Re: WILD Sign-offs??

[dan.strassberg@att.net]

I don't believe that PSSA (or PSRA) powers can be higher than 500W. Moreover, 
PSRA powers are generally higher than PSSA powers. The reasons for this are 
historic. PSRAs came along before PSSAs, at a time when the FCC was more 
lenient.

WROL is an example; it has a PSRA for 500W and a night power of something like 
93W. I've heard that, even though there are no Class A AMs on 950, WROL has a 
PSSA in addition to its night authorization and that the station runs more than 
93W during the first two hours after sunset. The power is higher during the 
first hour after sunset, less during the second hour, and still less from two 
hour past sunset until 6:00 AM local time or sunrise, whichever is earlier. And 
in addition to all that, the PSSA powers (remember, there are two each day) are 
specified differently for each month of the year (generally less in the winter 
than in the summer).

The arrangement is so complex that I can't believe a station could possibly get 
it right without a 365-day (366 in leap years) timer or the equivalent program 
on a computer (that had better not be running Windows. Have you ever heard of a 
Windows machine that didn't require rebooting for 365 days? How about, oh, 
seven days?)
--
dan.strassberg@att.net
617-558-4205
eFax 707-215-6367

> I didn't know that PSSA and critical hours are not the same thing.
> 
> The following is pasted from the Boston Radio Archives WILD page at 
> http://www.bostonradio.org/radio/wild.html :
> 
> "WILD operates at 5,000 Watts daytime, 1,000 Watts critical hours, in
> C-QUAM 
> stereo, from facilities off Corporation Way in Medford, near the Wellington 
> MBTA yard". 
> 
> Eli Polonsky
> 
> >From: Garrett Wollman wollman@lcs.mit.edu
> >Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 23:06:55 -0500 (EST)
> >Subject: Re: WILD Sign-offs??
> 
> <<On Sat, 14 Dec 2002 17:44:25 -0500, "elipolo@earthlink.net" said:
> 
> >> The WILD page in the Boston Radio Archives (bostonradio.org) 
> >> and the FCC website also claim WILD's PSSA "critical hours" power 
> >> to be 1000 watts, as does radio-locator.com. 
> 
> >The Archives make no such claim.  Post SunSet Authorization has
> >nothing whatsoever to do with critical hours.