RE: Is WBOS on their backup TX?

[Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 06:21 PM 5/20/2003, elipolo@earthlink.net wrote:
>The first thing I noticed when WBOS moved from 128 to the Pru in
>2000 was that suddenly I could no longer hear WXRV on lesser quality
>tuners such as Walkmans, boom-boxes and clock radios that previously
>got them here. WXRV still comes in fine on quality tuners such as my
>home and car stereo, but they're blanketed by WBOS on lesser tuners.
>
>I also went out to West Newton last weekend with the same Walkman and
>could hear WXRV, though I was farther from them, I was also away from
>WBOS on the Pru. The Walkman couldn't get out WXRV in Newton when WBOS
>used to transmit there.

Something to remember is that blanketing interference is not a one-to-one 
thing with the interference zone being determined only for each broadcast 
individually.  That's how the FCC does it for allocations purposes, but 
it's not indicative of reality.  (then again, most of the 
contour/allocation nonsense is not really grounded in reality, either :-)

The reality is that for each additional broadcast source at a location, the 
blanketing zone gets pushed out that much farther.  So when WBOS moved to 
the Pru, the Pru's blanketing zone was pushed out X number of meters.

Walkmans have hideously bad tuners with zero filtering so they will almost 
never work well anywhere in downtown.


>Though I've seen Greater Media representatives deny it, I still wonder
>if, in addition to simply giving better coverage and penetration of
>buildings downtown, whether another goal of WBOS's move to the Pru was
>to hinder reception of similarly-formatted WXRV in the immediate metro
>Boston area.

I doubt this was a primary concern, but it certainly is a fringe benefit.

The bottom line is that, by and large, if you want a solid downtown signal, 
you go on the Pru (or perhaps OFC like WHRB & WERS).  If you're more 
concerned about getting the widest area outside of Boston, you go to 
Needham.   Beyond that, Needham is significantly cheaper than the Pru.   So 
is OFC for that matter.



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Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA