Has anyone contacted the station?
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
WMEX
- Thread starter Motown
- Start date
Right, but that was also the weekend of The Blizard of '26, with all the station power outages, so it could be either cause related.
Changing music usually doesn't change the audio chain* unless someone "changes the settings because they think it will sound better." Not having access to their equipment (I doubt any one on this site does) I can only speculate based on experience. I doubt it's a component since usually critical equipment should be protected by a UPS, I doubt the weather was a factor. Since the distortion is on both the AM and the Translator I would look at the settings on equipment before the "split" to the separate STLs. Some stations use a FM receiver at the AM site and get their audio from the translator, if so fix the FM and the AM should be fixed too.
*They could have ripped some poor quality CDs or a driver needs updated on the PC / server that plays the music.
There is a new owner and a new program director. I was speculating that maybe with the music and formatting changes they brought in, they wanted the station to have a “brighter” sound that would “stand out on the dial” more. Audio compression and overall loudness was definitely increased, maybe unwittingly past the point of causing distortion.
This is all very sad. WMEX is truly a radio institution here.
In the late 1950s, this is where the Richmond brothers switched the popular station including legendary sports organist John Kiley…to one of the very first-in-the-nation rock n roll radio stations. Everything changed forever on Boston radio.
The rest is history with Beatles and the British invasion not far behind. WMEX was on the cutting edge.
And quite under-rated…WMEX was ALSO truly a pioneer in TALK RADIO! It introduced the concept of a radio host taking phone calls on the air and discussing topical issues both community and national. WMEX introduced the truly legendary Boston talk radio pioneer Jerry Williams who of course went on WBZ and introduced what was probably the nations first call in talk show and certainly the only one leveraged to 33 states.
You guys probably know most of this—but some don’t. The word “legend” appears frequently and it’s not used lightly.
It was interesting Ed Perry resurrected WMEX about a decade ago and later sold it to Larry Justice who became a tennant originally.
And now..To see this dumped on a take-over-payments basis is just sad on so many fronts:
Legendary station. And in its apparent final chapter another legend…a legendary Boston radio personality loses it all while still doing air shifts in his mid 80s.
In the late 1950s, this is where the Richmond brothers switched the popular station including legendary sports organist John Kiley…to one of the very first-in-the-nation rock n roll radio stations. Everything changed forever on Boston radio.
The rest is history with Beatles and the British invasion not far behind. WMEX was on the cutting edge.
And quite under-rated…WMEX was ALSO truly a pioneer in TALK RADIO! It introduced the concept of a radio host taking phone calls on the air and discussing topical issues both community and national. WMEX introduced the truly legendary Boston talk radio pioneer Jerry Williams who of course went on WBZ and introduced what was probably the nations first call in talk show and certainly the only one leveraged to 33 states.
You guys probably know most of this—but some don’t. The word “legend” appears frequently and it’s not used lightly.
It was interesting Ed Perry resurrected WMEX about a decade ago and later sold it to Larry Justice who became a tennant originally.
And now..To see this dumped on a take-over-payments basis is just sad on so many fronts:
Legendary station. And in its apparent final chapter another legend…a legendary Boston radio personality loses it all while still doing air shifts in his mid 80s.
It's not just the music, it's the whole signal, including live host monologues/comments. It is not really distortion, more like the splashy slurp you get when you slightly off tune an AM station. My suspicion is slightly off input frequency with the STL?
Usually a microwave STL works or doesn't especially if it's digital. Since it's the total audio programming most likely someone has messed with the AGC / graphic equalizer function. Since it's both the AM and FM, depending or how their AM audio processing is set up, it could be an FM setting if they are simply taking the off air audio of the FM translator to feed the AM. Of course someone could have messed the AM processing chain too but that would take extra effort.
Don’t know what kind of STL they’re using. Rather than microwave to get the audio from down in Plymouth, where the studio was moved to when LaGreca and Justice bought it, up to the transmitter at the Quincy/Milton line, they may be using some sort of private digital stream over a high-bandwidth phone line or other wired connection.
There is definitely higher compression of all audio since new management switched to the new music format and seems to have tweaked the processing, every moment of every piece of music is now brought to the same loud level, It was obviously compressed before as is normally done, but there’s now a definite increase in compression and overall loudness, and that new distortion became present.
They may not be using the FM translator to feed the AM audio because this incarnation of the AM station came on the air on its own, from this transmitter location, in 2020, about a year before the FM translator went on the air, so an STL from the studio (which was then at WATD in Marshfield) was already established. This could have been changed later on after the translator went on the air.
After checking on FCCdata.org I couldn't find any STLs listed. Most likely they are using some form of tunneling protocol with 2 PCs or a Barix (they have competitors) set-up over the Internet. Bring "digital" it either works or not. Business ISP rates are usually higher than homeowners rates so they might have let the old connection to the AM go to save some $ on the FM was running.
Don't forget now, the switch happened around the storm (and they were off during it, as well as several other stations), so the storm/outage may (or may not) be the underlying cause.
And still ... no one has called the station to ask?
I will bet a cheap cup of coffee that weather is NOT an excuse. It's something someone did who has really bad hearing or they don't have an engineer that has broadcast experience with audio processing. At least use an default setting if you don't have the time or skill to set up an audio chain.
The AC power, back up generator, and or Internet STL might have failed but most broadcast equipment since the turn of the century will remember it's settings if there is a an outage.
The only "weather exposured" equipment for a station with an Internet STL should be the Antenna. Snow and ice will cause reflected power on an FM antenna without radomes or heaters can cause a weaker signal thanks to reflected power but once the sun shines and it gets above 35⁰ for a day or two even an unprotected antenna will work fine.
A large percentage of even small market FM stations north of the Mason Dixon line have some form of snow or ice protection for their FM antennas. Boston market #10 ain't no small Southern market where you don't plan for ice and snow. Only a fool would try to save money on cold weather protection for their antenna in Boston.
Apparently no has contacted the station (no post answering post #71) so I guess folks are enjoying the bad audio.
If anyone is inclined to contact WMEX, here you go...
I tried to call today and the phone line keeps ringing with no answer. No email answer. The stream sounds fine. They advertised on facebook that they would play predominantly 70s and 80s with some 90s. I listened this afternoon and about 2pm there was 50s and 60s. Then about 2:30, Italian songs and then more 50s. Crazy programming which will never get ratings. Too bad as the station sounds good with mainly 70s and 80s. The debt will continue.
How can any place of business, radio station or not, that has a contact number, at the very least not have voicemail. Doesn't matter if it's a landline or cell, it's crazy not to at least have the option of leaving a message. What if it was someone actually interested in advertising.
I'll be surprised if this operation makes it to the end of the year.
They put the Italian show on at 2:30 on a weekday? Mamma Mia!
Fridays are a specialty show afternoon that deviates from the new (a little '60s, mostly '70s, '80s, '90s) format the other weekdays with two shows that have been on Friday afternoons, one for about four years, the other for maybe two. Those shows are both produced and hosted by former owner Tony LaGreca who I understand is still a partner since the recent sale.
His Italian artists oldies/pop standards show has been on at 2pm on Fridays for about four years, followed at 3:30pm by his "Nifty Fifties" oldies hour for maybe the past couple of years or so.
It's about 2-1/2 hours of a (former) owner (and still partner) doing weekly specialty shows he likes. There are no other daytime specialty shows on the other weekdays.
No, it’s the part-owner. He doesn’t buy time on his own station.