Re: Subject: The Future of 890.

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

At 01:05 PM 4/18/98 -0400, you wrote:
>
>Dan, How about 590 from Ashland day and the old Meffa site at night?  Bill
>O'Neill
>
Salem HATES paying rent on TX sites and loves diplexing, because it brings
in revenues. They have at least four AMs that operate diplexed. Two (WZZD
and WFIL, Philadelphia) are Salem properties that share a site with each
other. In New York, WWDJ (Salem) shares its site with WWRV (Radio
Christiana) and WMCA (Salem) shares its site with WNYC (New York Public
Radio). After the initial angst over getting the added station working and
getting the original signal back to or near its original level, diplexing
apparently becomes quite painless. You do nothing except deposit the other
station's checks (if the stations are not commonly owned and you are the
owner of the shared site). Or if you start out by owning both sites and you
sell one off, you bank the big check you get from selling off one site, and
then each month, you bank the money you would have put aside to pay the
taxes on the site you sold. In this case, Salem would bank the rent it now
spends on the Wellington site minus the added power bill and the interest
lost on the upgrade cost.

As soon as Salem took over 590, I heard reports that their management was
really upset over the high cost of the lease on the Wellington Circle
property. Here's a chance for Salem to put that rent in the bank each
month--and we know how much Salem management loves money! Moreover, Salem is
probably the only substantial group owner with little or no debt. If they
keep the Wellington site, the lease payments continue. so I don't think they
would do that. Why spend a lot of money moving WEZE to obtain a worse signal
and higher power bills, if you don't get _something_ in return? The
potential something is an end to those pesky rent payments.

I think the big problem technically, is whether those five closely spaced
towers could produce a pattern that protects WTAG well enough during the
daytime. It could just be flat-out impossible. It would be impossible if the
Sewell St site is within WTAG's 0.5 mV/m contour, for example. I'm quite
sure that there is overlap between WEZE and WTAG that was permitted when the
stations were built but is prohibited under current rules. If WEZE were to
move to Ashland, WEZE would have to provide no more signal at WTAG's 0.5
mV/m contour than it currently does. There could also be an issue regarding
WTAG's 0.25 mV/m contour and WEZE's 0.5.

At night, I suspect that the five towers could produce a pattern that is
quite narrow, thus avoiding increased interference to the stations in Quebec
and Newfoundland. I would not be surprised if this could be done with a
power substantially higher than 5 kW. At night, WTAG is less of an issue
because in no event must it be protected to a contour weaker than 2.5 mV/m
(and it might turn out that the protected contour is significantly more than
2.5 mV/m). WEZE's current pattern sends the equivalent of 300W to the west
(if memory serves). I wouldn't be surprised if that same equivalent power
could work at night from the Ashland site. It definitely wouldn't work
during the day. But with five towers and 300W equivalent to the west (or
maybe a tad more--a bonus from the reduced high-angle radiation of 890's
taller towers), the night pattern could be pulled in a good bit from the day
pattern allowing maybe 25 kW at night. WEZE's night signal in Boston would
then be a little better than WBPS's day signal there. Allegedly, WBPS puts 5
mV/m over all of Boston. I suspect that WEZE currently delivers 50 mV/m to
the financial district. The distance is quite short and the path is salt
water most of the way.


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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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