Re: WTIC (AM) anniversary broadcast

[Mike Thomas <nostatic@earthlink.net>]

When I was at WLIS-Old Saybrook CT in the early 90's, the station used to take
it's EBS feed from WTIC-AM.  However, at night the TIC signal was so bad, you
couldn't air an emergency announcement because of the poor sound quality.  I had
a battle royale with the owner over it, but was finally able to convince him to
switch the EBS primary over to WCTY-Norwich.  We also ran the Red Sox, Whaler
hockey, and UCONN basketball on WLIS because WTIC did come in so poorly along
the Connecticut shoreline at night.

Mike Thomas
WXLO & Mediabase 24/7

"Martin J. Waters" wrote:

>         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.
>
>         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.