From WRKO to the Prudential Tower

Thursday, May 7, Scott and I got a rare opportunity to see some very visible Boston-area facilities. We spent the morning with Entercom's John Kennedy at the WEEI transmitter site in Needham (where John tried to convince us to take as parting gifts a pile of old cart machines he's trying to get rid of) and then up in Burlington at the very visible WRKO site. After a brief visit with Maureen Carney at Fox Sports New England and a quick lunch, we drove down to Dorchester to meet Pat Monteith and Grady Moates at WUMB, then across Morrissey Boulevard for a quick tour of WLVI before ending up at Greater Media's Boston cluster studios next door.

Greater's chief engineer Art Pepin showed us around the studios, which consist of six nearly-identical studio pods, one each for WTKK, WBOS, WMJX, and WROR-FM, plus a spare for redundancy and any network programs that originate in Boston. Each station also has a small common area for talent to meet and do prep work, and access to a number of production studios, all on the second floor of the building. Sales staff are in a cube farm which we did not bother to see. After the studio tour, Art drove us over to the Prudential Tower to see the transmitters of the four of his stations which are located there. (WKLB-FM is a Lowell-licensed station and transmits from Andover, but is otherwise identically equipped.)

I forgot to bring memory for my digital camera, so there are unfortunately no pictures from WEEI.

WRKO phasor
WRKO phasor
WRKO processing and STLs
WRKO processing and STLs
WRKO's main transmitter
WRKO's main transmitter
WRKO's backup transmitter
WRKO's backup transmitter
WRKO backup transmitter manufacturing plate
WRKO backup transmitter manufacturing plate
Circuit diagram of WRKO's phasor
Circuit diagram of WRKO's phasor
Boston Edison electrical service diagram
Boston Edison electrical service diagram
Back end of 5 Greater Media FM studios
Back end of 5 Greater Media FM studios
More equipment at the Greater Media studios
More equipment at the Greater Media studios
Typical Greater Media studio
Typical Greater Media studio
WTKK transmitter building
WTKK transmitter building
Art Pepin shows off a combiner module
Art Pepin shows off a combiner module
WBOS transmitter
WBOS transmitter
Pru antenna masts, main and backup
Pru antenna masts, main and backup
Boston skyline from the roof of the Pru
Boston skyline from the roof of the Pru
WMJX and WROR-FM transmitters
WMJX and WROR-FM transmitters
RF plumbing
RF plumbing
Pru main mast
Pru main mast
Pru backup antenna
Pru backup antenna
South End, Southeast Expressway, South Boston
South End, Southeast Expressway, South Boston
South End, Doahchestah, Hahbah
South End, Doahchestah, Hahbah
Base of Pru mast
Base of Pru mast
Pru upper master detail
Pru upper master detail
Kendall Square & East Cambridge
Kendall Square & East Cambridge
MIT main campus
MIT main campus
Looking straight up the Pru mast
Looking straight up the Pru mast
More close-up East Cambridge
More close-up East Cambridge
Fybush at the base of the Pru mast
Fybush at the base of the Pru mast
Descending the ladder from the roof of the Pru
Descending the ladder from the roof of the Pru
Kiss transmitter cage
Kiss transmitter cage
WXKS-FM cage
WXKS-FM cage

Copyright 2004 Garrett Wollman. All rights reserved.