RE: WTIC (AM) anniversary broadcast

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Mike Fitzpatrick wrote:
>Doesn't the WTIC-AM signal reach out that far? I remember getting them
>crystal clear at my house in Great Barrington, MA (some 45 miles North West
>of Hartford) when I was little.

        The signal goes well outside the Hartford metro area and the
Hartford-New Britain Arbitron area, although the measured audience in those
other places is extremely low. WTIC hardly shows up in either the
Springfield or New Haven books. If it's there at all, it has a share that
begins with a zero and a decimal point. Long time ago, it was a major
player in Springfield, especially.
        You could say that generally the signal is good to excellent for at
least 50-60 miles in all directions, at least daytime. That's at least to
the NY border in the west, Long Island Sound, Northampton, and maybe out
close to Norwich. Use of the daytime signal in the direction of Boston
becomes limited out beyond Worcester because of WILD.
        IMO, though, WTIC doesn't put out as strong as a signal as it
might. I wonder if they actually make the 0.5 mv contour I have on a
coverage map from the 1950s. Also, I think the ground conductivity in a lot
of its signal area is quite poor. I heard once that back in the '50s or
'60s they had a plan to move to a new site in swamp along the Connecticut
River just south of Hartford, but for reasons unknown to me it never was
done. The antenna is on the top of a steep ridge in Avon, probably about 6
or 8 miles due west of downtown Hartford.
        Also, at night the signal has some problems surprisingly close to
Hartford in some directions--even 30-40 miles out. The extremely strong
splash from WBAL is the main problem at night. Also, the DA pattern that's
used from sunset Dallas to sunrise cuts down the signal to the south and
southwest mildly, so the New Haven area gets spotty. Even in the day, it's
not quite good enough in the built-up areas of downtown New Haven, which is
about 40 miles south of Hartford.
        When I compare the signal to the Class A stations from NYC, it's
nowhere near as strong.