The Memories Station WJTO Radio - P O Box 308 - BATH, MAINE 04530 Tel: 207-443-6671 HISTORY OF WJTO-730: The first radio station in Bath, Maine ("The City of Ships") was WMMS-730, beginning in 1957, with 500 watts of power, and was set up by Winslow T. Porter. The call letters stood for "Where Most of Maine is Served". The call letters were changed to WJTO around 1960. WJTO allegedly stands for "Watch Jet Take-Offs", referring to the nearby Brunswick Naval Air Station. A few years after that, WJTO got an FM station, which up until the late 70's was WJTO-FM (later WIGY-FM and WKRH-FM, and now WBCI-FM featuring pastors from anywhere in the USA who often ask for donations on air). In the 1990's the (WJTO) AM and FM stations were sold separately to new owners. But that didn't happen until well after a 1990 bankruptcy, where both stations were off the air for 11 months. WJTO has, for the most part through its history has had a contemporary music format. WJTO was one of the pioneers in the 1970's with having women DJ's. However, in 1995-96, it was a hot-talk station, then owned by former Bath resident Carl Strube. On March 15, 1997, he sold WJTO to Bob Bittner who has owned it since. Bob changed the talk format to orchestra instrumental oriented "beautiful music", and like WJIB, he has morphed it to an "Adult Standards" music format with the adult vocals being dominant over the instrumentals, and still aiming for the same demographic audience. WJIB (Boston) and WJTO are commonly-owned by Bob Bittner. WJTO-730 FACTS: WJTO, almost 4 miles south of the center of Bath, is located on Austin Road, a small side-road off of Berry's Mill Road. WJTO is located at one of the most beautiful locations of any radio station in the USA... on an ocean inlet on Maine's coastline. The 225'-high transmitter tower is only about 175' from the water, thereby sending a huge signal especially to the south. WJTO uses only 1,000 watts during the daytime, and 29 watts or 6 watts after sunset. West Bath, Maine, the town WJTO is actually in, is located on the coast, about 35 miles northeast of Portland. Tower Site: N 43-52-35 W 069-50-51 FCC Facility ID 33287 Tower Registration #: 1020823. Transmitters: Harris MW-1, set to 4 power levels: 1,000 watts for daytime; 84 watts for pre-sunrise authority (6 AM to local sunrise) and 29 watts for sunset to 6 PM (winter), and 6 watts for nights. Back-Up Transmitter:Nautel Amphet400. Tower: Rohn 223' high, mounted on 2'-high piling, with guy wires. The ground system has 120 equally-spaced radials 3 degrees apart, and 320' feet in length. WHAT IS THE WJTO-730 DAYTIME COVERAGE AREA? WJTO can be heard from Rockland, Maine, all the way down the immediate coast, to NH, then to Mass, all the way across Cape Cod... with only one exception-area... The coastal area within 15 or 20 miles of Boston, where co-owned WJIB-740 blocks it out; and is also weak around Kittery, Maine. Inland, WJTO's signal goes as far as Lewiston and Gray, about 30 miles away, but if you really try hard, Augusta and Waterville residents can hear it. WJTO's very long daytime 250-mile-long coastal signal is quite unusual, and surpasses the distance of any FM station. WJTO is also heard well on the western coast of Nova Scotia, Canada in the daytime. WJTO is one of the few lower-powered stations that, from 35 miles away, has a very good signal in Portland. WJTO's daytime signal covers about 300,000 residents plus people on vacation, and WJTO covers about half of the 4,000 miles of the jagged Maine coastline. Perfect music for a most perfect place: Vacationland. WHAT IS THE WJTO-730 NIGHTTIME COVERAGE AREA? Because French-speaking Station CKAC (730 in Montreal) was there way back in the 1920's, WJTO has to reduce power at every sunset so as not to interfere with it. WJTO's nighttime coverage is small.... Bath, West Bath, Woolwich, and on better nights Brunswick and Topsham. Nighttime coverage is from 500 to 20,000 people, depending upon atmospheric conditions. LOW SIGNAL STRENGTH AT NIGHT: Both WJIB and WJTO are what used to be called "Daytimers", broadcasting only during daylight hours. Back in the 1980's, the Federal Communications Commission authorized what we call "flea power" at night for almost all AM daytime stations. Such flea power offers much less coverage than the daytime power, as you may have noticed. The reason for the existence of "daytimers" is that the radio dial was pretty much full by 1945. Since radio signals travel much further at night than during the day, very few new stations could be squeezed onto the AM dial, 540 