Wntn 1550

On the facebook page for WJIB listeners Bob Bittner had mentioned WJIB was off temporarily--it had to do with work on the antenna, which WNTN 1550 will soon diplex from. Someone commented that this week, WNTN moved to new studios in Needham.

As you'll see here they had a CP to have the COL change to Cambridge and broadcast from the WJIB tower
http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/finder?call=WNTN&x=0&y=0&sr=Y&s=C
Daytime power 750 watts, nighttime 3 watts (Previously 10kW, then 3 at night)

The link above will show you coverage maps of the new signal and clicking on the GPS co-ordinates shows where the tower is, off Concord Ave in Cambridge.

And this link shows you the info for the new WJIB simulcast on 101.3, coming soon. Originally from Freeport ME
http://radio-locator.com/info/W252BT-FX

Im confused. Why is WNTN moving and decreasing power so much??

3 watts at night on 1550? I know radio-locator coverage maps are "optimistic" but I wonder if this will be listenable on the other side of Concord Ave?

aerie said:

3 watts at night on 1550? I know radio-locator coverage maps are "optimistic" but I wonder if this will be listenable on the other side of Concord Ave?

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All they have to do (legally) is cover the City of License.

WLYN runs 76 watts at night, IIRC 950 WROL is somewhere around 90 watts.

WLYN barely makes it to Saugus on night power, I know you can not pick it up over the air at the Woburn studios.

Land in Newton is very expensive. Hot commodity. In 2015 (when this application was put into place) they eventually went thru the Newton board to get approval to sell the land, for ironically a new self storage facility at 143 Rumford Ave (WJIB, and soon WNTN is in the middle of a self storage facility in Cambridge)

After all that paper work, they got the approval, and the land will be sold for quite a bit of money. More than the station is worth. So to keep WNTN on the air, they had to figure out where to put it. Diplexing with WJIB was the best they could do. New studio is in Needham, next to the towers.

New owner is Ted Demetriades, son of Orestes Demetriades who actually owned the station from 1975 to 1998. Ted took over hosting duties for his father's longtime Greek show, Grecian Echoes which runs in the morning drive on the station. He gets the studio equipment and transmitter. The transmitter will be moved to WJIB's site and the studio equipment is slowly going into the new building in Needham.

Not much of a format change per the new website (The new owner did not for whatever reason get wntn.com so www.wntn1550am.com will replace it). Should stay brokered ethnic (these days it's running almost all public domain UN Radio from the Newton studio to fill time until the move)

The sale was just approved by the FCC today, so as soon as they close, per the APA it will have to stop broadcasting from Newton and fulltime from Needham and Cambridge.

It was said when the news broke about the diplex, despite the lower day power they will still reach a lot of listeners in desired areas.

raccoonradio said:

It was said when the news broke about the diplex, despite the lower day power they will still reach a lot of listeners in desired areas.

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During the day They'll still have city grade coverage in Boston proper, Newton, Waltham, Cambridge, Brookline, Medford, Arlington, basically where the majority of the audience is. They'll lose coverage in the outlying areas. Nothing they can do about it. Just the best they got for this forced move. It's either this or nothing.

Back in the '70s.....(then) WKXR (1540) in Exeter, NH was granted 3 watts PSA/PSSA...they ran 1kw during the day....
The studios AND transmitter were located in a residential area of the town (Downing Court), using a shunt-fed antenna...
The engineer borrowed an LPB unit....set it up for 3 watts...and ran some tests...
Result? The signal couldn't be heard 1/4 mile away without ground wave interference (most likely from WPTR in Albany, NY)..
Of course, 1540 WAS originally designated a "Bahamian Clear" channel anyhow (ZNS, Nassau)...
Did I mention.....WKXR never pursued the 3 watt "project" further!!

Their engineer Leo Sullivan was on today talking about the move.

Looks like tomorrow or early next week they'll sign off (Not sure exactly) Said it will take about a week to move the transmitter to it's new location, so it will be silent for a awhile.

WJIB's site at this power level was the quickest and best option for covering as many people as possible.

Once they return from WJIB's site, they'll eventually do measurements in various places over time to see if a power increase is possible, and if it is they'll apply for one.

I was off by a week or two. TODAY (Sunday) they will leave the air from Newton at either Noon or 1PM and will be silent until the transmitter is moved to Cambridge. Estimated 1-2 Weeks. If anybody wants to listen or record that, by all means. End of a 49 year era and the beginning of the official full time future of the station.

