Re: Tropo (is it still going on?)

[Rob Landry <umar@nerodia.wcrb.com>]

On Sat, 9 Oct 1999, Roy Lawrence wrote:

> A couple of weeks ago, me and a friend of mine were
> parked on Mass Ave, several blocks from the Prudential
> Center, and I noticed a lot of bleeding coming from
> the site. WROR(105.7) seemed to be the dominator for
> noise. I know that this normal, but for those that
> live in that neighborhood, it must be a nightmare!

I get a lot of complaints from people in the Brookline and Back Bay areas
trying to listen to WCRB. Consumer radio receivers are not designed to
deal with upwards of 100 kW blasting from the roof of a neighboring
building.

I ask callers to tune up and down the dial and tell me if they hear
"ghost" signals, stations appearing at wrong places on the dial, which are
indicative of receiver overload. The answer is almost always yes, and the
only real remedy is a bandpass filter between the antenna and receiver. 
The average listener isn't knowledgeable enough to install and use such a
filter, even if he can find one. Some people go out and buy new radios; 
that can work, if they are lucky and find one with a higher overload
threshold; others try amplified antennas, which only make the problem
worse. 

Effectively there is a two mile wide hole in WCRB's coverage area centered
around the Pru.

Rob Landry
umar@nerodia.wcrb.com