For decades, former Worcester, Mass., based rocker WAAF pumped out a formidable Class B signal from a tower site just north of Shrewsbury. One could travel on the “Mass Pike” from the Springfield area all the way into Boston and listen to the station.
The problem? Getting full-market coverage in Boston. Now, the station that’s now a K-LOVE Christian Contemporary station owned by Educational Media Foundation has it. And, it is thanks to GEO Broadcast Solutions, the company seeking FCC approval for its “Zonecasting” technology.
The Class B with a tower in Westborough today carries the WKVB-FM calls, and GeoBroadcast Solutions says it has “substantially improved its signal and expanded its audience to reach the Boston market.”
WKVB is doing so through a diplexing arrangement with an existing MaxxCasting system from GeoBroadcast Solutions tied to WXLO-FM 104.5.
That’s the Cumulus Media Hot Adult Contemporary station that, like WKVB, is a Class B with a signal that has historically scraped metro Boston.
However, that changed in early 2019, when boosters in Boston, Waltham and Lexington, Mass., were installed by GeoBroadcast Solutions.
Now, the Bay State K-LOVE outlet has the same technology in place, essentially making it a Boston-market FM.
Notably, the coverage boost represents the first diplex deployment of a MaxxCasting system with HD Radio, and GeoBroadcast Solutions says this opens the way for future multicasting of several stations using a 4-node single-frequency network (SFN).
“The ability to include more than one station in a MaxxCasting system provides multiple broadcasters the ability to improve their signals and increase their listeners through one booster source,” said Bill Hieatt, Chief Technology Officer of GeoBroadcast Solutions. “Applying the technology in such a way brings down costs and supports the revenue split business model we’ve proposed for ZoneCasting.”
Joe Miller, VP of Signal Development at Educational Media Foundation, said the MaxxCasting HD deployment at WXLO and at Bustos Media Holdings’ regional Mexican KDDS-FM 99.3 in Elma, Wa., for better coverage of Seattle, led the broadcast ministry — the second-largest licensee of FMs in the U.S., behind iHeartMedia — to employ the technology. “We are quite pleased with the outcome and are in the process of exploring several other markets to implement the GBS technology,” Miller said.
MaxxCasting combines radio and cellular technology and enables FM Broadcasters using boosters to enhance their signals by reducing interference between the main and booster transmissions through the use of a cluster of low to the ground, high power, highly directionalized synchronized booster sites. All equipment for Maxxcasting is provided by Doug Tharp at SCMS, the exclusive U.S. distributors for GatesAir/PR&E studio systems and transmitters. Other important contributors to the project include Bert Goldman of Goldman Engineering Management, which provided the bridge between system design and FCC compliance; and Shively, which provided all directional antennas for the network.
Then, there is ZoneCasting, and EMF Vice President Sam Wallington has voiced his support of GeoBroadcast Solutions’ petition to allow FM stations to engage in a technology that brings addressable advertising and hyperlocal opportunities to broadcast signals.
WKVB is a relatively new property for EMF. In February it reached a definitive agreement to buy the facilities associated with WAAF-FM 107.3 from Entercom Communications for $10.75 million in cash.
