WPTF / WLAW / WNAC /WRKO

[mwaters@wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

Dan Strassberg wrote:

<snip>
>>
Neil Dunn reported here that when WLAW operated from Andover with 5 kW, it
used a three-tower array. My understanding is that when WHDH operated from
Saugus with 5 kW, it used a two-tower array. WHDH was protecting a station,
KOA, that is about 1000 miles closer to Boston than the station WLAW was
protecting (KPO San Francisco--now KNBR). This would seem to suggest that
WHDH should have had the more complicated array. So perhaps, by the time
WLAW became a full-time station, the other 680s along the east coast were
authorized or on the air--WPTF and WCBM, for example. Whereas, when WHDH
became a full-time station, the only station it had to protect was KOA. If
so, this suggests that WHDH was operating full time on KOA's channel before
WLAW began full-time operation on 680.
>>

        I would guess that WPTF must be the oldest full-power Class II (now
Class B) station on 680, as it operates non-directional daytime and with
only two towers at night. And I suppose the pattern protects San Francisco,
not Baltimore or Boston. I also know from traveling in the Southeast that
it puts out a clear-channel quality signal in the daytime in terms of
distance and has a surprisingly good skywave at night. It must be a very
early station to have that kind of protection. It's a very rare station,
too, now -- in being a Class II that actually provides some meaningful
skywave service. And its towers are nowhere near half-wave, according to
the FCC database. I wonder why WPTF never got Class I-B status, especially
as it's so far from San Francisco. A bit of WPTF trivia: Its transmitter
building appears in a music video I surfed past recently. Didn't catch the
ID of the video.

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