to 1600 without interfering with older more powerful existing stations. Someone came up with the idea that if new stations were on the air daytime only, then new ones would fit. Therefore there was a large amount of new daytime-only stations in the USA between 1945 and 1960, of which WJIB and WJTO were two of those. - Signal strength at night varies by atmospheric conditions. Some nights WJIB or WJTO may come in clear, and other nights, they may have interference from the two Canadian stations on 740 and 730, which are old-timers having been on those same frequencies since the 1920's. This is why the power goes down at sunset, and rises again at sunrise.... which in the dead of winter, makes for a short high-power broadcast day, and in the summer, a longer one. The FCC has specific monthly times that such stations must change power each month. Two examples for WJIB: January is 7:15 AM and 4:30 PM; June 5:15 AM and 8:15 PM. WHY DON'T YOU PUT WJIB or WJTO ON FM? The "Boston Globe" once described WJIB-owner Bob Bittner as a "media-minnow", compared to the giant corporation station owners the article was talking about.. Such is true, because Bob being more of a regular guy instead of a media mogul (and with no desire of the latter), cannot afford to buy an FM station. The sales prices of FM stations in the immediate Boston area, if for sale would range from $20 million to $60-million. On Coastal Maine, that price would be from $1-million to $10-million. High-powered AM stations may also command the same prices, but medium powered and lower-powered AM stations, if for sale, would only be worth a tiny percentage of the FM station prices. With the large disparity in station prices, Bob stays put with and is quite content with the two lower-powered AM stations he now owns. HOW CAN THE STATIONS SURVIVE WITHOUT COMMERCIALS? WJIB and WJTO are rather unique in the fact that neither have aired commercials unless Bob's arm was really twisted hard by an ethical advertiser (a rare occurrence !). Since Bob has had a long history in many facets of radio and because one of the station's transmitting sites is owned by Bob, and because there's no full-time and very little part-time staff at either station; expenses are relatively low. Bob has no intention of becoming wealthy from his stations. If he did, then you'ld hear noise instead of good music. There IS money in noise. Both stations are now "listener-supported", where once per year, each station solicits contributions from their respective audiences to fund the operation of the station. Funds collected do NOT cross over to the other station. Bob's intentions are to continue both stations as long as they're needed by the audience. The financial support of the station from the listeners is what tells Bob whether his efforts are needed. IS ADVERTISING SLIM ON ADULT-MUSIC STATIONS? In our society today, most advertising is geared towards young listeners. Advertising agencies, where the radio commercial-buying is often done by 28-year-olds who see adult music as ‘another world', seldom spend advertising dollars with such Adult-Music stations. There ARE some adult-music stations that have a sizable amount of advertising, but those are usually co-owned by an FM station geared towards younger audiences, where the FM station gives free "bonus commercials" on the adult-music AM station when a buy is made on the FM station. Since Bob owns no younger-skewed FM station, such advertising does not happen for his stand-alone AM stations. Yes, there are few-and-far-between businesses who could advertise quite effectively on Adult Music stations, but it's a time-consuming effort to find and maintain such. Today, most advertisers want to reach the 8 to 49-year olds... the people who spend very freely and have heavy debt as a result of such. Mature listeners most-often responsibly pay cash for more researched items without giving in to impulse-buying. Presently, America's economy runs on credit, much more than the actual profit of the product. Older folks are more responsible and generally do not have an owed balance on their credit cards beyond the monthly bill. All of this translates into very little advertising going to Adult Music stations, and as a result, any broadcasting company who is seriously interested in making money has dropped Adult Music formats or never had them. There are about 300 Adult Music stations in the USA which use a syndicated satellite service where almost all programming aired on each station is from that service. which provides the music and the announcers. Local