The Route 128 tower complex
It's not Philadelphia's Roxborough farm, or LA's Mount Wilson,
or San Francisco's Mt. San Bruno, but it is the largest
concentration of broadcast power in the Boston area.
The towers that dot the landscape near Rt. 128 and Rt. 9 in the
Needham/Newton area first began to go up in the late 1950s. WBZ-TV
came first, in 1957, when they built a thousand-foot tower on Cedar
Street in Needham. The tower replaced a temporary facility in Malden
that had been in use since Hurricane Carol toppled the original WBZ-TV
transmitter at the Brighton studios in 1954. WHDH-TV 5 built its
tower at about the same time, a bit to the southeast on Chestnut
Street in Newton. This was the original WHDH-TV facility. WNAC-TV 7
followed in the early 60s, moving from their original site in Malden
to a new, self-supporting tower on Tower Road off Needham Street in
Newton. The last of the towers, a 1000+ foot candelabra, went up
circa 1971. From its outset, the tower carried WSBK-TV 38 (moving
from the Prudential Center downtown) and WKBG-TV 56 (now WLVI, moved
from Zion Hill in Woburn). A trade publication advertisement for the
tower also listed ``WREP-TV 25'' as a tenant. That construction
permit was never built -- in fact, a steel pipe was installed in its
``tine'' of the candelabra. A new CP was issued several years later
for WXNE-TV on that channel; the station signed on from the candelabra
in 1977.
All four towers still stand. Here are brief descriptions:
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|
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CBS |
FM-128 |
UHF Candelabra |
WHDH-TV |
The CBS tower is at 350 Cedar Street. It is the only tower west of
Route 128. It now carries, in addition to WBZ-TV:
●WGBH-TV 2 and WGBX-TV 44. WGBH moved
from the original site of Great Blue Hill in Milton in the 1960s, and
WGBX signed on from Needham in 1967.
●WCVB 5, which signed on from that tower in
March 1972. WCVB was a new license, replacing WHDH-TV. WHDH's owners
declined to let the new licensee use the existing Channel 5 tower, so
WCVB leased tower space from WBZ.
●WCVB-DT 20, the digital version of WCVB,
which commenced in late October, 1998.
The CBS tower was extensively reconstructed during the summer of
2000. Before the work began, each station had its own individual
antenna, in the following order (from top to bottom): WBZ-TV, WGBX-TV,
WGBH-TV, WCVB, WCVB-DT.
The tower once carried WBZ-FM 106.7, but that station moved to the
Prudential Center when WBZ sold it in 1981 and
it became WMJX. It also carried WCRB 102.5 until November 1998 when WCRB's space
was needed for digital television.
There is also a very short backup tower on the site that can keep
WBZ-TV on the air should the main tower be unusable.
The former WHDH-TV tower on Chestnut Street in Newton is now known
as American Tower Corp.'s Newton tower -- colloquially ``FM-128'' --
and is a primary FM site for the Boston market. Where the channel 5
antenna once sat, at the top of the tower, is a master antenna
installed a few years ago. FM-128 carries WBUR 90.9 (side-mounted,
directional); WJMN 94.5 (the former
WHDH-FM, which went up on the tower when it was built); WBMX 98.5 (the former WNAC-FM/WRKO-FM/WROR, which
transmitted from the channel 7 tower when it and channel 7 were
co-owned, until 1980); WODS 103.3
(side-mounted); and WCRB 102.5. WBMX holds a
construction permit to move to the UHF Candelabra. The antennas are
in the following order (from top to bottom): WCRB, WBMX, WJMN,
WBUR, WODS. WBOS used to use the master
antenna, but has since moved to the Pru.
The UHF Candelabra (officially ``American Tower Corp., Needham'')
is located south of Highland Avenue in Needham, at 140-145 Cabot
Street, behind the Sheraton Needham hotel. It carries WFXT 25, WSBK 38, and
WLVI 56; WBMX 98.5 has
a construction permit to move there.
The lone self-supporting tower, and the shortest, is WHDH-TV 7's tower on Tower Road, just north of
Needham Street. Channel 7 is the sole user of this site. It once
carried 98.5 FM (WNAC-FM/WRKO/WROR), until RKO lost its licenses and
had to sell the radio station in the 1980s. The channel 7 tower is
owned by channel 7's licensee corporation, WHDH-TV Inc.
The Boston Radio Archives
scott@fybush.com
wollman@lcs.mit.edu
archives@bostonradio.org