WLLH-AM Lawrence Transmitter Off-The-Air

[Dan Strassberg]

In Bedford. even back then, when WLLH had rooftop antenna systems in both
Lowell and Lawrence, you would have been listening to the Lowell
transmitter. Generally, if you are at points west, northwest, and southwest
of Lowell, you receive the Lowell signal and at points east, northeast, and
southeast of Lawrence, you receive the Lawrence signal. If you are between
Lowell and Lawrence or in the "corridor" described by drawing the
perpendicular bisector of the line between Lowell and Lawrence and widening
the line more-or-less to the east and west to equal the distance between
Lowell and Lawrence, you receive relatively unlistenable hash, because that
is the area where the two signals are of relatively equal strength and they
"beat" with each other. This explanation is a bit of an oversimplification,
but as you can see, it's already kind of complicated.

Since the construction of the new Lowell transmitter (and when both
transmitters are operating correctly), I receive the Lowell signal in
Arlington Heights. When Lowell is off the air, Lawrence is pretty much
inaudible at my QTH. In answer to Laurence's question, when Lowell was off,
I could receive neither New Bedford nor Biddeford, although I didn't really
try to, which means I didn't do simple things like rotating the radio.
Before construction of the Lowell transmitter, there was a little bit of the
Lawrence signal mixed in. The beat phenomenon was noticeable, albeit not
terribly severe. The beat note can "bring up" weak signals that are not
normally audible without help.

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "A. Joseph Ross" <joe@attorneyross.com>
To: <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org>; "Laurence Glavin"
<lglavin@lycos.com>
Sent: Monday, March 13, 2006 12:49 AM
Subject: Re: WLLH-AM Lawrence Transmitter Off-The-Air


> On 12 Mar 2006 at 13:38, Laurence Glavin wrote:
>
> > WLLH's Lowell tower is a real tower with a typical grounding
> > system and everything so during the day, it covers parts of the
> > Lawrence, Methuen, Andover megalopolis pretty well (sorry North
> > Andover).
>
> I generally got WLLH fine in Bedford, back in the 1950s and 1960s, at
> least in the daytime.
>
> --
> A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
>  15 Court Square, Suite 210                 Fax 617.742.7581
> Boston, MA 02108-2503                    http://www.attorneyross.com
>
>