Re: WFNX

[ehenness@natick-amed02.army.mil]

On Mon, 26 May 1997, Sean P. Smyth wrote:

> Also, since I am a non-engineering type, I will ask the technological 
folks
> this question: How would going mono improve their coverage area? Would 
some
> of it have to do with this multipath I always hear talk about? And why 
not
> just stick their antenna downtown then instead of in Malden?

And Rob Landry replied:

>They can't move their antenna towards Boston because they would be
>short-spaced to a 101.5 station in Providence (the former WLKW-FM, I
>forget what it's called these days). 

That would be WWBB.  And since WWBB is on the channel 64 tower in Rehoboth, 
which is southeast of Providence proper, it seems that WFNX is about as 
close as they ever can be to Boston.  In fact, if WWBB had been on 
Neuticoncanut Hill in Johnston (a few miles due west of Providence) with 
other Providence FMs when WFNX applied to move to Malden, I'd suspect the 
move would have been denied for short-spacing reasons.

Incidentally, 'FNX has a translator permit for a Back Bay location, to 
improve their signal in town (and at the Phoenix offices, too, no doubt. 
:-)

>FM mono is about 20 dB less noisy than FM stereo.  Also, eliminating the
>stereo subchannel dramatically reduces multipath problems. 

Could this be one reason WBUR uses stereo less than 24 hours daily, even 
though they have a directional signal to the east?

Ed Hennessy

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