Re: WWRU-Elizabeth

[dan.strassberg@att.net]

Interesting about both stations--especially WSNR. The WSNR situation is 
complex. When 620 lost its Tx site in Livingston, it constructed its current 
site right next to WLIB in the Meadowlands. (I'm completely lost about which 
town that site is in.) The station then petitioned the FCC to consider the 
Meadowlands site as temporary and not license it, and the FCC apparently 
complied--at least for a rather extended period. I was under the impression 
that a mandatory part of the move--if it had been made permanent--was a change 
in the COL (to Jersey City); I think that the signal from the Meadowlands 
doesn't meet the requirements for COL coverage of Newark.

Anyhow, the Meadowlands site has major problems. WSNR has to be one of the most 
hemmed-in AMs anywhere. Finding a technically suitable site where there 
isn't objection to towers is an incredible--and maybe impossible--task. The 
Livingston site had many advantages. Because of its farther-west location, the 
terrible phasing in an arc of about 270 degrees to the north, west, and south 
(a consequence of the required tight five-tower patterns) affected a far 
smaller population than does the similar self-generated interference from the 
Meadowlands site. Also, the greater distance to the salt-water path out Long 
Island Sound made the problems of protecting stations such as WICC, WSNG, and 
WPRO less critical. Moreover, the Livingston site was built in 1947 and so the 
less stringent first-adjacent protection requirements for WIP, WPRO, and WEJL 
applied.

After many tries, WSNR (or whatever the calls were at the time) submitted an 
application to move back to a site just a couple of miles north of its original 
Livingston site. From there, the station proposed using seven towers days and 
five towers nights with 8500W days and 5000W nights. The COL would change to 
Jersey City. The FCC first dismissed this application. (There must have been 
technical deficiencies, but I am unaware of their nature.) As far as I knew, 
the station's petition to have this application reinstated was granted and I 
thought that it was in FCC limbo where it could langusih for years--or forever. 
I don't know what gives with the change in the legal ID. It would seem to be 
significant. Maybe I can uncover some new information by snooping around the 
FCC AM database and the FCC CDBS database.

As for WWRU, I thought that its move to the 1380 site made using Elizabeth as 
its COL a violation of COL-coverage rules. Perhaps the coverage of Jersey City 
from the 1380 site doesn't meet the daytime COL requirements for Jersey City 
and the proposal to operate directionaly days is an atempt to correct that 
problem.
--
dan.strassberg@att.net
617-558-4205
eFax 707-215-6367
 
> WWRU is stil identifying itself as WWRU-Elizabeth.  What's the story?  I 
> thought it was supposed to change COL to Jersey City but everytime I 
> catch the top of the hour ID it goes "Double-U double-u, arr, you, 
> EEE-lizabeth."
> 
> One station that did so was Sporting News Radio AM 62 in Newark -- about a
> year or so ago.  It is now WSNR-Jersey City.  Before that it was
> WSNR-Newark, WJWR-Newark, WXLX-Newark, WSKQ-Newark and WVNJ-Newark.
> 
> Not that reception in Northern Manhattan has improved one bit. :(