RE: WTIC (AM) anniversary broadcast

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

>Pete Kemp wrote:
>
>As Connecticut's only 50,000 watt AM station, I have always been surprised
>by WTIC's iffy signal coverage around the state.  Here in Fairfield County
>it's basically a no go. Totally useless in the car.  If I hook up the Kiwa
>Loop, WBZ come in about as strong and Boston's maybe 4 times the distance
>away.
<snip>

        I guess I'm just a nitpicker, even though I started this thing
about WTIC's iffy signal. But, you're not four times as far from WBZ, but
maybe about three times or even less, depending on exactly where you are.
It's 60 miles from WTIC to Norwalk, for example, and 150 from WBZ to
Norwalk.
        And, remember, WBZ is throwing around 100 kW ERP over here. At
night, at least, WTIC is putting out a lot less. Its signal is below the
pattern RMS from about 180 degrees to 320 degrees. The null is bottomed out
from about 230 degrees (toward New Canaan) around to 270 degrees (due west
-- toward Kent). At the bottom, it's an ERP that looks like it's about 8
kW. But the bottom line is that everywhere along the coast from New Haven
west and everywhere in Fairfield County the night signal is low. I do agree
that the day signal gets rather worthless much past Bridgeport or
thereabouts, in any event, especially for a normal radio-listening member
of the general public.
        Many times I've given up on the station around there, only to find
that on the NJ Turnpike, as much as an hour before sunset, the skywave is
thundering in, pinning the needle, stronger than I ever get it at home.
Although it's not so good in the Mid-Atlantic states after they change to
DA. Excellent in New Brunswick, though.
        OTOH, back to the post about the bad signal to the EBS/EAS receiver
at WLIS, the WTIC nighttime signal there (bearing of 125 degrees) is just
about the maximum signal, which is allegedly an ERP of maybe about 90 kW.
        If you look at the WTIC transmitter site, you've got to have
questions. The place looks like they would have had to employ blasting to
get enough rock out of the way to install the ground system. They went to
that site in 1929 or 1930. It replaced the earlier horizontal wire antenna
on a mid-level roof area of the Travelers Insurance building in downtown
Hartford. The Avon site was built for the power increase to 50 kW, although
I believe that they still were at a lower power for a short time when they
went to the present site.
        I've never been able to find out whether they initially had a
horizontal wire antenna in Avon or whether they installed a vertical
antenna from the beginning. The two existing towers, I figure, are not
original to the site. WTIC was on 660 kHz back around 1930, in some sort of
share time and/or synchronous operation with WEAF (WNBC/WFAN). WTIC had
moved to 1040 kHz by 1936, and was paired on that frequency with KRLD, as
it is now. They both moved to 1080 in 1941 with NARBA. The WTIC towers are
an odd height, 171 and a fraction degrees, which suggests maybe they were
built for 1040, as someone who knows how to do the math could figure out.
Except they would have been electrically even shorter on 1040. But, the
point is, those towers would not have been built for operating on 660 kHz,
IMO, and I don't think they had a DA pattern anyhow at least until they
moved to 1040 and got paired with KRLD. So there must have been some
earlier antenna at that site.