Re: WGBH dismissal, and an array sizing question.

["Aaron [Bishop] Read" <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 05:17 PM 9/3/2002, Peter Murray wrote:
>Good thing, too - from what I could calculate, indeed it would have been a
>great deal less signal than what they have now.
>
>If the big problem is terrain shadowing Back Bay, why don't they put in a
>booster? Is the concern there that too many receivers don't have the
>capture ratio to deal with the two same-frequency signals, especially
>where they're close in strength?

They have a translator on 96.3 I believe...something very, very weak and 
low in height.  It's meant for Beacon Hill and only Beacon Hill...in fact I 
think it was installed at the behest of one single listeners - who happens 
to be a major donor to WGBH, of course.

A booster would not work for two reasons:
1: The shadowing is not severe enough; a booster on 89.7 would cause more 
problems with interference (with the main transmitter) than it would solve.
2: The downtown Boston area is too close to WMBR on 88.1 which is literally 
right across the river at MIT....so close that there'd likely be 
3rd-adjacent interference issues.

About the FM bays, the more bays you have the more focused your signal will 
be.  That can indeed be a problem depending on your terrain.  There's also 
issues with maintenance - with 8 bays there's twice as many bays to fail as 
with a 4 bay.  That's not such a big deal, though.  The real issue is tower 
rents.  It requires a LOT of space to have a 8 or 10 bay antenna system, 
and any savings in electricity will be more than outweighed in cost for rent.

____________________________________________
Aaron "Bishop" Read     aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels.com Technical Consulting
www.friedbagels.com   AOL-IM: ReadAaron