WXKS-AM At Low Power; Are They Installing WILD transmitter?

[Dan Strassberg]

All radios with tuned-RF front-end stages ahead of the mixer are subject to
this sort of overload. That includes car radios and the GE Super Radios--as
well as some others. I live about one mile northeast of WTTT/WAZN and two
miles north of WAZN. When WAZN is on day pattern and full daytime power, the
mixing product on 1430 makes WXKS on my SR III sound as if it's "gargling."
That's because WWZN intentionally runs off frequency by about 15 Hz. That
irregularity is the result of a the need to suppress the effects of beat
between the 1510.000-kHz carrier and an oscillator (I forget its function)
in TV sets in areas where the 1510 signal is very strong. The beat note
creates nasty visual artifacts on TVs. The station had to slightly offset
its carrier frequency because the problem affected TVs throughout Belmont
and Watertown when 1510 first moved to 411 Waverley Oaks Rd in 1981. For
DXers who have receivers that can accurately measure a station's carrier
frequency, that 15-Hz offset is a strong indication that the identity of an
UNID'ed 1510 station is WWZN.

The gargling problem also affects WCRN on my car radio over quite large area
around here. You guessed it--1510-680=830.

At the moment, the gargling is not audible on 1430 during the day on my SR
III. I take that to mean that WAZN is once again operating at reduced
power--at least during the day. About a month ago, Jeff Kline, WAZN's GM,
posted at radio-info.com that WAZN was running at reduced power pending
resulution of some technical problem.

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Fybush" <scott@fybush.com>
To: "Eli Polonsky" <elipolo@earthlink.net>;
<boston-radio-interest@rolinin.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2005 5:23 PM
Subject: Re: WXKS-AM At Low Power; Are They Installing WILD transmitter?


>
> >What's probably happening there is your radio is most likely being
> >overloaded by WTTT 1150, which transmits from the four-tower array
> >(the tallest one being the inactive old 100.7 FM tower) directly off of
> >Route 2 at the Lexington/Belmont/Waltham line.
> >
> >I know that 1150 is not near 1430 on the dial, but so close to a 5 kW
> >transmitter, interference from it could pop up practically anywhere on
> >your AM dial.
>
> Especially when that site is also home, as it now is, to WAZN on 1470, and
> when the 50 kW of 1510 is quite nearby, too. What's likely happening is
> that there's a mixing product of those two, 40 kHz apart, that's causing
> interference 40 kHz down from 1470. I have a similar problem here in
> Rochester, where two very strong and nearby locals on 1370 and 1460 wipe
> out a more distant station (250 watts, 25 miles away) on 1550. I suspect
> those two would also wreak havoc on 1280, but there's yet another 5 kW
> local sitting on that channel.
>
> How does WNTN 1550 sound as you drive by the towers?
>
> s
>