Re: Nova Scotia Boston DX

[ehenness@natick-amed02.army.mil]

Joe Ross asks:
 
>Given the wide coverage of WBZ, why did they decide to be directional,
>anyway?  I would have thought that a single-tower, non-directional signal,
>covering the Cape and anyone else, would have been less expensive as well
>as a better coverage area.  Anyone know why WBZ is directional? 

One reason I heard, given by Bob Hess of 'BZ Engineering, is that when they 
moved the antenna to Nantasket Beach in the 1940s ('42?), that decision was 
made.  Since Hull was pretty far east (relatively speaking), and there was 
little land to the east of the antenna but water, Westinghouse figured that 
the best 'bang for the buck' would be to directionalize the signal towards 
the mainland.  Why put signal over area with no listeners?  The signal is 
nulled due east, so the Cape gets some of the signal (except maybe for 
Chatham and P-town) as does northern Europe (from where they have had QSL 
cards).  Bob says that that gives 'BZ an ERP of 100kw to the west; given 
the way the signal bombs across the eastern US, I can believe that.

Ed Hennessy

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