The birth of WMMM-FM 107.9 MHz
FM broadcasting was still pretty new in these days. WMMM investigated and obtained a license from the Federal Communications Commission to add an FM channel to the current station's facility.
In the early postwar World War II years (approximately 1948), New Haven's WELI-AM (960 KHz) constructed an FM station on 107.9 MHz. This station was initially issued the call letters WEMI. It later had its call sign changed to WELI-FM shortly before the owners would abandon their efforts of operating the FM station. This opened the frequency allocation for use in the Westport area.
The 107.9 MHz frequency assignment was issued for the new sister station of WMMM-AM. Saturday, September 1, 1962 would mark the official first sign-on for WMMM-FM. The station broadcast the same programming as WMMM-AM, which was referred to as simulcasting. The FM transmitter was an RCA BTF-1D with an effective radiated power of 5,229 watts. The FM antenna was attached to one of the radiating towers at the AM transmitting site on Willard Road in Norwalk. The FM antenna was approximately 79 feet above the average terrain.
Electronics weren't as stable and reliable back them as they are today. An interesting story told by former station staffer Dennis Jackson occurred about a year or so after WMMM-FM signed on. The FM oscillator (which helps create the broadcast signal inside the transmitter) decoupled from the automatic frequency control circuit (this keeps the station on its assigned frequency of 107.9 MHz). The station's signal began to drift down the dial away from 107.9 MHz, eventually ending up on 102.9 MHz. Apparently the transmitter suffered from some sort of component failure as the AFC lock displayed on the built-in RCA scope "... went nuts".
Pictured left, the monitoring scope that was part of the exciter section of the RCA BTF-1D 1000 watt FM transmitter originally utilized at WMMM-FM. This transmitter would later be donated to Westport's Staples High School to replace the unrepairable transmitter for WWPT, their student operated FM radio station.