Re: Brattleboro-Keene Market, part II

[Dan Strassberg <dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net>]

At 06:05 PM 3/20/98 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>130 mile reception is a stretch unless, possibly, the receiving site is on
>>a mountaintop.  This translator could be picking up the program from
>>another translator, via a "daisy chain".  That too would account for the
>>over-the-air sound and variability.
>
Back in the early 50s, when I was a student at RPI in Troy New York, 140+
miles north of New York City, WFLY, Troy, was the Capital District affiliate
of the 'QXR Network. WFLY fed all of the network affiliates to the west via
over-the-air relay. Back then, Class B FMs (as were all of the 'QXR
Net--former Rural Radio Net--affils) were limited to 20 kW at 500' (vs 50 kW
at 150m now). WFLY's TX is in the Helderberg Mountains southwest of Albany.
The HAAT from a very short tower (under 100'?) is approximately 1000 ft. The
receiver for the over-the-air pickup was at the TX site. WFLY was usually
able to pick up a seviceable mono signal from WQXR-FM in New York. When
there were reception problems with the over-the-air FM link, WFLY would
switch to an off-air pickup of WQXR (AM)--now WQEW. In those days, WQXR was
10 kW ND-U, then, as now, on 1560. When WFLY had to switch to the AM link,
the audio quality was, to put it charitably, interesting. I'm sure that WQXR
must have had a half-wave tower back then (it has four of them now, of which
it uses two by day and three by night), but then as now, the signal was not
noted for its fade-free properties. At least it wasn't known for such
properties at a distance of 140 miles. Sometimes the AM link had to be used
during daylight hours. I haven't a clue as to what signal strength WQXR
delivered to the Helderbergs with 10 kW-ND, but I'd guess it was well below
50 microvolts/m.

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Dan Strassberg (Note: Address is CASE SENSITIVE!)
ALL _LOWER_ CASE!!!--> dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net
(617) 558-4205; Fax (617) 928-4205

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