inserts such as commercials and weather forecasts are placed by the station every 15 minutes or so. The ARE commercials on these stations, but most of them are from the satellite programming, as advertisers are willing to place their commercials on a mass basis. To illustrate the adult-music and advertising landscape, there were two stations in a Pennsylvania city: one was Adult Standards music and the other was All-Sports-Talk. The Adult Standards Music station makes 1/10th the money of the sports station, AND has 10 TIMES the number of listeners than the sports station. Not all nationwide examples are that extreme, but most have that same strange inequity. There ARE many questionable entities who buy time on Adult Music stations (and others too), entities who try to sell miracle-cures and get-rich-quick-schemes through very slick and friendly-sounding half-hour or one hour-long commercials which are disguised as listener call-in shows or discussion shows, where every uttered word is scripted as opposed to the "live" feel that the talk program gives the illusion of. This is in addition to minute-long and half-minute commericals they also produce. WJIB and WJTO turns them down on ethical grounds. Bob gets calls from agencies around the country every 2 days, with them wanting to buy the time on WJIB and/or WJTO. There may be a few ethical ones out there, but how can one tell? Bob is amazed that high-powered stations with good reputations would actually decide to air such advertising, knowing all along that there are very good chances that what their listeners would end up ordering is possibly nearly valueless. HOW DOES THE FUND-DRIVE WORK? Every late-spring, WJTO solicits funds from its audience for the fiscal year's operating costs of the station. None of the money collected goes to Bob, nor for any improvements in the Bob-owned WJTO real estate unless such real estate improvements are directly critical to the operation of the station. Once the year's stated goal is reached, no mention of solicitations are heard on WJTO for the remaining fiscal year. All contributions are NOT tax-deductible since WJTO is a FOR-profit corporation. WJTO's style of soliciting funds is different from public radio stations. It's not year-round, and there is a certain conservative amount needed, and when it's reached, that's it. - The text of the fund-raising announcement first hear on WJTO in June 2008 is located on this website. The reason for listener contributions as the station's income is that WJTO is a one-man station, and one man cannot produce the air signal, handle all the government paperwork AND sell commercials on the station. In today's economy, the latter is questionable even if Bob had time for such. Additionally, Bob would rather spend time auditioning more music to put on the air than to sell advertising. WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF POOR AM-RADIO RECEPTION? Interference with AM signals has grown in the past 15 years. Here are some of the causes: cell phones, data-streams over the air, increased electric-line usage, home electronic devices such as microwaves, older florescent lights, "dimmers" for adjustable lighting in home, electric shavers, some TV sets, computers and printers. - In fact, someone could be using one or more of these as much as 5 houses down the street or elsewhere in an apartment building, and you would hear such interference on your AM radio. The worst of the above are dimmers and computers. Signals of the more lower-powered AM stations such as WJIB and WJTO are the most interfered with. ARE THERE WAYS TO IMPROVE AM-STATIONS' SIGNAL IN MY HOME OR BUSINESS? 1) - Rotate your radio around to see which position is best for picking up your desired AM station. No need to turn it on its side, but rather just keep it upright but make it face different directions. Every AM station on your radio has a weak spot and a strong spot depending upon the position of the radio. 