Re: Burlington question

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

At 11:16 PM 3/31/98 -0500, you wrote:
>you wrote--
>> When it was first built, the TX belonged to WLAW, then to WNAC, and now to
>>WRKO. At some point, I'm pretty sure that WLAW-FM (93.7) also transmitted
>from >that site. 
>
>Evidently the move occurred around 1949-- prior to that, WLAW was in Andover
>on River Road.  I wonder why they moved to Burlington???
>
My impression is that the moved occurred earlier--around 1940, but I could
be wrong. WLAW moved from Andover to Burlington when it increased its power
to 50 kW. Although WLAW remained licensed to Lawrence, the purpose of the
move was to provide principal-city service to Boston. (In those days, the
criteria for such service were 25 mV/m over the "main business district"--a
term so vague that even the FCC eventually interpreted it as the main Post
Office, 5 mv/m over the entire area of the community by day, and the greater
of 5 mV/m or the inteference-free contour over 80% of the COL at night.) If
you look at a map, you'll see that the WLAW/WNAC/WRKO site in Burlington is
almost precisely midway between downtown Lawrence and downtown Boston. The
pattern (the current night pattern--the even better separate day pattern
didn't arrive until much later), was well designed to cover both the Boston
and Merrimac Valley markets, something that the station does admirably.
Boston's western suburbs--from Wellesley west--didn't get such a great
signal, but in those days, they were not heavily populated and it wasn't a
huge deal.

Had WLAW remained in Andover, it would have been audible in Boston (it was
probably _audible_ with 5 kW), but it really couldn't claim to serve the
Boston market. Besides being further north than Burlington, Andover is also
further east, and since WLAW's signal to the southwest was limited (to
protect WPTF, Raleigh NC), the Boston market would simply not have gotten a
great signal.

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

------------------------------