Herald: Where have you gone Air America

[Dan Strassberg]

Hi, Eli: Actually, the reception problems with 1430 in the vicinity of WAZN
are even more complex than what you described. The location is less than two
miles from WWZN with 50 kw on 1510. 1510-1470 = 40 and 1470-40 = 1430. There
is a huge intermodulation product on 1430 which really mungs up WXKS here
during the day. Then at night, when WWZN changes patterns, which would
normally make the problem go away or at least make it much less severe, WXKS
drops power and goes directional, which makes its signal disappear, and
would do so even without help from WWZN or WAZN. Since WAZN moved to the
WTTT site, the only time I get decent reception of 1430 here (at least on
radios like the Super Radio III, which has a front-end TRF stage) is when
WAZN operates at low power. That still happens fairly often because the
kinks in the setup with 1150 apparently have not yet all been worked out.
Also, WAZN and WTTT recently suffered a lightning strike that did quite a
bit of damage (not visible from outside the site but serious nonetheless
according to WAZN's GM). You'd think the nearby FM tower, which is at least
50% taller than the AM towers would protect the shorter towers, but
lightning has a mind of its own.

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eli Polonsky" <elipolo@earthlink.net>
To: <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org>
Cc: "A. Joseph Ross" <Joe@attorneyross.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: Herald: Where have you gone Air America


> > > From: "A. Joseph Ross" <Joe@attorneyross.com>
> > To: "Laurence Glavin" <lglavin@mail.com>,
> >     boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org,
> >     "Bob Nelson" <raccoonradio@gmail.com>
> > Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 15:12:14 -0400
> > Subject: Re: Herald: Where have you gone Air America
> >
> > They're not too bad in the daytime.  I hear them on my car radio
> > just about everywhere, though when I drive to Lexington, there's
> > a small area near the Waltham Street exit on Route 2, where
> > neither signal is very strong.
>
> That's most likely because you're going by the WTTT 1150 and WAZN
> 1470 transmitter site at the Lexington/Belmont/Waltham line. The
> proximity to the 1150 signal is desensitizing your radio to 1200,
> and the 1470 signal is doing it to 1430 when you're that close to
> those towers.
>
> Look about a half-mile east of Waltham St. off the eastbound side
> of Route 2 and you'll see the four towers. The tall one was for
> the old 100.7 FM which is no longer in use (it's now WZLX which
> transmits from the Pru). The three shorter towers are WTTT and
> WAZN.
>
> EP
>