WBOQ reach in to Boston

[Scott Fybush]

Dan Strassberg wrote:
> You appear to be saying that the FCC not only ignores the laws of physics
> when it declares that something that can't work really works acceptably.
> You're saying that the Cookie Company also ignores the laws of physics when
> it declares that something that clearly works doesn't work. Maybe. 

Definitely. How else can you justify the rules that say that a 
second-adjacent translator co-located with a full-power station doesn't 
cause interference, but a full-power station with identical technical 
facilities would be unacceptable? The only difference there is a 
political one - the source of the input audio to the transmitter.

 > But I
> think that if the Tangers were determined enough, they could arrange for a
> WRBB move to 101.3. As I said, this would not be the first US case of
> co-located second adjacents. I can't cite examples, but I think Scott Fybush
> can name at least one.

There are many in the translator service. The first one that comes to 
mind is W204BF Fort Wayne IN on 88.7, co-located with class B WBOI 89.1. 
  WBOI is Fort Wayne's public radio station, and they turned it into a 
two-stream service by building a class A facility on 91.3 about 50 miles 
north of Fort Wayne, then putting the 88.7 translator on the air to 
simulcast the new second signal back into Fort Wayne. (In practice, of 
course, the audio heading for 88.7 just goes straight from the studio to 
the co-located transmitter, but the only way it can be licensed is if 
there's also a "primary" to "feed" the translator.)

The operating principle is that the translator's 100 dBu contour cannot 
touch the second-adjacent full-power station's 60 dBu. If you put the 
translator high enough on the tower so that its 100 dBu signal never 
reaches ground level, where interference is calculated, then by the 
FCC's definition there is no interference.

Several class D stations have successfully applied this principle to get 
the FCC to allow them to move to channels that are second- and 
third-adjacent to full-power signals in the same market. WHHS Havertown 
PA, which was displaced from 107.9 in the Philadelphia market, is the 
most recent example. They were allowed to move to 99.9 after receiving 
waiver letters from WPHI 100.3 Media PA and WJBR-FM 99.5 Wilmington DE 
consenting to a very small amount of interference on the grounds of the 
school where WHHS is located.

If WZLX and WFNX would issue similar letters to WRBB, it could move to 
101.3. I suspect the most expensive part of a move to OFC, perhaps even 
more so than the rent, would be the filtering needed to keep the 
WERS/WHRB/WFNX signals out of WRBB's antenna there

s