2) - Use another radio. Strangely, some smaller clock radios do a much better job of picking up AM stations than big bulky non-portable ones. Most "stereo systems" are very poor at picking up AM stations. The manufacturers of those put all the effort/money into the FM side and CD side. AM radio really does sound good with full fidelity IF the radio is made well. Most aren't these days. Even those advertised expensive table top radios and their imitators do NOT do the job. They DO make what already can be received sound better, but they generally do a worse job of picking up harder-to-get AM stations than a $22 radio often does. 3) - Turn off light dimmers, computers and monitors. Often, a computer's radio-noise will be reduced of you put a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) between your wall socket and the computer. They often absorb computer audio-noise. This helps even when the computer is off! For those of you who want to hear a far-away or lower powered AM station while working on your computer that creates noise in the radio, there's very little you can do except getting that UPS, or a power-strip. A power strip will keep your computer & monitor off, but its best to keep your printer connected to the wall socket since printer ink may dry up if not. 4) - Put your radio along a window. This allows the station's signal to get to your radio more directly, bypassing electrical noise from wires in the wall. Also, try windows or non-window areas in different parts of your home. If you are in a building with steel beams as opposed to wood, reception is likely to be VERY poor. Steel beams are AM and FM radio's worst enemy, which is why reception is very poor in city office buildings. 5) - BEST of ALL: its best to buy another radio, if none of yours work well. WJIB/WJTO recommends Radio Shack's "Optimus" radio (about $55.) Or GE's "SuperRadio" ($65.), the latter which is hard to find. - If you don't want to spend that much, than a small GE clock radio is the best of its size on the market. HOW COME THE STATION'S DAYTIME SIGNAL IS STRONGER IN THE WINTER? AM stations' signal propagation depends upon the "wetness" of the ground. In the summertime, the ground is usually dry. In the winter, it is not only wet, but when frozen, that helps AM signals immensely. The down-side to winter is that two hours after sunrise, and two hours before sunset, distant stations' signals travel further, therefore interfering with local stations moreso than in summertime. But during the winter, the deep-daytime hours (example for January: 9:15 AM to 2 PM), AM-station signals are at their best. In the summer, the signals aren't quite as strong mid-day, but overall, things are better because of the long daylight hours. WILL THE STATIONS (WJIB and WJTO) BROADCAST ON-LINE? Not in the foreseeable future. It is very costly... not so much for the equipment and on-line service, but rather regarding copyright issues. Typical American corporate greed is causing instability in web casting music. The villains are the record companies, who see the new digital medium as a threat and a money-maker at the same time. Ever since the beginning of radio, radio stations and record companies have always had an uneasy alliance, where radio stations pay no royalties to the record companies, but DO pay royalties to the writers of the songs played. So the writers get paid, but the recording artists and the record companies got nothing directly from the radio stations. It has been an even trade: radio gets to make money playing music, and record companies and recording artists get to make money at the records stores BECAUSE radio stations played their music. Now, that there is a new medium (webcasting in digital), record companies are trying (and so far, have succeeded) in making it illegal for ANYone to webcast without an expensive license sold to each individual radio station, or sold to any person or company who wants to web cast. The current web casting fee structure and other requirements are very complicated, and in the past 5 years, have changed many times, making it very unpredictable to estimate costs of doing such. And there is no real effective way yet for stations to recover those costs. If someone is listening to a station's web-stream, chances are, they're not paying for it. In the future, Bob expects to see new ways to make it hold its own, but right now, both of the dinosaur stations he owns keeps him very busy during most of his waking hours. This constant lobbying by record companies, and also by the performing rights organizations for the song writers, and those groups fighting such altogether are making it an endless situation regarding the courts and Congress. Fees and other burdens seem to be changing every 6 months, and some of them call for retroactive payments, making it dangerous to start webcasting even when it appears that it might be the right time that royalties might just be affordable. Another factor is in addition to the fees.... Recently-enacted copyright laws, pushed through by the record companies require that most webcasters' websites MUST tell the website-viewer what song is playing, the artist name, and