Re: WNTN (was WPTR)

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

WNTN is at 143 Rumford Ave off Moody St near the Waltham line. The tower is
allegedly 210' high and is top-loaded via the guy wires. It sure doesn't
look that tall, but the fact that it is illuminated at night suggests that
it really is over 200'.

It's virtually impossible for AM stations as close together on the dial as
1510 and 1550 or 1550 and 1600 to diplex. A broadcast engineering rule of
thumb (occasionally violated--though rarely by much) is that the frequency
separation must be at least 10% of the higher of the two frequencies. WNTN
could diplex with 1150. Moreover, the configuration of 1150's towers would
make possible a night pattern for WNTN that is about as good as WNTN could
get. WNTN must deliver no more than a 25 microvolt/m groundwave or 10%
skywave to CBE's 0.5 mV/m 50% skywave contour *anywhere in Canada*. With a
change in COL to Belmont, WNTN might be able to get as much as 500W at night
from the 1150 site. Take a look at the night pattern of the 1550 in
Bloomfield CT, north of Hartford. That station uses 2.4 kW at night into
four or five towers. Obviously 1150's three towers would not allow as much
power, but the orientation of the 1150 towers would be quite good for WNTN.

The problem with this idea is that the construction cost and rent for use of
the 1150 facilities would be prohibitive. Unless Rob Rudnick sells the
station to some well-heeled high roller, this ain't gonna happen.

As for Bob's claim that WILD could have gotten an authorization for
low-power night service, I don't think so. WILD is well within WBAL's 0.5
mV/m 50% skywave and WBAL is, of course, a US Class A AM. For US Class D AMs
located east of a co-channel US Class A and within the Class A's 0.5 mV/m
50% skywave, nighttime service is not permitted, although post-sunset
authority up to approximately local sunset at the Class A is. WILD has, and
uses, such a PSSA, but you will note that WILD does not have pre-sunrise
authority, although that might be permitted--albeit with such low power as
to be useless. Maybe Bob meant that WILD could have gotten a PSRA; the rules
for PSRAs are somewhat looser than those for PSSAs.

The reason that WJIB is in a different situation and that WNTN could be is
that, in their cases, the co-channel Class As are in Canada, and Class A
stations no longer receive any protection outside of their national borders.
This rule change anables US stations on foreign clear channels to operate
full time.

--

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Sptseditor@aol.com <Sptseditor@aol.com>
To: Jibguy@aol.com <Jibguy@aol.com>
Cc: boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
<boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Date: Thursday, January 13, 2000 2:12 AM
Subject: WNTN (was WPTR)


>Would they be able to operate
>a DA at night if they ever were able to diplex from somewhere? This is a
>major imagination scenario, because I knew it would never happen, but I
>wonder why they couldn't share the towers of 1510 or 1600 (more likely
1600)
>even just at night since both are nearby in frequency and nearby in terms
of
>distance from the 1550 site. (BTW, where exactly is WNTN located in
Newton?)
>
>-Sean