New England RadioWatch: June 28, 1996

WAEF On The Air

by Scott Fybush

• There's a new radio station on the air in New Hampshire's largest market. WAEF, 96.5 FM, took to the airwaves at 5pm on Thursday, June 27, after a day of recorded heartbeat noises. "96.5 the Fox" is promoting itself as "Rock without the hard edge," and what it appears to be is a broad- based mixture of rock...everything from the Beatles to Crosby, Stills, and Nash, all the way to the Dave Matthews Band.

  The station is licensed to Bedford NH, a suburb of Manchester. WAEF's transmitter is on Mount Uncanoonuc in Goffstown NH, the same site as the big Manchester FMs, AC WZID 95.7 and AOR WGIR-FM 101.1. Power is 680 watts at 971 feet AAT, with a directional antenna to protect adjacent-channel WSRI 96.7 Rochester NH. The signal seems pretty good; I've already heard reports of city-grade coverage in Lowell, MA, some 25 miles south of Manchester, and I can get WAEF spottily here in Waltham, about 60 miles south of Manchester.

  Laura James and Dorien Jaye, late of WRCI/WNHI and WJYY in Concord NH, will be the morning team..I'll have more details on the air staff in a day or two.

  WAEF is one of that shrinking breed, a singly-owned station. Donna MacNeil fought tooth and nail for this CP against some much bigger competition, and now she's up against two well-established AM-FM combos, Saga's WFEA/WZID and Knight's WGIR AM-FM (along with another standalone, Bob Bittner's easy-listening WKBR 1250).

• A small Connecticut AM signal has been sold. WXCT 1220 in Hamden, a suburb of New Haven, is being sold by Milstar Broadcasting to Quinnipiac College in Hamden. Reported price, according to Broadcasting and Cable, is $500,000. WXCT has a long and colorful history, including stints as WDEE, WCDQ, WOMN (targeted at WOMeN!), WSCR, and WNNR...and just about every format in the book, including multiple tries at top 40, country, and oldies. Most recently, WXCT has been a Spanish-language broadcaster. An educated guess is that WXCT will become WQAQ(AM), simulcasting Quinnipiac's WQAQ-FM 88.3. WXCT has 1000 watts day, 320 watts night, non-directional. (Thanks to alert NERW contributor Bill Dillane for the historical information!) By the way, another raspberry to Broadcasting and Cable for continued failure to check facts: KOOL in Phoenix is on 960, guys, not 570...and the list of CBS TV stations in the 6/24 issue is more than a year out of date (WGPR Detroit? WCIX Miami? And the typo "WRFV" for WFRV Green Bay?)

• Up in Vermont, Pathfinder Broadcasting is building a two FM-one AM combo, with the purchase of WFAD 1490 Middlebury VT, WMNM 92.1 Port Henry NY, and separately, WGTK 100.9 Middlebury VT. WMNM (Oldies 92) and WGTK (K-101 Classic Rock) both serve the Burlington area; WFAD is a local class IV for Middlebury. WMNM, by the way, is the latest incarnation of what began as WHRC, Peter Hunn's one-man station that he documented in a book some years back. NERW contributing editor Garrett Wollman passed through the Burlington area earlier this week; he reports that WWGT 96.7 Vergennes-Burlington was not heard, although they had been testing earlier in the week. Also not on yet was WRJT 103.1 Royalton VT.

• A snag for WKOX 1200 Framingham-Boston in its plans to increase power: The Boston Globe reports that selectmen (that's the town council to you non-New England types) in the town of Sudbury have rejected WKOX's plans to build three 199-foot towers on 8 acres of town-owned land. The reason (what else) was that the towers might alter Sudbury's "rural character." The "rural" site on which the towers were to have been built? A former Unisys plant on a busy highway...go figure! The Sudbury site was a backup plan for WKOX, which has been stalled in its attempts to go to a dual-site operation, with nights at the current site in Framingham and days as 50kw ND from the WNTN(AM) tower in Newton. Framingham officials approved WKOX's request to tear down its two 400-foot towers and replace them with three 199-footers...but the daytime side of the plan is reportedly on hold. I believe, but am not certain, that the Sudbury site would be used for daytime directional operation with a strong lobe towards Boston. [Editorial note: I sure hope residents of Sudbury don't watch broadcast TV, listen to the radio, or use cellphones or pagers as part of their rural way of life...otherwise their anti-tower stance might be - gasp! - a bit hypocritical.]

• In response to the discussion of dark AMs and FMs, here's the rundown of licensed New England stations that are not presently on the air:

  CONNECTICUT: WSNG 610 Torrington (is being bought by WZBG 97.3 Litchfield), WQQW 1590 Waterbury (is being bought by the owners of WWRL 1600 New York, and believed to be silent for good).

  MAINE: WLVC 1340 Fort Kent-WSJR 1230 Madawaska, WNSW 1200 Bangor, WTOX 1450 Lincoln (and I believe its sister FM, WHMX 105.7, as well), WALZ 1400 Machias.

  MASSACHUSETTS: WBIV 1060 Natick (in search of a new tower site), WCEG 1530 Middleborough (probably dead for good), WNEB 1230 Worcester (to return by the end of the year simulcasting sister WJIB 740 Cambridge-Boston). Also dark at present is WHRC-TV 46 Norwell; anyone know whether the FCC is pulling dark TV licenses as well?

  NEW HAMPSHIRE: WRPT 1050 Peterborough (applied for 650 kHz in Foxboro MA, but that application has been returned).

  VERMONT: WHWB 970 Rutland.

• I'm sure there are one or two others I've left out, and I welcome corrections and additions. Several dark stations have just recently been revived, including 1370 WKFD Wickford RI, now WEGM N. Kingstown RI.

• And finally, welcome to a new program director at Boston talker WRKO. Kevin Straley moves up from APD to fill the seat left vacant by Al Mayers' recent move to WJR Detroit. Congratulations also to Bill Flaherty, the new executive producer at WBZ in Boston. Bill moves up from morning-show producer to replace Peter Casey, who's now PD at 'BZ.