• My Account
  • Your Profile
  • Member Archives
Saturday, July 2, 2022
Cart / $0.00

No products in the cart.

  • Login
  • Register
Fybush.com
  • Home
  • Archives
  • My Account
  • Store
    • Cart
    • Checkout
  • About/Contact
    • Scott Fybush
    • Copyright Information
    • Privacy Policy
  • Fybush Media
  • Links
No Result
View All Result
Fybush.com
  • Home
  • Archives
  • My Account
  • Store
    • Cart
    • Checkout
  • About/Contact
    • Scott Fybush
    • Copyright Information
    • Privacy Policy
  • Fybush Media
  • Links

No products in the cart.

No Result
View All Result
Fybush.com
No Result
View All Result

Site of the Week 8/17/2012: WTAG, Worcester, MA, 2010

Scott Fybush by Scott Fybush
August 17, 2012
in Free Content, Massachusetts, Tower Site of the Week
4

By SCOTT FYBUSH

One of New England’s oldest surviving AM transmitter sites is also one of its prettiest. Nestled in the suburbia of Holden, Massachusetts, just north of Worcester, WTAG (580) has called Shrewsbury Street its home since way back in 1936, when the Worcester Telegram and Gazette moved their AM station from their downtown Worcester rooftop to what was then a three-tower directional array, among the more complex DAs built in that early era.

The WTAG site

Classic transmitter building
WTAG’s transmitter room

The site went through some early troubles: the mammoth hurricane of 1938 (before the days when hurricanes were named) made a direct hit on Worcester, taking down WTAG’s array. The station quickly rebuilt, and by the end of March 1939 it was back on the air with a three-tower in-line array duplicating its original facility.

In 1941, WTAG added two more towers to boost its night power from 1000 to 5000 watts, and in 1954 the site was again hit by a hurricane. Hurricane Carol (which also toppled the WBZ-TV tower 50 miles to the east in Boston) took out WTAG’s fifth tower, and it was never rebuilt; instead, WTAG re-engineered its night pattern to use only the three original towers (seen behind and to the right of the transmitter building in the photo above) and the fourth tower built in 1941 (at the left).

By then, of course, WTAG was also heavily involved in the new world of FM radio: W1XTG signed on around 1940 from here in Holden but soon moved to Mount Asnebumskit in Paxton, where Boston department store magnate John Shepard and FM inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong were doing their own FM experiments at W1XOJ. WTAG eventually applied for a TV license on channel 5 from Asnebumskit, and even built a studio building up there big enough to house a TV facility, but political pressure shifted the channel east to Boston and WTAG-TV never became a reality. WTAG-FM (eventually on 96.1) was a rare survivor of the early FM days, even as W1XOJ/WGTR shut down, and the Asnebumskit transmitter site and would-be TV studio eventually became the FM studio when WTAG sold its FM license to Norman Knight, who renamed it WSRS. The whole thing came full-circle in the 1980s when Knight also bought the AM station from the Telegram and Gazette; today, WTAG and WSRS are owned by Clear Channel and operating from the Asnebumskit studios, where there’s also an FM translator on 94.9 for WTAG.

No transmitter here…just a museum

More museum

And out here at Holden, WTAG’s long history (the station turns 90 in 2014) is still being celebrated. Chief engineer Dan Kelleher has collected as much WTAG memorabilia as he can find to fill the old transmitter building, providing visitors with a feast of old scrapbooks, framed photos and gear dating back to WTAG’s earliest days. Some of it, as shown above at left, fills the space where an earlier, larger 5-kilowatt transmitter once sat in the front wall of the transmitter room, facing the current row of transmitters that includes a Harris Gates 5 and a newer Harris DAX, along with the phasor.

This is the rare site that’s actually open for tours: every few years, Dan holds an open house out here, usually timed to coincide with WTAG’s anniversary. We’d missed a few of those open houses, so we were delighted when Dan put together a gathering just for our visit in the fall of 2010…and we’d love to get back sometime to get a more detailed look at all the goodies in this venerable building!

Thanks to Dan Kelleher for the tour!

Check out our spring clearance specials on the world-famous Tower Site Calendar 2012, available from the all new Fybush.com store!

Want access to more than a dozen years’ worth of Tower Site of the Week? All our archives, fully searchable, are available to Fybush.com subscribers – and you get full access to NorthEast Radio Watch, too! Subscriptions start at just $15. Sign up here!

And don’t miss more IDs next Wednesday, over at our sister site, TopHour.com!

Next week: WGBH-FM, Great Blue Hill, Milton, MA

Share this:

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Pocket
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Facebook
Tags: WorcesterWSRSWTAG
Previous Post

NERW 8/13/2012: A Funny Thing Happened to Boston’s Talk 1200

Next Post

NERW 8/20/2012: Clear Channel Digests WOR

Scott Fybush

Scott Fybush

Editor/Publisher, NorthEast Radio Watch and Tower Site of the Week

Related Posts

WJET-WFXP studios
Free Content

Site of the Week 7/1/2022: Erie, PA (part I)

A stop off I-90 to catch up with some changes in Erie, Pennyslvania and vicinity

by Scott Fybush
July 1, 2022
NorthEast Radio Watch 6/27/2022: Public Broadcasters’ New Brand
Free Content

NorthEast Radio Watch 6/27/2022: Public Broadcasters’ New Brand

In this week’s issue… Public broadcasters rebrand - CT morning host de-Camps - New TV in Syracuse - Up is down in Utica - Father-daughter team on anchor desk

by Scott Fybush
June 27, 2022
WDOE studio
Free Content

Site of the Week 6/24/2022: Dunkirk and Fredonia, New York

The stations at the extreme southwest corner of New York state

by Scott Fybush
June 24, 2022
NorthEast Radio Watch 6/20/2022: iHeart Cuts Oust the “Mayor”
Free Content

NorthEast Radio Watch 6/20/2022: iHeart Cuts Oust the “Mayor”

In this week’s issue… Mayor's term ends at iHeart - "Team" reforms in RI - New U in Boston? - Studios, people move in Montreal

by Scott Fybush
June 20, 2022
Next Post
NERW 8/20/2012: Clear Channel Digests WOR

NERW 8/20/2012: Clear Channel Digests WOR

Please login to join discussion

Log In


Join Now | Lost Password?

Get Fybush.com Updates

Get Fybush.com updates emailed directly to your inbox!

Fybush.com Twitter List

My Tweets

© 2022 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Archives
  • My Account
  • Store
    • Cart
    • Checkout
  • About/Contact
    • Scott Fybush
    • Copyright Information
    • Privacy Policy
  • Fybush Media
  • Links

© 2022 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.