RE: MOUNT WASHINGTON BURNS

["Peter Murray" <pete@partnercomm.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
[mailto:owner-boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org]On Behalf Of Dan
Billings
Sent: Sunday, February 09, 2003 20:57
To: Sean Smyth; bri@bostonradio.org
Subject: Re: MOUNT WASHINGTON BURNS


----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Smyth" <ssmyth@suscom.net>
To: "Dan Billings" <billings@suscom-maine.net>; <bri@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 09, 2003 9:03 PM
Subject: Re: MOUNT WASHINGTON BURNS


> I wonder why stations in these situations where calamities would make
> antenna/transmitter replacement a hardship wouldn't have primaries that
> aren't on the same tower/building as the primary. The World Trade Center
> towers are another parallel to this. Most stations also had their backups
on
> the top of the WTCs. Obviously, everything was wiped out with the
disaster.
> Out of the TV stations, only WCBS had a backup elsewhere.

Two thoughts:

1.  Your point is a good one in this situation because a long outage on the
top of the mountain was more likely to happen than what happened to the WTC.

2.  But a secondary site off the Mountain would only provide a small
fraction of the coverage area of the primary antenna.  There would be value
to this but how much?

-- Dan Billings, Bowdoinham, Maine

----

Indeed - considering the practicality of replacing failed equipment during
much of the winter, plus the necessity of supporting life in such harsh
conditions, why wouldn't there have been diverse facilities? There is
certainly enough space up there that a second building could have provided
supplemental power generation.

Certainly, nobody expects the whole of the top of the mountain to be laid
waste like the former WTC site (not saying that it couldn't happen, but if
so, there are other problems) - so why not build an on-site aux with diverse
power/antennae in a separate building 50' away? It's not as though a tall
tower is necessary.....

It all comes down to cost. What is the cost of adding another 9 to the right
of the decimal point (99.99% uptime vs. 99.999%)? When that window of
statistical downtime costs less than the system to reduce that window, the
window stays open. Applies to any engineering model that I can think of
(when accounting is involved, whether "the wife" or the CFO), from a purely
technical point of view, that is, as this should not hold when downtime =
death.

Of course, that's only a should.

It would be sad if WHOM were to cease radiating from it's high perch. I
stand by my fellow Peter, also expecting that they will return when the
whether makes it's restoration practical. For now, it will be interesting to
see just how far WSYY-FM reaches out to the south-west (don't you think,
jibguy?).

-Peter Murray (N3IXY)
Pittsburgh, PA