WFPB Can Be Heard Clearly North Of Boston

[Dan Strassberg]

Of course an AM could "accidentally" go ND. It's almost standard procedure
to design directional arrays so that ND operation is possible in case
something happens to one or more towers--like a tower falls down but doesn't
take all of its neighbors with it. As for WFPB, the line of its two towers
is 128 degrees, pretty much southeast. The front tower is 211 degrees high
(almost exactly 150m--a nice number for the FM antenna height).
The pattern is a classical two-tower cardioid with 90-degree spacing and
90-degree phase, but with a signal ratio of 1.2:1, with the larger signal
coming out of the back tower. The orientation certainly explains why you
can't normally pick up WFPB in Methuen. I had figured that the orientation
was much closer to 90 degrees, but 128 degrees actually makes more sense,
because it should allow the signal to cover the entire Cape.

As to why WFPB (I think it was WVLC at the time) was directional when it
went on the air before WDIS (WJMQ?), I believe that the two stations filed
mutrually exclusive applications, which the FCC designated for a hearing. At
the hearing, it was realized that both could be granted if each protected
the other. I think both were granted at the same time. Orleans must have
gotten on the air before Norfolk. Considering that Norfolk could never make
money, there was proably little incentive to build.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Laurence Glavin" <lglavin@lycos.com>
To: <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2005 1:05 PM
Subject: WFPB Can Be Heard Clearly North Of Boston


> Can a directional station "accidentally" go NDA, or
> might they be doing something with one tower so they're
> using the other in non-directinal mode?   Inquiring minds
> wish to know.
>