Re: Try again (earlier in the day)

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

Yes, WNNW should kill its carrier when it signs off. Chances are the remote
control system isn't working and nobody at the station knows or cares or
else Costa is too cheap to get it fixed. He'd probably rather pay the higher
electric bills than take a big hit to pay a contract engineer to fix it. And
fixing it might involve buying new equipment, which could be still more
expensive.

At 02:28 PM 8/14/99 -0400, you wrote:
>(1) WNNW-AM 1110 in Salem, NH has been transmitting a
>carrier outside of its broadcast day for over a month
>(I erred in saying it was broadcasting until 9:00
>pm in Aug;  it does its sign-off now at 8:30 pm).
>Then the carrier stays on at apparently full power
>all night long till the next morning, weekdays AND
>weekends.  Is this legal?

WBPS holds a CP to slightly modify its day pattern. The most significant
change is to increase the signal in a very narrow lobe to the west from a
few tens of watts to the equivalent of about 5 kW. If I had to guess, I'd
say that the day pattern was never really in adjustment and that the signal
to the west was significantly greater than the pattern indicated, though
probably not as much as 5 kW equivalent. The new pattern will reduce the
daytime signal in Boston ever so slightly. Also the signal in the deepest
nulls, which are pretty much due north and due south during the day,
increases from the equivalent of about 4W to the equivalent of about 22W. I
have no idea whether WBPS has built this CP yet; it's really a rather minor
adjustment to the pattern. If the CP has been built, this could be what
you're hearing. I also suspect that Mega may have invested in new audio
processing for WBPS, or perhaps just tweaked the existing processors.

>(2) WBPS's new owners seem to have spent the money to
>bring the signal up to specs and make it competitive
>in Metro Boston.  I first noticed it in mid-July when
>it suddenly caused splatter on WMVU, AM 900 in Nashua
>so the question is:  how much of the signal is getting 
>into Lowell/Chelmsford/Tyngsboro and should WMVU worry?

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