RE: WCBS off time...

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Mr. Wollman wrote:
>Some members of the National Radio Club were able to catch much more
>interesting stations, including two Albertans, St. Lucia, and some
>obscure Mexicans.
<snip>

    This NRC member got the word very late (or maybe I should say *early*)
and just caught the end of the silent period, from around 0445 until sign
on at 0459:00. All I could hear on the Sony in the car in central Conn. was
a very faint Spanish that I could not ID. It was playing non-rock sort of
MOR sounding Spanish music. I didn't have enough brains to even check WFAN.
It could be a late tonight, though, huddled around the GE Superadio III.
Basically, my reaction was that 880 kHz was very, very clean by modern-day
standards of "clear" channels. There really was almost nothing there. But,
of course, there's not supposed to be, since I'm considerably inside the
0.5 groundwave contour, never mind the 0.1 or the skywave zone.

    BTW, WCBS just came back with the :59 after the hour headline sounder
and the anchor did his thing with the headlines, as if they'd never been
off. No reference to the silent period, and no immediate station ID. Do the
rules still say they're supposed to give the legal ID as the first thing?
They gave it in less than 60 seconds, so I'm just picking nits. I realized
that it's rare in the 24/7/no silent period days in which we live to hear a
station sign on at all, except whatever daytimers still bother to shut
down.

    I always enjoy the fact that at least some of the staff at WTIC (AM)
think they're supposed to do the legal ID even after cutting the carrier
for about 1 second to change pattern twice each day, although it isn't done
consistently. Even in the middle of Red Sox games, they'll play a fast
voice ID right over the play-by-play after the switch. I've never, even in
the past, heard this done generally when stations switch power/pattern. I
don't think that's really required by the rules?

--
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 Have you patronized the skywave signal of an AM Class A station today?

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