More Travel & More News

I will be traveling 9/10 thru 9/16 posting may be erratic.

I've been researching more about the WQAQ fandango and found some interesting facts.
1. Quinnipiac only bought their AM outlet in 1996. NERW Archive here

"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... WXCT has a long and colorful history, including stints as WDEE, WCDQ, WOMN ..., 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."

Oh how things have changed...

2. As recently as 2003 Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems was trying to improve that tower, not tear it down: http://www.ct.gov/csc/lib/csc/petition_staff_reports/p629sr.doc

Hey Kids! Surprise! We took down your tower!

I guess he would rather have then start a lacrosse club... Here I am sticking my nose into current events but this one is just so damn odd. http://www.wqaq.org/

WQAQ, Connecticut college station and one of a handful of remaining Class D licenses was shut down recently. The station went silent this summer on May 1, 2006. (as they often do) with the intention of returning in the fall. But this year they returned and found that
Quinnipiac University President, John. L. Lahey decided to have their transmitting tower torn down over the summer months. SURPRISE!

Their reasoning?
"The decision to remove the tower seems to have been an executive decision by Quinnipiac University President, John. L. Lahey. (picture left) "The University removed the tower, which primarily served as a Cingular cell tower, because it was an unsightly eyesore right in the center of campus..." In my experience Universities just airbrush towers out of promo photos. No real reason to tear them down. This appears to have been personal. www.wqaq.com

The decision appears to have been made without consultation of advisors, faculty, or student affairs staff. If they do not get back on the air by April 30, 2007 they forefit their license. Quinnipiac also owns WQUN-AM which airs canned adult standards and runs carries Red Sox games and some University Sports. There is no student involvement in that station.

It's a shame that some stations get to grow under the capable hands of devoted staff like WVPH/RLC (who is currently raising money for a new tower) and some stations langish with Class D licenses without even the basic necessisty of a protected contour. Why do some grow and some wither? It's a question I've been asked and a question I've asked others. http://thecore.rutgers.edu/

I remember Colin helms fomer EIC of CMJ asking me Why WPUR shut down in 1998. (They were a cable station at Purchase college) I didn't have a good answer for him then. It's the collapse of a large support network that is organic and delicate. Why that support network collapses I dont know. Sometimes it's assasinated. Other times it dies of natural causes. Let see if this one pulls through.