Re: WEZE 590 at night

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

WEZE is directionalized to the north and south with a pretty decent signal
to the east. It's a fairly standard two-tower, side-fire, modified
figure-eight using widely-spaced towers. If I recall, the towers are 160
degrees apart and are on a due east-west line. The radiation minima at about
225 and 315 degrees (relative to true north) are the equivalent of about
410W--and the radiation in the whole region between the minima isn't much
greater. WTAG's signal toward Boston is a little less than WEZE's toward
Worcester.

You can't call a two-tower array highly directional and given that a lot of
the Boston market lies in the region between WEZE's radiation minima, a
tighter pattern--which would certainly be possible--would be very
disadvantageous. Given the low frequency and the rather shallow minima, WEZE
covers quite acceptably to the west, even several miles beyond Route 128.
Moreover, because of the fortuitous transmitter location, and despite the
electrically short towers (around 75 degrees, I believe), the signal in
southern NH, Cape Cod, and even in downtown Boston, is arguably better than
what WEEI gets using 50 kW into 207-degree towers.

Also note that when WROW had to relocate its Tx to make room for the New
York Thruway, it significantly increased the height of its towers, which
improved the day signal appreciably. However, the night signal was stuck at
what it was because the station is hemmed in--particularly by Canadian
stations to the north. WROW had to insert a radition-limiting resistor in
series with its antenna at night. Because of the greater efficiency of the
current towers compared with that of the original ones, the true nighttime
antenna-input power must be in the vicinity of 750W, although the FCC AM
database still lists the night power as 1 kW. Because of the efficient
towers, the pattern RMS more than meets the minimum field for a 1-kW class B
AM.

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


----- Original Message -----
From: Matthew Osborne <mattosborne1976@yahoo.com>
To: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 12:26 AM
Subject: WEZE 590 at night


> Was in my car last week at about 9:00 PM on my way to
> the store.  Happened to turn my radio on, and it was
> tuned to AM 590.  Had a pretty good signal coming in,
> so I thought that I was hearing WROW out of Albany, as
> that is the nearest 590 to me.  When, to my surprise,
> they identified as WEZE Boston.  Aren't they very,
> VERY directionalized away from New York State, and has
> anyone else ever heard WEZE this far away to the west
> of Boston before?