Re: Changing 1510 850 and others

[dan.strassberg@att.net]

It is still very rare for the CRTC to relinquish any AM allocation that is 
notified to the US. The fact that an allocation is dark has little or no 
bearing on whether the notification remains on the books. There have been very 
few cases of the CRTC giving these up. Remember that CKVL did not move to 850 
until quite a few years after the then WHDH increased to 50 kW-U and moved its 
TX to Needham. In fact, WXKW, the 10 kW-U (DA-1) station on 850 in Albany NY 
(which went on the air at about the same time WHDH moved from Saugus to Needham 
and increased from 5 kW DA-N to 50 kW DA-2) had to go dark before the frequency 
opened up in the Montreal area (too much skywave from Albany--maybe too much 
groundwave, for that matter).

About all WEEI can do without moving towers or building new ones (which would 
stir up the NIMBYs and keep anything from happening for years) would be to 
tweak its patterns. If KOA were all that required protection, some relaxation 
of WEEI's night pattern might now be possible because the FCC has changed the 
formulas for calculating the coverage of Class A AMs such as KOA. (The change 
wouldn't be very great, though.) But KOA is NOT all there is to protect. Right 
behind the pattern are Cleveland, Johnstown PA, and Muskegon MI. To the south 
(and less likely to be affected by any change that WEEI might make) are Norfolk 
VA and Raleigh NC (for two, though there are probably others that I've 
forgotten about or never knew existed). Note though that WEEI's array is an in-
line design, which can only produce patterns that are symmetrical about the 
line of towers. Thus, any improvement in the signal to the northwest must be 
accompanied by a corresponding improvement to the southwest. The original 
poster specifically mentioned improving the night signal in communities 
northwest of Boston. An improvement there COULD affect interference to Norfolk 
and Raleigh. 850 is a very crowded frequency in the East.
--
dan.strassberg@att.net
617-558-4205
eFax 707-215-6367

> At 01:21 PM 6/8/2003, Kevin Vahey wrote:
> >Somebody brought up the vacant 1510 slot in Sherbrooke and makes me wonder 
> >why WEEI doesn't jump on the vacant 850 slot formerly owned by CKVL 
> >Laval(Montreal) to shore up its weak signal in the NW burbs (acton-chelmsford)
> 
> 
> I have precisely ZERO knowledge of any plans of WEEI here...but I'd be 
> surprised if they're not.  But I'd imagine anything like what you're 
> describing would be a major change and therefore subject to the FCC's 
> freeze, perhaps that's why no-one's heard anything.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------
> Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
> FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
> http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA
>