re: WBAL/WTIC

["Robert Paine" <macandrew@prodigy.net>]

 WTIC has a very directional pattern at night. I don't know how it's
designed
 but when I lived in CT - in opposite ends of the state - I either had great
 difficulty receiving 'TIC or it didn't come in at all.

 In Waterford I was near the water and almost directly south of WNLC's
array.
 After WTIC went to its night pattern they were effectively not there.
 (Neither was WNLC, but WMEX 1510 came in like a local - literally.)
 I lived in Waterbury in a very residential section and it was much the
same.
 The old Herb Jepko Nitecap show was on the air from midnight to 5 AM then
 and WBAL would come in very well. Occasionally it faded and before I
 switched to WHAS, Louisville, which also carried the show, WTIC's signal
was
 little better than trying to listen to a 100-watter on 1230 from across the
 state. It was literally a whisper.

 That was most frustrating the Sunday afternoon I tried to tape the 1939
 Campbell Playhouse "A Christmas Carol". I still have the tape - somewhere -
 and it was easy to imagine it was the 30's or 40's and it was live. Fading,
 interference from adjacent stations - as authentic as I could imagine.

  Macandrew