WCRB should become a B1 FM

[fybush]

http://bostonradio.org/stations/1919

This page cites a 1948 launch for WLAW-FM and mentions the various call letter and power changes, including
the purchase of the station by Curt Gowdy in 1963 (also got the Lawrence-licensed 800).

Hmmmm...I don't know if that information is correct. I think the WLAW call letters left the airwaves with the purchase of WLAW 680AM by WNAC.

Maybe there was a 93.7 allotment that never got on the air?

I wrote most of the bostonradio.org article, and I stand by the information in it. Here's the 1950 Broadcasting Yearbook that shows WLAW-FM on the air (scroll down to page 69 of the PDF file):

http://davidgleason.com/Broadcastin...iles/101-200 Broadcasting Yearbook 1950-2.pdf

The WLAW call letters did indeed, as you say, leave the airwaves with the purchase of 680 in 1953. Because General Tire already owned a better FM facility (98.5) for WNAC-FM, and because the 93.7 facility was literally worthless, the WLAW-FM license was returned to the FCC, 93.7 went silent, and the frequency went vacant.

The current 93.7 dates only to 1960, when it was put on the air as WGHJ, later WCCM-FM, WCGY, WEGQ, WQSX and now WMKK. It has no connection to the original WLAW-FM except that it, too, eventually became a sister station to 680. That's not remarkable - by this point in the almost 90-year saga of Boston radio, almost every signal has been a sister station to almost every other one.

 

[Don Juan]

http://bostonradio.org/stations/1919

This page cites a 1948 launch for WLAW-FM and mentions the various call letter and power changes, including
the purchase of the station by Curt Gowdy in 1963 (also got the Lawrence-licensed 800).

Hmmmm...I don't know if that information is correct. I think the WLAW call letters left the airwaves with the purchase of WLAW 680AM by WNAC.

Maybe there was a 93.7 allotment that never got on the air?

I wrote most of the bostonradio.org article, and I stand by the information in it. Here's the 1950 Broadcasting Yearbook that shows WLAW-FM on the air (scroll down to page 69 of the PDF file):

http://davidgleason.com/Broadcastin...iles/101-200 Broadcasting Yearbook 1950-2.pdf

The WLAW call letters did indeed, as you say, leave the airwaves with the purchase of 680 in 1953. Because General Tire already owned a better FM facility (98.5) for WNAC-FM, and because the 93.7 facility was literally worthless, the WLAW-FM license was returned to the FCC, 93.7 went silent, and the frequency went vacant.

The current 93.7 dates only to 1960, when it was put on the air as WGHJ, later WCCM-FM, WCGY, WEGQ, WQSX and now WMKK. It has no connection to the original WLAW-FM except that it, too, eventually became a sister station to 680. That's not remarkable - by this point in the almost 90-year saga of Boston radio, almost every signal has been a sister station to almost every other one.

OK...You did the research...so I'll take your word for it. But my early memories of living in that area during that period don't seem to coincide. Oh well, something to research next time I am at the library. ;-)

 

[fybush]

OK...You did the research...so I'll take your word for it. But my early memories of living in that area during that period don't seem to coincide. Oh well, something to research next time I am at the library. ;-)

Please do...and if you come up with something we don't have in the Archives, I hope you'll share it with us. The more (and more accurate) information out there, the better!

 

[chrish]

Scotts research is 100% correct, I removed what was left of the old electric power service installation for WLAW-FM at the WRKO transmitter site during the 1995 site rebuild, the license information indicated that it was a 10 KW Western Electric.

The FM transmitter was removed to install a 10 KW Continental AM for backup for the
50 KW Western Electric AM in place before the Continental 317-C, later updated to a C-1 the Harris MW-50 and Harris DX-50

I also remember hearing the call letters WGHJ-FM on 93.7 when I got my first FM radio

 

[DanStrassberg]

Hmmmm...I don't know if that information is correct. I think the WLAW call letters left the airwaves with the purchase of WLAW 680AM by WNAC.
Maybe there was a 93.7 allotment that never got on the air?

It all fits together very well, as I explained in an earlier post in this thread that you apparently failed to read. G-T acquired the 680 frequency from Hildreth and Rogers in 1953 or '54. By that time, WLAW-FM had come and gone. It was on the air from Burlington starting in 1948 (not long after WLAW moved from Andover to Burlington) until shortly before 680 was sold to G-T--a period of six years, tops--maybe less. How many sources do you need?

