Update 11/4: 104.7 dropped the simulcast of its former News/Talk programming this morning to become Adult CHR “104.7 WELJ” with 10,000 songs in a row through the month of November. While not yet a direct simulcast of 95.5 WPLJ New York, the station is using the same logo and promoting PLJ’s Scott & Todd morning show.
Original Post 9/23: With News/Talk moving to FM in many markets on a regular basis nowadays, it’s becoming very rare for a station to make the opposite move. Citadel will be doing just that in the coming weeks in New London, CT. As we tweeted yesterday, a call letter change went into effect as “News Talk 104.7” WXLM Montauk, NY became WELJ, and Spanish Tropical “Caliente 980” WSUB Groton, CT inherited the WXLM calls. Today Citadel confirmed what we thought and announced WXLM’s talk format will move to 988 at some point in October.
While 104.7 is a Class A licensed to Montauk, NY across the Long Island Sound, the 980 signal is not a powerhouse either, operating with 1000 watts in the daytime and dropping to 72 watts in the evening.
As for the future of 104.7, Citadel has registered 1047WELJ.com and 1047ELJ.com. We immediately noted the similarity between WELJ and sister Adult CHR 95.5 WPLJ in nearby New York. Citadel also operates Classic Rock “102.3 The Wolf” WMOS and CHR “Q105” WQGN in the New London market.
Given that the WELJ-104.7 transmitter is in Montauk, Long Island, I’m willing to guess that the station is going to start focusing more on the “outer forks” of Long Island, and likely (given the call letters) become a 24/7 simulcast of WPLJ-95.5 New York.
This would give WPLJ a presence in Eastern Long Island and the immediate southeast coast iof Connecticut.
104.7 barely covers any populated areas in NY. If it’s going to simply duplicate WPLJ, Citadel must’ve decided it doesn’t do its job covering Connecticut either and is simply keeping the transmitter warm.
Because of the signal coming across the Sound, WXLM has a lot of issues in the Summer due to tropospheric ducting. In fact, WXLM was booming in for me in New Jersey much of this summer while people in CT were complaining about interference.
Is there any way to move the 104.7 stick across the sound to either Fisher’s Island or Connecticut without co-channel interference with WOCN on Cape Cod??
That would improve the signal in Southeast Connecticut, and probably still give WELJ a strong signal on outer Long Island.
I had forgotten to mention in my last post that at one point, the 104.7 frequency was the original home of WMOS, a classic rock station with studios at the Mohegan Sun casino in Southeastern Connecticut (I believe Mohegan Sun runs it under an LMA with Citadel).
The station was moved to 102.3 because that frequency has a much better signal in Southeastern Connecticut than does 104.7
Where did the tropical Spanish station go? Does it still exist?