iHeartMedia has completed its first round of upgrades for Country “101.7 The Bull” WBWL Lynn/Boston and has applied for a second, bigger upgrade.
The first series of moves saw WBWL eliminate its directional antenna at One Financial Center in Boston with 1.7kW at 191 meters, while sister 101.5 WWBB Providence, RI dropped from a Class B with 13.5kW at 290 meters to a directional Class A with 4.9kW at 110 meters and 101.9 WCIB downgraded from 50kw at 146 meters to 13kW at 145 meters with a directional notch away from Boston. With those changes now built out, iHeart is now proposing a bigger upgrade for WBWL.
WBWL will relocate to the Medford, MA tower it abandoned nearly a decade ago, but upgrade to a Class B1 with 13.5kW at 138 meters. This move will strongly increase WBWL’s coverage in the northern and western suburbs of Boston including Framingham, Lawrence and Lowell (Coverage Map).
No changes will be made to WWBB’s new facilities other than a modification to their reference point. 101.9 WCIB Falmouth will downgrade from a Class B to a B1 with a directional 12kW at 145 meters (Coverage Map).
Wait a minute….isn’t 101.7 a “class a” frequency, or is all that out the window now?
Also: Some history (courtesy of Mr. Fybush):
“This 356-foot tower was built in 1948 by CBS, which used it initially for WEEI-FM (103.3), but with the intention of eventually getting a license for a WEEI-TV to broadcast from up here as well”.
103.3 moved to Needham because the coverage from Medford wasn’t so hot, and that was at 50K (as I recall). Not sure what 13K will do from there, but we’ll see…..