RE: WBZ Reception Is Worsening

["Sid Schweiger" <sid@wrko.com>]

>>I'm curious about something.  Why must WBZ only use 10,000 watts from the auxiliary transmitter?  Being a clear-channel station, I would think it 
would be licensed to use full power, even from its auxiliary transmitter.  
I realize that the main transmitter uses a pattern that nulls to the east, 
but that's just the Atlantic Ocean.  Or are there European signals on that 
frequency that WBZ has to protect?<<

Since WBZ is licensed as a directional, it gets no special treatment just because its normal signal avoids the fish and crustaceans.  The aux site, IIRC, is a 10-kW transmitter feeding a long-wire antenna at 1170 Soldiers Field Road (no, it does NOT transmit from the tower there), and since the long-wire will not null properly in the easterly direction, lower power must be used.  (I also suspect that 10 kW is all the wire will handle, unless it's a *really* thick wire.  <g>)  The rule is that for a directional AM to operate non-directional on a temporary basis, power must be dropped so that no specified field strength(s) in the direction of the null(s) is/are exceeded.

Also:  There is not, and has not been for some time now, such a thing as a "clear-channel" station.  All AM frequencies are shared, including the ones to which Class A and B (old Class I and II) stations are assigned.  Additionally, contour separation requirements have been dropped several times so that many more stations could be crammed onto the band.  The last true clear-channel station was WLW, and its frequency (700 kHz) was shared starting, IIRC, about 25 years ago.  There is even a case in which a former clear-channel frequency (770) was reused in an adjoining state....a daytime-only station in a town near Buffalo NY, which is directional toward Canada.  Needless to say, they have a VERY deep null toward WABC's site in Lodi NJ.


Sid Schweiger
MIS Manager, Entercom Boston LLC
WAAF - WEEI - WQSX - WRKO - WVEI
Phone: 617-779-5369
Fax: 617-779-5379
E-Mail: sid@wrko.com