Re: Clear Channel, consolidation, etc.

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

CCU, in its arrogance, seems to have completely missed the boat on Oak Hill.
What they ought to do is move WKOX there in a way that does not involve any
tower construction. That COULD be done; WKOX could operate from WUNR's two
existing towers with 50 kW-D and something close to 5 kW-N (maybe more than
close to; maybe a full 5 kw-N) DA-2. Once the 50 kW (daytime; 5 kW-N)
station was operating from the site and nobody died from it, the opposition
ought to fall into disarray, putting CCU/WUNR/Beasley in a position to
construct the five-tower proposal that would allow WUNR to increase to 20
kW-U DA-1, WRCA to operate from the site with 25 kW-D/17 kW-N DA-2,
and WKOX to run 50 kW DA-2. My questions are whether the opposition could
hold up such a move by preventing N-Star from bringing in the power lines
for the 50-kW transmitter and whether there is enough room in the Tx
building to accommodate a 50 kW AM transmitter in addition to WUNR's
existing 5 kW transmitter or transmitters. Clearly, enlarging the building
would require a building permit, whereas interior remodeling probably
wouldn't.

The key to this is that the azimuth of the line joining WUNR's existing
towers is quite a few degrees clockwise with respect to the azimuth of the
line that joins WKOX's two existing towers. Thus, the stations to the west
and northwest that require protection (CFGO, WTLA) would be closer to the
radiation minimum of a two-tower pattern formed with the WUNR towers than
they are to the minima of WKOX's existing 1 kw night pattern. The difference
could be crucial. Another issue is high-angle radiation. Both CFGO and WTLA
are approximately 300 miles from the Oak Hill site. I don't know the
critical angles for skywave propagation at that distance. However, because
WKOX's towers are top-loaded to approximately 215 degrees, WKOX's current
vertical radiation pattern has a fairly strong lobe at high angles. WUNR's
towers are only 153.75 degrees at 1200. The high-angle lobe doesn't begin to
form until the antenna height increases beyond 180 degrees. Thus the WUNR
towers might be of such height that the vertical radiation pattern would
be more favorable than WKOX's current vertical pattern. However, this isn't
necessarily the case. You'd need a REAL broadcast-engineering consultant (or
at least some real AM antenna-design software) to find out whether the
153.75-degree towers would deliver more or less skywave 300 miles away.

Dan Strassberg, Contributing Editor
EDN Magazine | Reed Electronics Group | www.edn.com
Fax 707-215-6367 | StrassbergEDN@att.net
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----- Original Message -----
From: Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>
To: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 11:06 AM
Subject: Re: Clear Channel, consolidation, etc.


> At 10:03 PM 10/19/2003, Scott Fybush wrote:
> >As for the thousands of lesser signals, I can say this about Clear
Channel
> >from personal observation: they sink engineering resources into many of
> >their AM properties in a way that Ma and Pa never could. It's exceedingly
> >rare to find a CC AM station with unlistenable audio quality, a corroded
> >ground system, a missed legal ID or day power/pattern after dark - and
> >when someone DOES screw up, an e-mail to the engineering bosses in
> >Kentucky gets it fixed immediately. There are a lot of other stations and
> >groups about which that can't be said.
>
> Scott's got a point here....I know the engineering guys at WXKS (AM and
FM)
> personally and they take great pride in keeping those stations in the best
> shape they can, as well as all the other CC properties in and around
> Boston.  When WXKS(AM) had a day/night problem recently - as realized on
> this list - they checked it out and fixed it post-haste.
>
> CC also has a mantra about spectrum efficiency as well...despite their
> somewhat heavy-handed legal/political maneuvers regarding the WUNR site in
> Newton, from an engineering standpoint they consolidation of WKOX, WRCA
and
> WUNR (and the significant power increases) makes a lot of sense...it will
> allow for much better coverage of more listeners, thus making the stations
> more valuable both in both monetary and non-monetary senses.   With all
> three of those stations running leased-time ethnic/foreign-language
> programming (and I'd imagine that won't change - it's profitable on both
> sides) I can't see how that isn't a good thing (ignoring any complaints
> from the Oak Hill residents...I won't get into that rant here).
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------
> Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
> FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
> http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA
>