could WILD go full time?

[Dan Strassberg]

You are missing the point. If WNTN were to operate at night with more than
250W equivalent power, it would become a class B AM and would have to
deliver an NIF (nighttime interference-free) signal (probably something in
the neighborhood of 20 mV/m--but that's just a guess) to 80% of its CoL. The
CoL would, thus, have to be close enough to the transmitter site and compact
enough for the night pattern to cover this area. For Watertown to work, it
would have to be southeast of the transmitter site because protecting CBE
dictates a pattern that has deep minima to the northwest. If the chosen site
were the 1150/1470 site in Lexington, Watertown would be in the right
direction but probably not close enough for the low power WNTN would be
likely to be granted. And the fact that the site is already being used by
two stations, one of them very close in frequency to 1550, would almost
certainly make the use of the site prohibitively expensive. To get FCC
approval, it would also help for the new CoL to be a place without a
full-time audio broadcast station licensed to it. Watertown loses on that
score--it currently has one such, WAZN--and will soon also have WRCA.

OTOH, if WNTN were to run less than 250W equivalent at night, it could
remain a Class D AM (like WJIB) and its night service would not have to
cover any of the CoL, so the station could remain licensed to Newton. If
WNTN were to operate nondirectionally at night, it looks as if the power
would be limited to about 2.5W, except during the hour between local sunset
and Windsor ON sunset, when somewhat higher power (maybe 25W or so) might be
allowed. WNTN owner Rob Rudnick has already determined that 2.5W from the
existing transmitter site on the Newton-Waltham line would cover so few
people that it is not worth the trouble and cost to put it on the air.

--

Dan Strassberg
dan.strassberg@att.net
Fax: 1-707-215-6367

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Vahey" <kvahey@gmail.com>
To: "Scott Fybush" <scott@fybush.com>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 10:23 PM
Subject: Re: could WILD go full time?


> Watertown could become the COL for WNTN. CBE is only 10000w
> directional to the east. The mighty Fresh Pond 740 pulled it off with
> CBL which always boomed into Boston.