WAZN and WBIX file for licenses to cover

[Dan Strassberg]

In what seems to me to be an unusual development, WAZN filed on 11/12/03 and
WBIX filed on 12/1/03 applications for licenses to cover. WAZN must be
filing for a license to cover its transmitter move to the WTTT site in
Lexington, with new directional patterns, reduced day and night power
(compared with the licensed facilities, which are the no longer exisiting
facilities on Fitchburg St in Marlborough), and change of COL to Watertown.
WBIX must be filing for its change of station class from D to B and addition
of 2500W night operation from the WAMG 890 towers on Sewell St in Ashland.
As far as I can tell, neither station has filed to amend its construction
permit. For directional AMs NOT to amend their CPs to specifiy augmentations
of the standard patterns is VERY unusual. Particularly in WBIX's case, it
seems IMPOSSIBLE to me that augmentation would not be required. The standard
pattern is incredibly restrictive--really, unnecessarily so--based on the
fact that, at one point, the station held at CP--if not a license--for 3.3W
night from the Ashland towers. 3.3W ND from one of these 205.5-degree towers
produces and inverse-distance field of 25 mV/m at 1 km. Yet the standard
pattern shows field intensities substantially lower over a 170 degree arc
from 185 degrees to 355 degrees. Indeed, at two azimuths, the standard
pattern shows inverse-distance fields of only about 1.5% of 25 mV/m (meaning
that the power is equvalent to less than 0.001W). There is NO WAY that such
low field strengths can accurately represent the actual values, which I
would expect to come close to 25 mV/m over a substantial portion of the
170-degree arc of suppressed raditiation.

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