Re: Rural Radio Network/Yankee Network

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

When I was a student at RPI from 1952 to 1956, WFLY was owned by the Troy
Record Newspapers and maintained studios in downtown Troy--I believe in a
building separate from the Troy Record building. At that time, WFLY was an
affiliate of the 'QXR Network, which was the successor to the Rural Radio
Network. I don't think that WFLY was ever part of the RRN. I've never been
up to the Helderbergs antenna farm or to any of the original RRN stations,
so I have no idea whether WFLY's transmitting facilities match those of the
original RRN stations. I can vouch for the fact that WFLY picked up WQXR-FM
over the air from New York, about 140 miles away, and relayed the signal,
over the air, to the next station in the network. This, of course was
decades before Docket 80-90 and years before FM stereo. When there was some
problem with reception of WQXR-FM, the backup was off-the-air pickup of WQXR
(AM) 1560 (now, WQEW). There were not yet stations on 1550 in Kingston (long
since dark, I believe) or 1570 in Amsterdam, but back then, WQXR (AM) was 10
kW ND-U from, I believe, the present Queens Tx site, so reception, at least
during daylight, was an incredible challenge. I suspect we're talking here
about a signal of less than 50 microvolts/meter.

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