Re: WMEX/WITS/WMRE

[dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net]

Bill: You were half right. I couldn't find the old 
message and I didn't think anyone else could either. So 
I wrote a new version with most of the same info. But it 
was fun reading my old message. Thanks for resurrecting 
it. Even though I write for a living, I'm occasionally 
impressed by how lucid I can be :-)

> At 09:19 AM 3/17/99 -0500, you wrote:
> >Or is that WMRE/WITS - I don't exactly remember.  On the subject of the 1510
> >frequency, can anyone fill me in on the reason for moving the transmitting
> >site from Quincy to Waltham. [snip]
> Dan Strassberg, in answer to NORIAC [remember Re: MESSAGE ID: 1EC610858?]
> on 7/30/97 @ 0221GMT, gave this list the definitive story on 1510's move to
> Waltham:
> [remember ARS still owned WRKO on 7/30/97!]
> 
> The big problem for WITS (aside from WWKB and WTOP) was not WNLC, which you 
> might assume from the very short distance between the stations. Rather, the 
> problem was the AM 1510 in Sherbrooke, PQ. Sherbrooke is due north of 
> Boston. WITS's TX was located in Squantum (AKA, N Quincy), due south of 
> downtown Boston. Because of the Sherbrooke station, improving the signal 
> over Boston necessitated relocating the TX, and the site had to be pretty 
> much where it wound up--in Waltham, on the Belmont line. The site is in the 
> proper direction from Boston (mostly west--a little north) and is the right 
> distance from downtown (about eight airline miles). But that's the end of 
> the good news. The soil conductivity is poor. The area is quite built up, 
> which necessitated the expenditure of a fortune on interference abatement. 
> The rent on the land is high, and after the TX was built, the owner of the 
> industrial park built a large four-story office building right on top of the 
> ground system. Shortly before the move, the Squantum site had developed very 
> similar problems. An office park was built immediately to the west. The 
> buildings really screwed up the already pathetic 5-kw nighttime signal 
> except in downtown Boston and on the North Shore, which continued to receive 
> a decent signal thanks to the clear salt-water path.
> Anyhow, the last time I checked, even though the Sherbrooke station had been 
> silent for several years, the allocation still existed. That meant that the 
> night pattern had to stay as it was. I don't know if that situation has 
> changed in the meantime. If Sherbrooke were to cease to be an issue, the 
> nighttime signal to the north, which is pathetic, could be improved. By day, 
> the pattern is a cardioid (with a little null fill-in to the southwest) 
> oriented on a 45-degree azimuth. In the absence of Sherbrooke, the night 
> pattern could be quite similar, except without the null fill-in.
> As for the stations in New Jersey, if they left the air, it would do nothing 
> in particular for WNRB. WNRB must protect WLAC Nashville. Take away the 
> Jersey stations (one of which just moved to 1510 after Westinghouse bought 
> their facility on 1000 to allow improvement of WINS), and it still would not 
> be possible to improve the signal to the west and southwest.
> Given the relaxation in the rules on signal over the COL, moving the TX 
> further west is theoretically possible. but finding suitable land would be 
> impossible. A move back to the South Shore would make sense if the 
> Sherbrooke problem could be made to disappear. But again, finding a suitable 
> tract of land would probably take a longer time than the AM band has left to 
> live. If CBS and ARS weren't competitors, the WRKO site would be a possibility.
> 
> Whew. I don't think Dan would want to type all that again!
> 
> 
> 

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