the album its from; essentially making every webcast a free advertisement for the record industry. For Bob to go back and try to find every original record individually that he got the song from would be a huge task. Keep in mind, there are more than 5,000 songs on the stations' playlist! So, WHY ARE there people streaming music on the web? Many are doing it illegally. If they have no or few assets, they don't fear record company lawsuits, if they're even discovered by the record companies. More well-heeled webcasters are large corporations who can likely afford to do so, but even those huge companies are now pondering the discontinuation of webcast music. Those people in the middle, who want to keep their house and other assets, usually don't webcast. HOW IS MUSIC SELECTED ON WJTO? A lot of it is just from Bob's own choices....actually all of it is. Bob balances the sales history of each record with how he thinks it would fit in the station's format. Yes, there are a few songs on the playlist that Bob doesn't like, but for the most part, he likes them all. Since WJIB and WJTO used to play mostly instrumentals, there are still a few instrumentals each hour which gives a nice break from the 4 or 5 vocals before and after each instrumental. ALL music is picked by Bob, and the stations have never used a "syndicated music/announcer service." Such a service is heard on adult music stations, where the announcer gives the illusion he's in the same city as the station, but is really somewhere else and is likely to be heard on 100+ stations around the USA. Such is not wrong but rather just a different way of making an on-air presentation. Different than the way radio was presented in our younger years, with the DJ in the city where the radio station was. The ‘network DJ's pre-record local references and call-letter mentions for the local station to insert. - Even though that's the easy way to make an all-day or nearly-all-day on-air presentation, Bob chooses not to do the same thing that other stations do. With WJIB & WJTO picking its own music 100% of the time, some different songs get to be aired. HOW IS MUSIC PLANNED ON THE STATIONS? The stations both play from the same library. Whatever song you hear of WJIB you will also hear on WJTO. Both stations have an active playlist of 5,400 songs. Some of them are heard more often than others, as Bob puts all the songs into 15 categories, and the computers rotate all the songs in the 15 categories at different speeds. Some come around every 4 days, and others on the other extreme come around every 180 days. IT APPEARS THAT WJTO PLAYS A LOT OF ‘REPEATS'. TRUE? Not as much as one might think, since WJTO does play the 5,400 songs. Depending upon your listening times, they may seem to repeat, and they actually might, since both stations are on the air 24 hours a day. However, back in the 1940's and before, when a fresh new hit song came out and the first artist had success with it, then immediately other artists would do the same song. It was common to see 4 different artists have HITS with the same song in the same year! - It almost seemed like they had a shortage of song-writers in those days. That is a practice that faded out by the time the later 1950's. So it might SEEM like the station is repeating when it is not.... or it could be that it is. Also keep in mind that since the stations have several categories of songs, some categories rotate more often than others. If the one(s) you like is in one of the less-rotated categories, then you will hear others in a high-rotation category an extra time or two before you hear your favorite in the less-rotation group again. IS BOB HAPPY WITH THE SOUND OF THE MUSIC MIX ON THE STATIONS? Never! - - (Always trying to tweak it to perfection). HOW DOES BOB FIND THE MUSIC HE PLAYS? Bob has collected records since he was about 18, so there's almost 40 years of accumulations. He's not a REAL collector looking for original labels and things like that, but just collecting so that he has the song, not an "original pressing" that collectors/hobbyists like. Listeners have often donated records to the stations. (Yes, old vinyl records are still quite useful!) An occasional flea-market find happens too. It's really quite haphazard in a way... whatever Bob finds that sounds good, gets on the air. He will be downloading songs in the legal fashion, in the future to fill some holes in the American music scene from 1935. So songs are always being added to the WJIB & WJTO playlists; a never-ending effort. Bob only started listening to pop music