WSRO

["Daniel Strassberg" <Dan.Strassberg@worldnet.att.net>]

A check of John Kodis' Web site at www.radiostation.com shows that either
the FCC has corrected or Langer Broadcasting has amended WSRO's application
for 7 kW-D/5 kW-N from the current "temporary" site just inside I-495 in
Hudson. Although there has been no change in the day pattern, which I could
explain, but which nevertheless appeared odd at first, the clearly incorrect
night pattern has changed materially. The new night pattern strongly
resembles the night pattern from the old Fitchburg St site, which WSRO lost
in a land taking by the City of Marlboro. Instead of using the same three
towers day and night, WSRO proposes to construct four 100' top-loaded towers
and share two of them between the day and night arrays. The night array now
shown is a three-tower in-line setup oriented at 135 degrees, as was the
Fitchburg St array. However, apparently to accommodate the day array, the
night array uses unequal spacing; the northwest tower is 68 degrees from the
center tower, whereas the southeast tower is 100 degrees from the center
tower. The main lobe of the figure-eight night pattern goes southeast over
Marlboro, Natick, and Framingham. Nighttime coverage of all three
communities should be a bit worse than it was from Fitchburg St, both
because of the less efficient shorter towers and because of the greater
distance. (The new site is 2.5 miles northwest of the old one.)

Because the day pattern was designed to eliminate the long-standing
prohibited overlap with WBET (and apparently to protect WSAR to the new and
more stringent first-adjacent-channel interference criterion), the 5 mV/m
day contour won't go much beyond Marlboro. (Most of the 7-kW day signal goes
northwest toward Fitchburg and Leominster.) However, Langer has been
operating WSRO in a virtual simulcast with WRPT during the hours when WRPT
operates. And he has applied to move WRPT from its current Mt Wayte Ave
location in Framingham (the WKOX site) to Sewell St in Ashland (the WBPS
site). From there, he proposes 2 kW-D DA-D using WBPS's five towers. The
pattern sends virtually all of the signal to the east. Thus the two-station
combo will provide good daytime coverage of most of greater Boston and much
of central Mass and WSRO will provide decent nighttime coverage of Marlboro,
Framingham, and Natick.

WRPT will probably have to continue as a daytimer. (Actual hours are 6:00 AM
until two hours past local sunset. The extended post-sunset hours are
possible because WRPT is east of WSM, the dominant Class A on 650, and is
outside of WSM's protected skywave contour.) There are unbuilt AM 650s all
over eastern Canada. Even though these stations will never be built, they
are "notified" to the U.S. and must be protected. The most troublesome one
for WRPT is in Frederickton NB, which is only about 20 degrees north of due
east of us. Were WRPT to operate at night, it would clearly interfere with
that allocation. If the Frederickton 650 CP existed before the never-built
WBSO Clinton was deleted, the NB station was designed  in expectation of the
sort of interference WRPT would provide. But when WBSO was deleted, so was
the notification to Canada, with the result that the unbuilt station now
must be protected to a very low field-strength contour.
--

Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net
Phone: 1-617-558-4205, eFax:1-707-215-6367