Why is WJMJ's transmitter in Burlington? Excellent question.
While most of the Hartford area FM stations were licensed decades earlier, WJMJ didn't apply for their license until the mid-seventies. By that point in time there simply were no channels available that would work with a Hartford area transmitter site. The band back then had locals or semi-locals on 88.1, 88.5, 89.3, 89.9, 90.5, 91.3 and 91.7. Most of these stations had transmitters either in the immediate Hartford area or to the N, E or S of the city and all of these signals had to be protected. There was minimal overlap to the west of Hartford and research showed that they could operate from Johnnycake Mountain in Burlington as long as they used a directional antenna to protect WNHU which was first adjacent on 88.7.
Johnnycake Mountain was about as close as they could be to 2nd adjacent WRTC at Trinity and still get a decent signal into Hartford. At close to 1200' above sea level it made for a pretty good site although they do have problems in W. Hartford and Bloomfield caused by the shadow of Avon Mtn. So they run 6,200 watts in the main lobe with something like 400 watts off the back towards New Haven.
Prior to WJMJ the small parcel was the site of an abandoned state of CT fire tower which was taken down to make room for the WJMJ tower.
