and they basically bought it for about what it would have cost to ship it back to Bauer HQ.

WCAP also, according to the deceased engineer (he wasn't the chief operator because, he says, they used the ticket of one of the brothers to avoid paying him more), lost several days of broadcasting in 78 or 79 due to a lightening strike because a guy hired as a temporary announcer forgot to "home" the step-sequence remote control after taking readings. Mr. Late Chief Operator used to chuckle when relating that one because the temp who didn't know how put the remote back in a neutral position after taking readings proudly displayed his first phone during his short tenure.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Sounds like WCAP is back to full power, or at least something close. I could get them, though weak, in Somerville, Cambridge, Boston in the car last night.

 

[thirdendorsed]

WCAP had no choice but to fix the transmitter. All those AM radios just waiting for Khmer programming

 

[frnkp2000]

LOL!!! We thought that would happen by 1990! Oops...bad call.

 

[WNTIRadio]

@NHRadio... yeah, I meant WCEC. Get those calls confused for some reason, all the time.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

Unless WCAP could get an FM translator for the Lowell metro, is replacing the transmitter REALLY a wise investment in the long run? A shrinking minority of the general population even listens to AM Radio anymore. Why deal with all that interference and static in 2013? I see FM translators as the only way small and mid-sized AM stations will be able to survive over the next decade or so. AM Radio is becoming more obsolete by the year...

It's really easy to armchair-quarterback when you don't have your life savings invested in the station...which, when it's off the air, is bringing in no money. And you can't program an FM translator independently. The very nature of the service is that it rebroadcasts another signal. AM may be dying, but it's not going away tomorrow.

However, there's nothing in the law or FCC rules that says the owners have to buy a *new* transmitter.

 

[LA_Guy]

WCAP signed on in the early 1950s from Dracut at 1000 watts non directional, daytime only with a Raytheon RA-1000 transmitter, which became an auxiliary back in the mid 1960s. The Bauer that WCAP got was a kit that was built by a Kelly Girl at the NAB that year. Ike Cohan bought it off the floor. When WCAP moved to their present site they took the Bauer with them and left the (functioning) Raytheon in Dracut for an auxiliary site. I was the last one to use the Raytheon back in 1984 when I took the Lowell site down for maintenance and put Dracut on. It still sounded great. After that Ike sold the tower to Time Warner cable and the Raytheon was scrapped.