Re:WKBR-AM on 1240

["Martin J. Waters" <mwaters@wesleyan.edu>]

>L Glavin wrote:
>Martin J Waters in a post on this subject made reference to stations on
>>frequencies formerly limited to 5,000 watts not being interested in
>boosting their >power here in New England. If you check Elliott, you'll
>see that WDER 1320 am >in Derry, NH has a CP to go to 10KW days.
<snip>

	I didn't say that stations are not interested. I was referring to
the fact that the Northeast is so densely built-up with stations compared
to some other parts of the country that it's hard for most of the old Class
III stations to consider power increases that meet the interference rules.

>It seems to me that the Boston market would be ideal for all the 5 KW
>stations >(590,950,1150,1260,1330,1430 and 1600) to build antenna systems
>aimed out to >sea, but so far it hasn't happened.

	There may a bit of tongue in cheek here. But if a station's antenna
site is located in the right spot, being in a coastal market can be
helpful. If you put your antenna west of the city and aim it east and can
get a wide pattern that nulls only to the west, you can be in a good
situation. If you're far enough west, you're not losing much of your market
area "behind" the pattern. In Boston, only WRKO ended up with a site that
is sort of like this. It throws big numbers (75 or 100 kW equivalent?)
straight southwest over Boston, all the suburbs east of Framingham, and
right on over Cape Cod.
	But the history of most stations is something like, started with
500 watts daytime only. So, they were not thinking about putting their
antenna out in Framingham (for example!), but rather in spots much closer
to the city, so they could put a decent signal over the immediate city
area. An exception to this is WPZE, which had 5 kW as far back as the '30s,
but already was hemmed in by WTAG (a bizarre mystery, IMO, why these
stations ended up on first adjacent channels when they both were started so
long ago). If there were no WTAG, 590 could have done great by planting its
antenna due west of the city. OTOH, there's something to be said for those
salt-water marshes.

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