Re: WMEX/WITS/WMRE

[Mark Shneyder <bostonradio@yahoo.com>]

- ---Dan Strassberg <dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> At 12:00 AM 3/19/99 -0500, you wrote:
> > 
> >It occurs to me to wonder, if they had kept the power at 5,000
watts, 
> >might they have found a new transmitter site where they might
actually 
> >have had better signal coverage, even with the lower power.
> >
> In retrospect, the thing to have done was to keep the day site in
Squantum
> and move the night site to Waltham. This would have cost an extra
$250,000
> or so (cost of one more 50-kW AM TX) plus the ongoing cost of the real
> estate taxes on the Quincy site. Because of CJRS and WLAC/WNLC,
covering the
> market at night meant moving north and west. But with a facility
licensed to
> Boston on a high-on the-dial frequency like 1510 with bad co- and
> adjacent-channel interference, once you get away from the water, you
have to
> get _well_ back, to put the maximum population in front of the
pattern. But,
> in those days, you couldn't go too far because of the requirement
for a 25
> mV/m signal over the main Post Office. The 50 kW power and a site in
or near
> Waltham were virtual necessities.
> 
> I can imagine that a lot of engineers would also have thought the
Waltham
> site to be a better day site. The taller towers effectively almost
doubled
> the power. From either site, the day signal was beamed broadly to the
> northeast, and from Quincy, it went right out over Massachusetts
Bay, making
> it the strongest Boston signal in Yarmouth NS. From Waltham, the
signal went
> over the market first. Nevertheless, the 50 kW day signal from
Quincy was
> OK. It covered the market pretty well because the signal to the
sides and
> slightly behind the pattern reached most of the population--much of
it via
> salt water. At the time the CP for Waltham was granted, the station
also had
> on file with the FCC _another_, earlier application to modify the
> non-critical hours day pattern from Quincy to slightly improve
coverage to
> the southwest. Waltham turned out to be a disaster because of the
high costs
> of remediating interference, the landlord's incursions onto the ground
> system, the fact that the soil conductivity was apparently much
worse than
> the preliminary measurements had indicated, and, of course, the
ongoing cost
> of leasing the land.
> 

On March 8, WNRB has filed an application with the FCC which calls for
changes to station's ant. system. The changes should improve many
interefence problems near their transmitter site.
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