WJIB

[Dan.Strassberg]

I've forgotten what the calls of what is now WJIB were before Bob
owned the station, but whatever the calls were, the station held a CP
for 2.5 kW-D from what is now the WAMG/WBIX-N array in Ashland. With
those tall towers 2.5 kW would have produced quite a signal and the
pattern was quite narrow to the east, protecting WVNE. In fact, with a
separate night pattern, Class B operation might have been possible,
although the CoL would probably have had to be changed to Sherborn
because given WJIB's NIF, which I estimate to be around 65 mV/m, and
the low power that might have been granted, Needham is just too far
away. But it would have been a losing proposition. The initial cost
would have been very high (maybe $1 million) and the ongoing costs for
the lease of the Tx site would have been a killer for a small station.
Moreover, the site--way west of the center of the market--would have
canceled out most of the gains from the higher power. If 250W were
possible at night (and that seems optimistic to me--but with the tall
towers, the station wouldn't have needed that much power to be a Class
B--just an RMS of 140.85 mV/m), the population served would still be
less than that served by 5W from Fresh Pond Circle.

-----
Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@csail.mit.edu>
To: "Laurence Glavin" <lglavin@mail.com>
Cc: "Boston Radio Interest" <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 9:11 PM
Subject: WJIB


> <<On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:50:55 -0500, "Laurence Glavin"
> <lglavin@mail.com> said:
>
>> Hmmm...this means that with WHEB-AM 750 gone, WJIB-AM could in fact
>> have boosted its power in the past, even without the Bob Bittner
>> co-ownership.
>
> Certainly could have, and nearly did (pre-Bob).  That construction
> permit was never built; it would have required an expensive
> directional array and a change in city of license (to Needham,
> IIRC).
> If I remember our conversation about it from several years ago, the
> CP
> was still outstanding when Bob bought the station, but he didn't
> think
> it made any financial sense (which is probably correct).
>
> -GAWollman
>