Two views on Prog. Talk

[Dan Strassberg]

You can pretty much forget radio-locator's "coverage maps" for assessing the
nighttime coverage of all but a few very old AMs. The outer contour on the
radio-locator nighttime maps (and the middle contour of the daytime maps) is
0.5 mV/m. The inner contour is 2.5 mV/m. Aside from Class A AMs (in New
England, that means WBZ and WTIC), whose nighttime groundwave service is
protected to 0.5 mV/m (these stations also have protected nighttime skywave
service), there aren't more than a handful of AMs in the US that receive
nighttime protection to anything like 2.5 mV/m. In WKOX's case, the
protected contour is approximately 14 mV/m, almost six times the signal
strength of radio-locator's inner contour. Can you listen outside of the
official NIF contour at night? You bet! But depending on the situation on
the band on the particular night you listen and the situation on the channel
and the first-adjacent channels, your mileage (literally) will vary--by a
lot. You probably stand the best chance of getting a usable signal outside a
station's NIF contour when there is only one strong interfering signal (for
example, on 740, essentially all that interrferes with WJIB is CHWO). 1200
has a lot of interferers around here. The worst is WTLA N Syracuse NY. Next
worst is WAGE Leesburg VA, but there are many more on 1200. And as Laurence
pointed out, WPHT on 1210 is a biggie. WLIB on 1190, which also broadcasts
Air America, but broadcasts the lineup live, not mostly on delay as WKOX
does, is not much of an interferer here because the pattern has a narrow
null toward Boston to protect CHTN Charlottown PEI, which hasn't been on
1190 for about 15 years but is still notified to the US and so must be
protected.

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Pappalardo" <joepappalardo2001@yahoo.com>
To: "Dan Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@att.net>; "Donna Halper"
<dlh@donnahalper.com>
Cc: "Boston Radio Interest" <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2005 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: Two views on Prog. Talk


>
> From: "Donna Halper"
>
> > But I am still mystified by where WKOX's signal goes at night.  I can't
> get
> > it in Worcester, I can't get it in Westboro, and in fact, it isn't even
> > clear in some parts of Framingham!  And as we know, forget about the
south
> > shore.  So, allegedly, where is its night pattern supposed to be heard?
>
> Take a look at:
>
> http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WKOX&service=AM&status=L&hours=N
>