Transmitting Stations
Edwin H. Armstrong installed an FM-broadcasting station on the top of Mount Washington in 1937. The station stopped operating in 1948, due to excessive maintenance costs. In 1954 a TV tower and transmitters were installed for WMTW, Channel 8, licensed to Poland Spring, Maine. The station continuously broadcast from the top of the mountain, including local forecasts by (now retired) WMTW transmitter engineer Marty Engstrom. WMTW continually broadcast from the mountaintop until 2002.
Mount Washington continued FM broadcasting in 1958 with the construction of WMTW-FM 94.9, which became WHOM in 1976. WHOM and WMTW-TV shared a transmitter building, which also housed the generators to supply power to the mountain. On February 9, 2003, a fire destroyed the transmitter building and the generators (where it started), which at the time still had WHOM's transmitters inside it. WHOM subsequently built a new transmitter building on the site of the old power building, and also constructed a new standby antenna on the Armstrong tower. (For the first time since 1948, the Armstrong tower was used for broadcasts.)
In 1987, WHOM and WMTW were joined on the peak of the mountain by WMOU-FM (renamed WZPK and now WPKQ) on a separate tower. Steve Powell, owner and president of New England Broadcasting, had the tower for WZPK (known as "The Peak") built higher than the other structures on the summit; it became the highest point east of the Mississippi and north of the Carolinas. The WPKQ transmitters are located in the back of the Yankee Building. Due to the extreme weather on Mount Washington, both WHOM and WPKQ use specially designed FM antennas which are housed in special cylindrical radomes, manufactured by Shively Labs of nearby Bridgton, Maine.
In June 2008, the possibility of television returning to Mount Washington came to light, with the filing by New Hampshire Public Television to move WLED-TV from its current location near Littleton to the old WMTW mast on top.
Read more about this topic: Mount Washington (New Hampshire)
Famous quotes containing the words transmitting and/or stations:
“Anyone who has obeyed nature by transmitting a piece of gossip experiences the explosive relief that accompanies the satisfying of a primary need.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)
“After I was married a year I remembered things like radio stations and forgot my husband.”
—P. J. Wolfson, John L. Balderston (1899–1954)