WPEP to 1530?

[Dan Strassberg]

A post at radio-info.com says that WPEP will move to 1530--presumably
without altering 1530's facilities because a move to Taunton would probably
cause prohibited overlap with WADK 1540 in Newport RI, which is about five
miles closer to Taunton than it is to the 1530 site. 1530 is licensed to
Middleborough Center. The transmitter is 7.2 miles from the WPEP
transmitter, but with a non-CH daytime power of 2.2 kW, 1530 should put a
listenable signal (even if not 5 mV/m) into Taunton. 1530's CH power is
936W, which should make it a bit harder to hear in Taunton and the night
power is a whopping 2W, which must make 1530 completely inaudible in
Taunton at night. HOWEVER, 1530 is a class D AM, so a conceivable plan would
move the low-power night operation to the WPEP site. There is NO requirement
that Class D AMs deliver any signal whatever at night to their COLs. So 1530
could serve Taunton (if you call 2W serving) at night and not deliver any
detectable signal to Middleborough. WPEP's tower is less than 200' high, so
it presumably does not require illumination. Therefore, the cost of keeping
the tower up solely for the 2W night operation would be limited to painting
and other maintenance.

1530 currently airs programming for the blind and visually impaired, but
elsewhere, such programming is on FM SCA channels that require special FM
receivers to hear. I suspect that WSNE or one of the Providence FMs might be
convinced to donate an SCA channel to this service. Or maybe the owners of
WPEP might be willing to pay an FM something to carry the service just to
get the locals--and Joe Pappalardo--off their backs.

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