Channel 6 audio protection

[Matthew Osborne <mattosborne1976@yahoo.com>]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 17:51:04 Paul Hopfgarten wrote:
> Isn't there a Ch 6 in Montreal? Is that far enough
> away from Burlington?
> 
> Oh...and how strict can the rules be? 

You'd be surprised just how strict those rules are.  I
would think Ch 6 in Montreal would be plenty close to
squelch any possible stations on 87.9 in the
Burlington VT/Plattsburgh NY area (about 60-70 miles
away).  Being as Montreal is north of the border
though, especially in the last few years, the FCC and
CRTC have been less concerned about interference with
stations on opposing sides of the border, and it might
now actually be possible.  Now on the US side
strictly, its a whole different story...
    I have a personal experience with this.  At
Herkimer County Community College (Herkimer, NY, my
alma mater) when they put WVHC (91.5 FM) on the air in
the early 1990s, they were forced to vertically
polarize its signal to protect WRGB's audio.  Now mind
you, Herkimer is almost 80 "hilly" miles from WRGB's
transmitter so over the air reception of WRGB in the
immediate Herkimer area (or at least the areas where
WVHC puts a viable signal) is almost nil, AND several
other full power stations already exist in the non-com
band at lower frequencies than WVHC just 10 miles up
the road in Utica.  But that didn't matter, WVHC was
still forced to protect WRGB's audio.  In fact, after
talking to people involved in the engineering process
of getting WVHC created, I got the impression that the
FCC was more concerned about protecting WRGB as far
down the dial as it is from 91.5 FM, than protecting
the signal of co-channel WRPI(FM) in Troy.  The FCC
doesn't play around at all when it comes to protecting
channel 6 audio...

                               Matt Osborne
                               Poughkeepsie, NY

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