WROL Application

[Dan Strassberg]

It has been many months since WROL first submitted an application to run 5
kW-U DA-N (three towers) from its present ND-D site using Revere as its new
COL. I looked over the latest app and I see nothing different about it from
the app submitted six or so months ago. Maybe I am missing something. I
doubt whether Presque Isle's presence or absence is a factor in the design
of the pattern. The fact that the site plat shows none of the ground radials
being foreshortened by property lines suggests that there was always room
for the planned array at the day site. If so, it's unclear why the original
app specified a site further west and slightly further inland--in what
appears to be a residential neighborhood. I can only speculate about the why
WROL would have started out with a proposal for such a site with lower
power.

Although the day site appears to be an odd choice for the proposed night
operation--essentially the entire night signal goes right out over water and
doesn't encounter land until Provincetown and then maybe Bermuda--the salt
water is a cure for pretty much whatever might ail this proposal (except
maybe for a big northeaster that sweeps the entire array and transmitter
building out to sea). The 37.5 mV/m NIF contour doesn't quite kiss the
shoreline in Dorchester, but 37.5 mV/m can't be realistic. The real NIF
number must be a LOT lower. Here in Arlington Heights, with no particular
benefit from the salt water, I don't think we get even 1 mV/m nights, yet
the WROL signal is almost invariably quite listenable. WROL should get some
slight benefit from WPEN's night signal upgrade. WPEN's new 21 kW night
facility diplexed with WWDB 860 is built and being tested. Despite the
fourfold power increase, WPEN should send quite a bit less night signal
toward Boston. WROL should benefit slightly from this change, but as far as
I can tell, the latest WROL application doesn't reflect it.

A really interesting question is whether, once this app is approved, Salem
will then start work on a proposal to move WTTT to the WROL site. A night
diplex with WROL looks easy. The 950 and 1150 patterns are nearly identical.
Technically, WTTT could probably use the Saugus site by day too, but not
unless Industrie Canada can be persuaded to delete the international
notification of the long unused (20 years?) 1150 facilities of CHSJ Saint
John NB. Such a deletion would be a rare event indeed, but maybe Salem's
power of prayer is influential; in an almost unprecedented move, Canada
deleted an allocation for an unbuilt 1160 station in North Bay ON to make
room for Salem's recent night upgrade of its WYLL Chicago. Protecting
second-adjacent WFPB 1170 Orleans would not be a problem; a suitable pattern
could be synthesized using only two of WROL's proposed three towers. WMRD
Middletown CT is a question mark, though. It might have to go to make a
daytime move of 1150 possible. If WMRD and the ghost of CHSJ can be
exorcised from 1150, WTTT could probably get 10 kW-D quite easily from this
very advantageous site.

Moving WTTT to the Saugus site, which Salem owns, would save Salem the rent
on WTTT's Lexington site and would clear the way for WKOX to move to
Lexington. 1150 and 1200 are too close in frequency for a diplex, but if
WTTT were gone, WKOX could run 50 kW-D/5 kW-N from the three existing
Lexington towers, (just barely) delivering enough of a nighttime signal to
Newton to meet FCC requirements for coverage of WKOX's new COL and also
delivering enough night signal to downtown Boston to meet Clear Channel's
requirements for at least 10 mV/m in the downtown area of the market's
principal community. With reasonable luck, WKOX could move to Lexington in,
say, five years ;>) Will the US still be using the AM band for audio
broadcasting in five years?

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Laurence Glavin" <lglavin@lycos.com>
To: <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2005 6:23 PM
Subject: WROL Application


> WROL-AM 950, current COL: Boston, has modified its application to
> move COL to Reveah and add nighttime DA with 1KW;
> now it's applying for 5KW nights at the same location
> as the currrent day/night NDA operation.  They could wind
> up with LESS wattage in Boston at night, critical in winter for
> that portion of the Hibernian hits that air after local
> sunset.
>
> --
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