650

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

The unbuilt stations on 650 in eastern Canada are in Frederickton MB, Gander
NF, Pointe Claire PQ (Montreal), Rouyn PQ, and Sept-Isle PQ. What I had
forgotten when I said that WRPT could not improve its facilities is that
there was for many years an unbuilt CP for a station (WBSO, I believe) in
Clinton MA on 650 with (ulimately) 10 kW-D/2.3 kW-N DA-2. The original night
power was 1 kw, but when the rules for the night power of secondary stations
on ex-IA channels were relaxed, the permittee applied for and was granted
increased night power. In fact, what made possible Langer's move of WRPT to
650 was the FCC's deletion of the WBSO CP (for failure to construct). Some
or all of the Canadian assignments are likely to have been designed with the
idea that they would receive interference from WBSO. What I don't know is
whether the interference-free contours were revised when the interfering
skywave from WBSO was removed. If not, it might indeed be possible to
construct a station that radiated no more than WBSO would have had it been
built.

WRPT's daytime situation is trickier, though. WBSO was originally granted
before the first-adjacent-channel interference criterion was tightened. WBSO
was only required to deliver no more than 0.5 mV/m to WFAN's 0.5 mV/m
groundwave contour. WRPT is required to deliver no more than 0.25 mV/m to
WFAN's 0.5 mV/m and WRPT's 0.5 mV/m must not overlap WFAN's 0.25 mV/m. It
was overlap with WFAN that shot down Langer's original proposal to move WRPT
to Foxborough and diplex with WDIS. In addition, the Ashland site is quite a
bit closer to Boston than Clinton is, so overlap of 25 mV/m contours with
WRKO becomes a consideration. WRPT couldn't possibly get anything like
WBSO's 10 kW-D. But something more than 250W might be possible. The Ashland
site is in a good place as far as distances to adjacent-channel stations are
concerned. However, although the site is only about a mile from the
WKOX/WJLT/WRPT site, the soil conductivity is apparently much worse. That's
the only explanation for the poor signals of 890--and 1060 before it. So if
WRPT were to move to Sewell St and increase to, say, 2.5 kW-D/1.5 kW-N DA-2,
I suspect that the signal improvement from the present signal (which is
amazingly good for 250W), would be underwhelming.

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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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