In the original table of allocations for the 88-108-MHz FM band, 93.7 was allocated to Lawrence. Since the frequency became vacant when WLAW-FM left the air, it was natural that an application for an FM that would be licensed to Lawrence would be for 93.7. Thus, WCCM's application for such a station (originally, WGHJ) was indeed for 93.7. Until its move to Peabody many years later, the 93.7 station (by then, no longer WGHJ) transmitted from the WCCM (AM) 800 site and not from Burlington, however.

 

[aerie]

Does anyone know *where* in Andover the WLAW transmitter was located? I believe I saw the address once as River Road. I live in that general area and would like to see if there are any remains of the site.

 

[DanStrassberg]

Does anyone know *where* in Andover the WLAW transmitter was located? I believe I saw the address once as River Road. I live in that general area and would like to see if there are any remains of the site.

I don't know where it was but I believe that, at the end, there were three towers. (I think that, while at the site, WLAW had gone from 500W-D to 1 kW-D to 1 kW-D/500W-N DA-N, to 5 kW-D/1 kW-N DA-N. to 5 kW-U DA-N. If that's true, that's a rather prodigious number of power increases over a span of just 10 years (IIRC, WLAW signed on in 1937). Of those ~10 years, the last four or so years were probably after the station had filed for (and very possibly, had been granted) the move to Burlington and increase to 50 kW-U DA-1. (I assume that the actual construction of the Burlington plant was delayed by World War II, however.)

Anyhow, well over a decade ago on one of the earliest Let's Talk About Radio shows on WJIB, I heard Bob Bittner, Scott Fybush, and Garrett Wollman discussing the history of several Boston-area AMs with a guest--an elderly gent who was a real AM buff. Sorry; I did not catch his name. Anyhow, IIRC, he said he had found the WLAW site in a low-lying area of Andover near the Merrimac River. Apparently. the neighborhood is residential and is subject to occasional flooding. He said he found at least one of the three tower bases. I assume the towers were self-supporting, but I don't know that for sure.

 

[Don Juan]

Does anyone know *where* in Andover the WLAW transmitter was located? I believe I saw the address once as River Road. I live in that general area and would like to see if there are any remains of the site.

When I was growing up, my family had a map of Andover....and in West Andover was "Wood Hill" and the map indicated this was where WLAW was. So, it appears that WCRB/99.5 is close to the original WLAW location (that is, before the move to Burlington).

 

[aerie]

Thanks Dan and Don: I'll have to take a tour of some of the side streets in the area to see what I can find. River road is a through street that runs along the Merrimack from I-93, but there are several side roads going downhill towards the river from it. The WCRB location is still a possibility, though I tend to favor the riverside location.

 

[chrish]

If anyone is interested I have the original application day and night patterns for WLAW
680 Andover site but could never figure out where the actual transmitter site was
located, I suspect it was somewhere in the vicinity of where I 93 crosses the Merrimack
River on the south bank

 

[Don Juan]

Hmmmm...I don't know if that information is correct. I think the WLAW call letters left the airwaves with the purchase of WLAW 680AM by WNAC.
Maybe there was a 93.7 allotment that never got on the air?

It all fits together very well, as I explained in an earlier post in this thread that you apparently failed to read. How many sources do you need?

I tend to just gloss over your posts Dan...and not read them. ;-)

In the original table of allocations for the 88-108-MHz FM band, 93.7 was allocated to Lawrence. Since the frequency became vacant when WLAW-FM left the air, it was natural that an application for an FM that would be licensed to Lawrence would be for 93.7. Thus, WCCM's application for such a station (originally, WGHJ) was indeed for 93.7.

I believe the Gowdy incarnation for 93.7 started with only 1KW before it's jump to 50kw.

1 KW on FM is kinda hard to imagine in this day and age.

 

[DanStrassberg]

I believe the Gowdy incarnation for 93.7 started with only 1KW before it's jump to 50kw.
1 KW on FM is kinda hard to imagine in this day and age.

Really! A very substantial portion of the FMs on the air in the US today operate at powers considerably less than 1 kW! I guess you've never heard of translators--in most of the country, the scourge of the FM band. And you needn't count the additional large number of on-channel boosters that also operate at low powers and whose coverage blends into that of their primary stations.

 

[Don Juan]

I believe the Gowdy incarnation for 93.7 started with only 1KW before it's jump to 50kw.
1 KW on FM is kinda hard to imagine in this day and age.

Really! A very substantial portion of the FMs on the air in the US today operate at powers considerably less than 1 kW! I guess you've never heard of translators--in most of the country, the scourge of the FM band. And you needn't count the additional large number of on-channel boosters that also operate at low powers and whose coverage blends into that of their primary stations.

I've heard of translators...although I don't consider them to be real radio stations. ;-)

And a "low power booster" is much different than a single 1kw FM going it all alone.