Re: Wee Eye

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

At 08:24 AM 6/17/98 -0400, you wrote:
>
>I would be curious as to the results of WWRC Washington's upgrade on 980 kHz
>from 5 kW to 50 kW and the "metro" rationale there?...
>
First off, GM's mismanagement of 'RC is legendary. The greater power
certainly did nothing to reverse the ratings slide of this once-mighty NBC
Radio flagship.

Second, even before the upgrade, 'RC had one of the best daytime signals in
the market. It was only 5 kW but it was ND from a half-wave tower at a good
location. When it comes to groundwave coverage, 5 kW-ND on 980 from a
half-wave tower at a good site can beat 50 kW-DA on 1500 from a not-so-great
site. A friend in DC reports that 'RC's 50-kW signal is fine but not nearly
the improvement over the old signal that you might have expected. The 50 kW
signal is directional, and most of the power goes into shorter towers, so
the signal improvement was less than the equivalent of a tenfold increase.
Also, where my friend in the DC area lives--in Montgomery County MD, which
is north of DC--there could be no signal improvement. I assume this was the
case because 'RC must protect the AM 980 in Wilks-Barre.

I don't know whether the new setup required the addition of a tower. If it
did, the new tower is 1/4 wave. The existing half-wave tower was not in the
right position for it to play a major role in the new day array. My friend
reports that, aside from towers, which were probably constrained by zoning
and environmental impact, GM spared no expense on the facilities upgrade.
He's toured the TX site and he says that GM went first class all the way.

The major intended benefit was to be able to tell the time buyers that the
station ran 50 kw. But I guess that that argument doesn't work too well when
the ratings continue to slide into the noise level after the power goes up.  

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