Re: war coverage pre-empting Bruins

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

Amazing what you can do with a good communications receiver and a suitable
antenna--a highly directional antenna would be desirable. When I was an
undergraduate at RPI in Troy, N Y in the early 1950s, the Rural Radio
Network in central and western New York was fed, via station-to-station
off-the-air relay from a direct off-the-air pickup of WQXR-FM by WFLY at its
Tx in the Helderbergs southwest of Albany. Back then, full class Bs were
only 20,000W at 500'. (WQXR-FM must have been running less than 3 kW from
the Empire State Building.)

But the BACKUP to the New York-to-Albany hop of the FM relay was an
off-the-air-pickup of WQXR (AM) by WFLY! In those days, WQXR (AM) was 10
kW-U ND-U, but its Tx then, as now (OK, now it's WQEW), was in the wonderful
soil conductivity of Long Island City or Maspeth (in the borough of Queens).
Even if WQXR had a better site and 50 kW, a station on 1560 just couldn't
deliver as good a daytime signal 130+ miles away as could a station on 660,
770, 880, or even 1130, all of which had decent daytime signals in the
Capital District. When WQXR-FM was off the air for any reason (and that
included during daylight hours), the whole Rural Radio Network was fed from
an off-the-air pickup of an AM signal that, during the daytime, was probably
no more than a 50 microvolts/meter and came complete with fades caused by
the station's own skywave.

Now a REAL challenge would be an off-the-air pickup of 5W WJIB at night at
the site of first-adjacent WJTO. That's likely impossible.

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

----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Billings <billings@suscom-maine.net>
To: <Dan.Strassberg@att.net>; Bob Nelson <raccoonradio@yahoo.com>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>; <jibguy@aol.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2003 3:55 PM
Subject: Re: war coverage pre-empting Bruins


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <Dan.Strassberg@att.net>
> To: "Bob Nelson" <raccoonradio@yahoo.com>
> Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>; <jibguy@aol.com>
> Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2003 3:45 PM
> Subject: Re: war coverage pre-empting Bruins
>
>
> (or maybe he could pick up WZON off the air).
>
> I am shocked that THE expert on AM patterns would suggest that WZON could
be
> picked up in West Bath.  No way.  Not even close.
>
> I thought WLOB AM & FM where carrying the Bruins.
>
> -- Dan Billings, Bowdoinham, Maine
>
>
>