Re: graveyard signals

[dan.strassberg@att.net]

The amazing thing is that the path from Salem to 
Portland is NOT entirely across salt water. The signal 
has to cross (my guess) 15 miles of rocky, low 
conductivity, Essex County soil before it reaches the 
Atlantic on its way to Portland. And lest you dismiss 
the great signal with an "I guess that's just the way it 
works," let me relate a story from my childhood--in the 
Bronx.

I lived in the northwest Bronx very near Yonkers and a 
good five to six miles from Long Island Sound. In 1948 
or so, what was originally WKBS, Oyster Bay 1520 (now 
WKIT Mineola) took to the air. Although it was only 
250W, WKBS put quite a good signal into my QTH, as did 
the legendary WICC Bridgeport 600 with TX on an island 
in the Sound, but also graveyarders WSTC Stamford 1400 
and WNAB Bridgeport 1450, as well as now long-deleted 
WLIZ Bridgeport 1300. But I always chalked that up to 
the fact that the beginning of the path was over salt 
water. The end of the path was over land and the 
conductivity in the Bronx, while not great, is probably 
better than that in most of New England.

A few years later, WGSM Huntington signed on on 740--a 
great frequency. If I recall, WGSM was originally 1 kW-D 
DA-D and later went to 5 kW-D DA-D and still later to 1 
kW-D ND and _still_ later to 25 kW-D DA-D. At no time, 
however, was the 740 signal even near the equal of the 
1520 signal until 1520 moved away from the water. I 
assume that the reason (until 740's latest increase when 
it installed a six-tower DA that pushes nearly 
everything to the southeast) was that to get to the 
Sound following a west-facing path, the signal had to 
cross of few miles of Long Island's notoriously low-
conductivity soil.

If anyone can provide a better explanation of all this--
especially WESX's good signal in Portland--I'd love to 
hear it. If I recall, WESX has a nearly half-wave tower, 
which has to help, but I don't think it explains 
everything.
 
> I'd nominate WESX Salem, MA (1230AM) for the list of best graveyard
> signals. Thanks to a solid water path from the TX site in Marblehead,
> MA, it's listenable here in Portland, ME (some 90-100 mi N).