Things I didn't know...

[Dan Strassberg]

As far as I know, WXKW was already on the air in 1948, so I don't think a CP
for 1 kW DA-N in Baltimore could have affected it. Also, I don't know when
WEEU (now on 830) started up on or moved to 850. It's conceivable that WEEU
(or its long-running 850 incarnation) was made possible by the return of the
Baltimore CP. However, IIRC, WEEU ran 1 kW DA-1 from a site south of
Reading. Most of the signal went northwest--away from Baltimore (and
Philadelphia--enabling WTEL (now WWDB) to find a home on 860--as a highly
directional 10 kW daytimer--when the share-time arrangement with WHAT 1340
was broken up). Anyhow, WEEU might have been designed to protect the
co-channel Baltimore station that was never built. The Norfolk 850 (on which
the legacy WTAR calls now reside) is newer, I believe. I suspect that the
surrender of the Baltimore CP made the Norfolk station possible, just as
WXKW's demise made CKVL possible.

As for Joe's question, I don't know the answer to "how could?" But I do know
that WXKW's not being granted a license was not unique. Right here in
Boston, a similar situation is--allegedly--finally unwinding after a mere 24
years. WGTR 1060 in Natick (now WBIX) built 2500W night facilities in
1980-1981 and received 1300W program test authority for them at that time.
I'm not going to attempt to recount the whole 1060/890 saga here, but if you
are interested, the Boston Radio Archives contain much of the information.
AM-band skywave propagation and the design and fine tuning of complex AM
directional arrays is still an art after all these years, though it is now
much more of a science than it was in 1980 when WGTR was built or in 1947
when WXKW was built. BTW, one of the early AM DA horror stories is that of
WJBK 1500 (now WLQV) Detroit. This one began in 1951 and did not reach final
resolution until a few months ago. The very short version is that WJBK built
a CP for 10 kW-D/5 kW-N DA-2 using a nine-tower array to protect WTOP and
KSTP. It didn't work well enough and the station was licensed for 1 kW-N.
Later, a CP was granted for 50 kW-D/5 kW-N DA-2 using a 12-tower array
resulting from the addition of three towers to the original nine. Then
Wal-Mart entered the picture and bought the land on which three of the
original towers stood. The day array was redesigned to use the remaining
nine towers but night operation once again wouldn't work correctly. After
years and years, a total redesign of WLQV's night array, and a lot of
horse-trading among the three licensees, WLQV is now licensed for 50 kW-D/10
kW-N DA-2 using nine towers day and night. It took more than half a century
to resolve this one! And, as far as I know, during that half century, the
Detroit station was never licensed for a night power greater than 1 kW. Oh,
and the complex machinations that originally enabled George Storer to apply
to move WJBK to 1500 from the 1490 graveyard channel could make another long
posting.

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

----- Original Message -----
From: A. Joseph Ross <lawyer@attorneyross.com>
To: Scott Fybush <scott@fybush.com>
Cc: <bri@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 12:03 AM
Subject: Re: Things I didn't know...


> On 20 Jul 2004 at 19:52, Scott Fybush wrote:
>
> > So this now becomes primarily a Dan Strassberg question: did this help
> > clear the way for the ill-fated WXKW 850 in Albany?
>
> I still wonder about that Albany station.  How was it possible for someone
to spend all the
> money to build a station, actually go on the air with program test
authority, and then not get
> a license to cover?
>
> --
> A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
>  15 Court Square, Suite 210                 lawyer@attorneyross.com
> Boston, MA 02108-2503                    http://www.attorneyross.com
>
>
>