in 1962 so he did not live through a lot of the eras that are represented on his stations. He has been studying music from before 1962 to make up for that, but there's a long way to go before he gets proficient at it. This is also why, on occasion, you heard an alternate version of an old popular song, sung by the original artist, but not quite the exact same recording as the hit version. This happens because many record companies press recordings that aren't originals. For example, there's a record (CD) company near Montreal that released "Pet Clark"s Greatest Hits" CD. Well... all those songs on it WERE her hit songs sung by her, but they were different recordings of each; still well-done, but not the original hit versions. This Montreal company never had the rights to the original recordings and just instead got together with Pet Clark and recorded new versions. Such practices are deceiving, but commonly done. While Bob knows the Pet Clark songs well, he doesn't know any of the Eddie Fisher songs, since Fisher's recording career was done long before 1962. Therefore there's the possibility that Bob may have found an Eddie Fisher record which was not the original, and without knowledge, how would one know? IF I WANT A COPY OF A SONG THAT I HEARD ON WJIB/WJTO, HOW CAN I GET ONE? That's not all that easy. Since Bob has obtained music form many different sources over the years. There are some LP's that Bob has only found once, and has never found another copy since. Such numerical odds of a listener finding it are just as nil. However, there are other songs that can commonly be found on the internet. To find out what a song title/artist is, of a song played, send a self-addressed stamped-envelope to the station with a note stating the time and date of the song played that you are interested in. Also include a brief description of the song...whether its an instrumental, male vocal, female vocal, etc. By doing that, Bob will look it up on the stations' computer send the info back to you in that S.A.S.E. you provide. Send to WJTO - P O Box 308 - Bath Maine 04530. - Since, in the stations' computers, only the artist and title are listed, Bob may not be able to tell you the CD or vinyl-record LP name and/or number. That info will be included in the stations' reply to you only if Bob can remember such. IS THERE A LIST OF ALL SONGS PLAYED? No, there isn't. Since Bob is always adding more songs he finds to the on-air playlist, such a list would be soon outdated. Secondly, printing out a list of over 5400 songs would be lengthy. And thirdly, the stations do not have printers attached to the on-air computers. The computers are older and its hard to find used printers of the same era. WHY DOESN'T WJIB/WJTO HIRE ANNOUNCERS TO ANNOUNCE SONG TITLES? WJIB and WJTO most oftenly, do not identify the songs on the air. There are people who like it that way, and there are others who don't... It's probably 50-50, therefore Bob chooses to not clutter the music presentations of both stations with talk. However, due to the 50% who DO want the songs identified, Bob does announce song titles/artists from 7 AM to 5 PM every Monday. Some people have suggested that the stations hire DJ's. That is costly as you might imagine. You have also noticed by now that there are no paid commercials. One pays for the other. Bob likes to keep the station's budget stable, without the fear of it running amuck. Employment taxes, and especially the burdensome government paperwork that such generates, just takes more time away from programming good music. SHORT PROGRAMS AIRED ON THE STATIONS: >FAMILY HEALTH: a 2 minute program offering good sound medical advice. They offer free printed information such as a "calorie counter" and other very useful health information. You can reach them on the web at fhradio.org - You can write to them at freestuff @ fhradio.org , or if no computer access, write with regular mail, to Family Health, P O Box 110, Athens, Ohio 45701. >ENVIRONMINUTE: 1-minute program on environmental issues; dangers observed, suggestions on being environmental-friendly, progress in recycling. Environminute.com DOES WJTO RECEIVE ANY MONEY FOR AIRING THE ABOVE PROGRAMS? No. It's common in the radio biz, for different entities to produce programs and distribute them free to stations. Likewise, the stations don't charge for such. Each benefits about the same amount. Stations get some interesting programs, and the program producing entities get some free publicity. HOW DO THE STATIONS VIEW "PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS"? With enthusiasm. "PSA"s are aired often on the station, moreso than other stations in the markets. Two kinds of PSA's are heard on both stations: 1)- Nationally-produced ones, often using several voices; everything from the Red Cross making you aware of its importance to anti-drug-use PSA's. Both stations air them. 2)- "Mission Statement PSA's" which don't mention a dated event, but rather make listeners aware of a local organization and its mission and how to contact them. These last a long time (years) on the air. They are aired on both stations. 