JeremyAndrews said:

I was off by a week or two. TODAY (Sunday) they will leave the air from Newton at either Noon or 1PM and will be silent until the transmitter is moved to Cambridge. Estimated 1-2 Weeks. If anybody wants to listen or record that, by all means. End of a 49 year era and the beginning of the official full time future of the station.

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It's still on the air at 2 PM. I did just start recording to maybe catch the sign off.

jlehmann said:

It's still on the air at 2 PM. I did just start recording to maybe catch the sign off.

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They didn't give an exact time, just "last program" I'm guessing since it was not Noon or 1 it will be after their last leased program of the day, unless things were delayed.

JeremyAndrews said:

I was off by a week or two. TODAY (Sunday) they will leave the air from Newton at either Noon or 1PM and will be silent until the transmitter is moved to Cambridge. Estimated 1-2 Weeks. If anybody wants to listen or record that, by all means. End of a 49 year era and the beginning of the official full time future of the station.

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As of this morning it's either off the air or not broadcasting anything. Since last month they've been running from the new owners' studio during his show via a temporary line (as far as I can tell) from the new studio in Needham back to the old studio. Nothing is on this morning. So they'll probably pull the station itself off the air sometime today. Then they have to take the transmitter out of the basement, decommission, etc and haul it off to Cambridge and set it up there.

The new website (streaming still not available) wntn1550am.com The new Facebook (actually WNTN never had a Facebook page until now) https://www.facebook.com/WNTN1550am/?fref=ts

Work was done the past few days and Bittner said on FB they should be on sometime this wknd from the new tower.

raccoonradio said:

Work was done the past few days and Bittner said on FB they should be on sometime this wknd from the new tower.

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I know WNTN didn't really have a choice...but from the enw site, the new signal for WNTN will be much weaker, no?

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WNTN-AM&s=C&h=D

Wimmmex said:

I know WNTN didn't really have a choice...but from the enw site, the new signal for WNTN will be much weaker, no?

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Weaker, but closer to target audiences for much of the station's ethnic programming.

Cambridge, Somerville, the Mystic Valley (Medford, Malden, Everett, Chelsea, etc...) , the lower North Shore (Revere, Saugus, Lynn, etc...), and some Boston neighborhoods will probably get an improved signal from this location despite the lower wattage.

Eli Polonsky said:

Weaker, but closer to target audiences for much of the station's ethnic programming.

Cambridge, Somerville, the Mystic Valley (Medford, Malden, Everett, Chelsea, etc...) , the lower North Shore (Revere, Saugus, Lynn, etc...), and some Boston neighborhoods will probably get an improved signal from this location despite the lower wattage.

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Outlying areas to the North and West is what I was looking at. Lawrence, Worcester, Ipswich, Attleboro, Brockton, etc.

I would like to think you go for the best signal, facility and reach for the station....not for the format, which is more fluid.

But with the current state of AM, and this station in particular, there probably isn't another format for them after this one....

This move may give them better night coverage though...over a better area.

Wimmmex said:

Outlying areas to the North and West is what I was looking at. Lawrence, Worcester, Ipswich, Attleboro, Brockton, etc.

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Those places have at least one nearby Spanish/other ethnic AM to listen to. I assumed that WNTN's reason for moving where it moved was to get away from Newton, Westwood, etc., where it would get zero listeners, and closer to the cities Eli mentioned, where, while it may have to fight it out with WESX, WLYN, WUNR and various pirates, at least it has a potential audience and less of the signal is wasted over the Dovers, Wellesleys, Sharons, North Andovers and the like that lie between the transmitter and your suggested targets -- two of which, Attleboro and Brockton, are to the south and east.

I understand why WNTN has to move because of land values, but why do they have to decrease daytime power from 10 kW to 0.75 kW? Interference with someone? To save money since they are closer to target audience? I wonder if they will be changing call letters since the NTN = Newton no longer will apply.

CTListener said:

Those places have at least one nearby Spanish/other ethnic AM to listen to.

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Like I said, I would like to think you go for the best signal &facility and reach for the station, not for the format, which can change over time.

But with the current state of AM and WNTN I think this is their final format choice.

Anyone want to guess what the TX move cost them?