WWZN and Kinstar antennas

[Scott Fybush]

Eli Polonsky wrote:

> Right, but the sites that Aaron hypothetically proposed are about
> even a mile closer to the WTTT/WAZN site than the current WWZN 
> site. The location mentioned by the old military base in Waltham is 
> practically almost just across Trapelo Rd. from the site. That's why
> I was wondering if there would be issues for the two sites to be 
> that close together.

That, by itself, shouldn't be a problem.

I'm much more curious about how a WWZN move would be affected by 
ratcheting. Even if then-WITS *was* ratcheted in 1981 (and I don't 
believe it would have been), my casual reading of the rules seems to say 
that a subsequent move would again require ratcheting. Reducing WWZN's 
night signal toward WLAC by 10% would hurt. So would reducing WWZN's 
night signal toward WRNJ in New Jersey.

With WNLC gone, it seems to me that the real winner might be a night 
site significantly SOUTH and west of Boston. I wonder if the thing to 
do, in the next AM major change window, might not be a city of license 
change for 1510 to allow it to move at least its night operations 
somewhere down around the old WBZ site in Millis, with the signal aimed 
north and east back at greater Boston? The issue would then become 
protection of the dead CJRS allocation, and I'm not entirely sure how 
you'd resolve that.

The issue of 1510's NIF is an interesting one, too. 1510 is actually one 
of - if not THE - cleanest channels on the AM dial at night. There are 
only six fulltime facilities on 1510 in the continental US - WWZN, WRNJ 
in New Jersey, WLAC, KGA in Spokane, KSPA Ontario CA and KYOL in Denver. 
Everything else is class D, and of those class Ds, I find only a tiny 
handful that have any unprotected night power at all. The Pittsburgh 
1510 has a watt, which I don't believe it uses. KFNN Mesa AZ has 100 
watts, and KPIG Piedmont (Oakland) CA has 230 watts. Everyone else signs 
off at sunset, or is supposed to. That makes ratcheting much easier for 
WWZN, since there are only a tiny number of stations whose NIF limit it 
contributes to.

It's a mixed blessing for WWZN, though, because it means that all the 
signal coming its way at night - and at a pretty substantial level - 
comes from the single source of WLAC. That can be much more destructive 
interference, from the listener's standpoint, than the same level of 
incoming signal would be if it were the "babble" of multiple co-channel 
stations heard on other frequencies.

s