3)- There is a third type that is aired: read on-air by Bob; announcing different local DATED events, from church suppers to hobby clubs' exhibitions. WHAT'S HAPPENING TO RADIO THESE DAYS? WHY IS IT SO BLAND? The root of all the problems with the radio industry is "consolidation." Most radio stations, 20 years ago, were owned by people who loved radio and music. NOW, most stations are owned by large corporations who have an insatiable appetite for money. All of that was assisted by the "Republican Revolution" and their "Contract For America" in 1994-95. Passed, at that time by dominant-Republican Congress was "The Communications Act of 1996", which stripped away much of the ownership limits. There are very few limits left. One entity can now own 8 stations in one market and even "rent" more than those 8. One entity can own as many radio stations in the USA as they want as long as there's no more than 8 in one city-area. Theoretically, one company could own 10,000 of the 15,000 radio stations in America. - Long-in-place rules requiring radio stations to act in the "public interest, convenience and necessity" have been put on the back burner by the government. All of this has caused a dramatic decrease in the number of people working in the broadcasting industry. If one company owns 8 stations in a market, then there are likely 1 or 2 managers for those 8 stations instead of the previous 4 to 8 managers taking care of stations under pre-1996 separate ownership. Same goes for tech-people, DJ's, etc. Another result of this consolidation is these Wall Street-sensitive corporations have chosen to cut back greatly on the local aspects of their stations. Additionally, music playlists have shrunk, as every station is trying to battle each other more feverishly with only the MOST popular songs. (For example: most oldies stations who play rock/pop hits from 1963 thru 1978 have a playlist of only about often-played 400 songs.... Now we all know that there were over 1,500 hit songs in that era that most people remember). - So, if it seems that many music stations are playing mostly the same songs within a genre, with different ways to mix them, then you're right. That's exactly what's happening. They do this because most of them are battling for the same desirable demographics /listeners. To top off this radio tragedy, some of the large station-owning corporations have behaved badly since they're been allowed to get too big, behaving in a way that staggers the imagination. One result of this consolidation is that the VALUE of radio stations have risen dramatically from 1996-2005, about five-fold, even though we all predicted and watched station selling prices drop gradually and slightly since 2005. Individuals or smaller companies who owned a radio station(s) saw such a 2000-to-2004 rise in their station's value, and many sold out to the large corporations. For those who chose to stick with it, staff cuts at smaller stations have been needed to compensate the lesser income, which is caused by more advertising money going to the big clusters of stations. THE FIRST WJTO FUND-DRIVE 657 listeners sent in contributions in June, July & August 2008, over an 11 week period. Here are some statistics by towns. All figures are rounded off to nearest whole dollar. First you'll see the town, then the average dollar amount of checks from that town, then the number of checks from that town.... New York City NY 260 2 New Gloucester ME 200 1 Raymond ME 200 1 Westbrook ME 200 1 Pownal ME 120 1 Damariscotta ME 100 1 Union ME 100 1 Wayne ME 100 1 S.Bristol-Christmas Cove ME 93 3 Biddeford ME 74 4 South Portland ME 69 4 Walpole ME 66 3 Bath ME 64 68 Phippsburg ME 63 22 West Bath ME 62 17 Georgetown ME 60 11 Westport ME 60 5 York ME 54 8 Massachusetts (all) 53 23 Bar Mills ME 50 1 Belfast ME 50 1 Jefferson ME 50 1 Naples ME 50 1 Topsham ME 49 44 New Hampshire (all) 49 4 Gorham ME 48 3 Durham ME 47 3 Bowdoinham ME 45 5 Ogunquit ME 45 2 Rockland ME 45 2 Falmouth ME 44 8 Harpswell ME 42 32 Yarmouth