Re: Fwd: Re: Expanded band query...?

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

I thought that Cuba had gotten 1560 and the Bahamas (British West Indies,
then, I think) had gotten 1540, jointly with the US. The BWI allocation was
a Class I, but since the power was only 5 kW-U ND, it was a nonconforming
Class I, because even IBs were supposed to use at least 10 kW. It was ZNS's
5-kW limitation that made possible KXEL's eventual Class IB status. For as
long as I've known about KXEL, it has protected ZNS, but I don't think that
KXEL became a IB until years after NARBA. The US wound up with two Class
II's on 1560, WQXR and KPMC Bakersfield. As we know from the WRHC experience
on 1560, had Cuba ever built a high-power station on 1560, it would have
obliterated WQXR's skywave coverage, which, for a Class II wasn't
guaranteed, and done quite a number on the none-too-good nighttime
groundwave service. I believe that WQXR (WQEW) and KPMC (KNZR) became 1B's
in retaliation for Cuba's abrogation of NARBA

There were quite a few examples of shared assignments on Class I channels.
1070 was shared between the US and Canada (KNX, CBA both 50 kW-U ND). When
Canada absorbed Newfoundland, the same thing became true of 640, although
the Canadian station was limited to 10 kW-U ND. 1010 was supposedly shared
between Canada (CBR) and Cuba. And over the years many Class Is were added
in Mexico (850 and 1030 each have a Mexican Class I, and as far as I know,
both are ND-U, but perhaps not 50 kW). 690 was shared between Canada and
Mexico (CBF, XETRA), 1130 is shared between the US and Canada (WBBR, KWKH,
CKWX) Same with 1090 (WBAL, KAAY, XEPRS--or whatever the current calls).
KAAY, however, only became a IB very late in the game probably through the
intercession of Senator Fulbright who most likely lobbied for a IB
assignment for his sparsely populated home state.

--

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Martin J. Waters <mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu>
To: dan.strassberg@att.net <dan.strassberg@att.net>
Cc: boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
<boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Date: Saturday, March 03, 2001 4:02 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Expanded band query...?
>
>The way the classification of channels in the 1510-1600 exbanded band was
>agreed on, and which countries got the clear channels, was all part of the
>compromising to get NARBA done. Some of the other countries, notably Cuba
>but also Mexico, thought the U.S. was getting too many of the clear-channel
>assignments in the first place. The inference I took from reading some
>material was that the U.S. took some of the assignments in the 1500s in
>return for letting go of some others. In the 1500s, originally, the U.S.
>got four channels to itself, Mexico got one, Canada got one, Mexico and
>Canada shared one, and Cuba (1540) got one. Someday I'll figure out exactly
>what the almost immediate fiddling around with 1540 was all about, that
>ended up giving it to the Bahamas while Cuba got something else (?), but
>that also let the U.S. put Waterloo onto the channel as a I-B.