Re: Comment on Somewhere.com's Boston Radio Watch

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

The proposed towers in Oak Hill involve no flashing lights. WUNR's two
existing towers are illuminated. At least one, and maybe both, have to be
illuminated because they are more than 300' high and the FAA requires
illumination of most towers whose height is 200' or more. (My guess is that
because the spacing between the towers is only about half as great as the
tower height, the FAA might grant a request to illuminate only one of the
towers; only one of WRCA's towers in Waltham is illuminated and the height
and spacing WRCA's towers are similar to those of WUNR's.)

The latest WUNR/WKOX proposals call for the removal of the two existing
towers--relatively new though they may be--and their replacement by five new
ones. (The existing towers were constructed a few years ago to replace
towers that dated back to the late 40s. Compared with WUNR's two current
towers, the old towers were of almost identical height and were in the
identical locations.)

All five of the new towers would be just under 200' high, so none of them
would be illuminated. WUNR, which would increaase power to 20 kW, plans to
use all five of the towers; WKOX would use three of them for its proposed
50-kW operation. The five towers are to be arranged in two rows. The
northern row contains the three towers that would be used by both stations;
the southern row contains the pair to be used only by WUNR. The northern row
is about 150' closer than the two existing towers to the road that forms the
northern boundary of the site (Saw Mill Brook Pky, I guess). Hence, from at
least some of the neighboring houses, the northern row of towers, though not
illuminated, would probably be more visible than the two existing towers.
The southern row is about 300' south of the northern row and is about 150'
south of the two existing towers. Those two towers would be less visible to
the neighbors than the existing pair.

The Newton NIMBYs are mixing apples and oranges in their arguments against
the WUNR/WKOX construction. (But then, when _don't_ NIMBYs mix apples,
oranges, grapes, bananas, acorns, and any other types of fruit that may be
at hand?) They are arguing that the TV antennas in Newton and Needham have
caused an increase in breast cancer in Newton women. (Reminds me of the mock
Boston Globe headline: "World to End Tomorrow; Women and Minorities Most
Affected.") Although the NIMBYs have lots of statistics, there seems to be
no way to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between the VHF/UHF
fields and breast cancer. But high-intensity UHF fields, such as those to
which you would be exposed if you hovered in a helicopter a few feet from
the top of a UHF-TV transmitting tower, are recognized as ionizing
radiation. On the other hand, the fields from a 50-kW AM station, which are
only about 1% as great as those from a UHF TV station with an ERP of 5
million watts and are at a frequency of about 0.2% of UHF frequencies, are
not considered to be ionizing. Moreover, as far as I know, though ionizing
radiation is suspected of causing cancer, no cause-and-effect relationship
has ever been proven. Furthermore, to my knowledge, nobody has ever
demonstrated that a UHF TV station's field strength at ground level comes
within orders of magnitude of the field strength necessary to produce
ionization.

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

----- Original Message -----
From: Laurence Glavin <lglavin@lycos.com>
To: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2002 4:00 PM
Subject: Comment on Somewhere.com's Boston Radio Watch


> There was a story in last week's Boston Radio Watch (available thru
www.somewhere.com)
> about neighborhood opposition to the placement of new AM towers in the Oak
> Park section of Newton.  About two weeks or so ago, the Globe's Real
> Estate section ran a story about "Mansionization' in the suburbs, i.e.
tearing
> down a modest home in a place like Lexington or Concord, and replacing it
> waith a 4-bedroom, 4-bath, 3-garage multi-story house out of all
proportion
> to its neighbors.  One paragraph mentioned Oak Hill Park in Newton as one
> neighborhood where this is happening. (Cue the lightbulb going off over my
head)...
> hey, that's where WUNR-AM 1600 has two newly-rebuilt towers, and two
> other AM's in the market want to relocate their transmitters.
> So, since I had today (05/17) off, I visited the Oak Hill area,
> and the Globe seemed to have overreached by calling what's happening
> there as mansionization.  I spotted 8 or 9 homes that appear to have been
> built in recent years, and none of the variety I see every day in
> nearby (to me) Andover.  I got the picture of folks in new $500,000+
> homes deciding they didn't want to look out at a half-dozen
> blinking towers that make them feel as if they were living near an airport
> ("This is Al Sleet, your hippy-dippy weatherman; at the airport it's
> 70 degrees, but then I don't know anybody who lives at the airport")
> but the neighborhood appears largely unchanged.  I don't recall they got
> very exercised when WUNR rebuilt their towers (or earlier when the
original
> WBOS-FM was placed there.)  In addition, what were shrubs a few years ago
> are now fully-grown trees that hide towers in the vicinity of 750 Sawmill;
> if they were set back in the wooded area, they wouldn't be all that
> visible in the immediate area.  (The interference by a 50KW WKOX
> is another issue.)  Something tells me that BIG RADIO may still get
> it's way, I'm talking about Clear Channel here, and those towers WILL get
built.
>
> Laurence glavin
> Methuen, MA
>
>
>
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