ME 41 5 Wiscasset ME 40 13 Kittery ME 40 1 North Monmouth ME 40 1 Warren ME 40 1 Boothbay(s)- (West,East, Harbor, Trevett) ME 39 39 Waldoboro ME 39 2 Other States - (CT,VA,NJ,PA,SC,FL,OH,AZ) 39 16 Turner ME 38 2 Lewiston ME 36 26 Sabattus ME 36 4 Bowdoin ME 35 6 Bristol (Chamberlain, Pemaquid, New Harbor)ME 35 13 Brunswick ME 35 94 Old Orchard Beach ME 33 3 Whitefield ME 33 2 Freeport ME 31 11 Gardiner (& West G'ner) 31 4 Portland ME 31 28 Farmingdale ME 30 1 Washington ME 30 1 Long Island ME 28 1 Southport ME 28 7 Auburn ME 27 11 Cumberland ME 27 3 Lisbon + Falls ME 26 13 Kennebunkport ME 25 2 Leeds ME 25 1 Mechanic Falls ME 25 1 Ocean Park ME 25 1 Oxford ME 25 1 Richmond ME 25 2 Scarborough ME 25 4 Southwest Harbor ME 25 1 Port Clyde-Tenants Harbor 25 3 Augusta ME 24 5 Cape Elizabeth ME 24 8 Arrowsic ME 23 3 Dresden ME 23 3 Litchfield ME 23 2 Newcastle ME 23 2 Saco ME 23 3 South Paris ME 23 2 Woolwich ME 22 10 Gray ME 22 3 Monhegan Island ME 20 2 Bangor ME 20 1 Greene ME 20 1 Harrison ME 20 1 Matinicus ME 20 1 Pittston ME 20 1 Waterford ME 10 1 Hebron ME 5 1 Edgecomb ME 0 0 LARGEST CONTRIBUTING TOWNS 1) - BATH - $4,335.00 2) - BRUNSWICK - $3,265.00 3) - TOPSHAM - $2,156.00 4) - THE BOOTHBAYS - $1,541.00 5) - PHIPPSBURG - $1,374.00 6) - HARPSWELL - $1,344.00 7) - WEST BATH - $1,054.00 8) - LEWISTON - $936.00 9) - PORTLAND - $868.00 10) - GEORGETOWN - $660.00 LARGEST CONTRIBUTORS CAME FROM: New York City NY - $500. (1) Bath ME - $275. (1) Bath ME - $250. (3) Topsham ME - $250. (2) West Bath ME - $250. (1) York ME $250. (1) NUMBER OF $200: CONTRIBUTIONS: 18: Mostly from Bath, Phippsburg, Portland & Georgetown. TOTAL AMOUNT RECEIVED: $ 29,676.11 ////RADIO-RELATED WEBSITES //// NEWS ABOUT LOCAL RADIO STATIONS FYBUSH.com - where you'll find "Northeast Radio Watch". It's updated weekly on Mondays. Detailed reporting of all area stations in New England + NY, PA, NJ. - Also easy to use archive of past weekly issues: by Scott Fybush. Click on the center of the right section for this week's issue. BOSTONRADIOWATCH.com - Reporting of the changes in New England radio; concentrating more on FM and sports stations on AM. --------------------- NEWS ABOUT NATIONAL RADIO RADIOandRECORDS.com - Daily reports about station format and ownership changes, along with FCC policies. Additionally, about today's music scene. RADIO-INFO.com - then click on "Taylor On Radio" so you can fill out a short form to receive Taylor's daily radio report, which comes as email usually around 5 AM daily.Or to go directly to the sign-up page: radio-info.com.newsletter/ BROADCASTINGCABLE.com From the long-established Broadcasting & Cable magazine. RWonline.com - limited, but sometimes different stories like the above. ENCYCLOPEDIC INFO ON ALL AREA STATIONS BOSTONRADIO.org - A summary of all New England stations with photos of each. Compiled by the Boston area's Garrett Wollman. FCC.gov/mb/audio/amq.html - for the FCC's info on every USA AM radio station including coverage maps and technical information. FCC.gov/mb/audio/fmq.html - for the same as above for USA FM radio stations. FCC.gov/fcc-bin/audio/tvq.html - again the same but for all TV stations in the USA. 100000watts.com - info on all USA stations. Edited by Scott Fybush. CRTC.GC.CA/eng/whatsnew.htm - The Canadian government's site. News of their broadcast actions daily. ---------------------------- COVERAGE MAPS of ALL RADIO STATIONS RADIO-LOCATOR.com -fill in call-letters of station you wish; OR fill out the city/town where you want to view a local group of stations. The see info on an individual station on that list, click the yellow "i" icon. Also contains name of each station owner. The coverage maps are liberal... meaning that the rings around the station tower site uniformly suggests a better signal than the actual signal. The closest (red) ring is the actual 2.5mv/m signal which is subject to electrical interference. (AND) coverage maps are available for most stations on the FCC site shown on this page. --------------------------- HISTORY OF RADIO OLDRADIO.com - articles on early radio and individual stations in USA. EARLYRADIOHISTORY.US/INDEX. html - for a nice selection of early radio topics, ranging from the 1890's through the 1940's. EARLYRADIOHISTORY.US/3myst. htm –or– EARLYRADIOHISTORY.US/3roll. htm - Detailed history and listings of all 3-letter call-signs. MANfromMARS.com - by New Hampshire broadcast historian Ed Brouder. "4,800 airchecks" where you can hear audio of NH+ stations from the 1950's, 1960's and more --------------------- OTHER Bob's other station: wjib740.com