A fun trivia question

[Doug Drown]

<<I don't know whether the Albany 13 ever
transmitted from the Saratoga area, where it would not have been short
spaced, but I believe that it is now on what began life as the Channel 35
tower atop Bald Mountain.>>

If my memory is correct, Channel 13 (then known as WAST) moved its
transmitting facilities to Bald Mountain back in the late '60s or early
'70s, perhaps at the same time that auxiliary Channel 35 was eliminated.
Supposedly, reception in the Capital District improved a great deal.

-Doug

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dan Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@att.net>
To: "A. Joseph Ross" <joe@attorneyross.com>; "Rick Kelly"
<rickkelly@gmail.com>
Cc: "Boston Radio Interest" <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org>;
<SonnyDaye1@aol.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2007 7:37 AM
Subject: Re: A fun trivia question


> WTRI (TV) was on Channel 35--not 45. It was by far the better of the two
> facilities, with transmitter on a nearly 1000' tower atop 500' (or so)
Bald
> Mountain, just north of Troy. WROW-TV, meanwhile, was transmitting from a
> 700' tower in N Greenbush. The location of the base of the tower is
actually
> in the valley on the east side of the Hudson, where the land climbs
steeply
> by at least 300' as you go eastward and then climbs more than another
1000'
> as you go further east into Mass. To the west, the land climbs more
> gradually at first but it still climbs pretty far. By the time you reach
> Schenectady, your height above sea level is about the same as that of the
> TOP of the N Greenbush tower. (For at least the last 30 years now, the N
> Greenbush tower has been home to my alma mater's noncommercial FM, WRPI
> 91.5.)
>
> All of this conspired to give Channel 41 very poor coverage. However, the
> station overcame these (literal) obstacles by acquiring additional
> signals--first WMGT N Adams on Channel 74 (later moved to Channel 19 and
> rechristened WCDC) and then by constructing Channel 29 in Hagaman. Channel
> 19 transmits from Mt Greylock, the highest point in Mass. The signal is
huge
> and it covers most of the Capital District pretty well. Channel 41
continued
> to cover the valley areas that the Channel 19 signal couldn't reach very
> well because of the topography. Hagaman is in the Mohawk Valley west of
> Schenectady and the Channel 29 signal did a good job in Schenectady.
>
> But being a network of UHF stations left what were by then WCDA (41), WCDB
> (29), and WCDC (19) at a competitive disadvantage to GE's legacy VHF
signal
> WRGB (6). Then the engineers discovered that there was a small triangle of
> land in Vail Mills, just south of Sacondaga Reservoir and about 38 miles
> west of downtown Albany that allowed a full-spaced VHF drop-in on Channel
> 10. The location was just 170 miles from co-channel stations in
Providence,
> Rochester, and Montreal. A 1350' tower was constructed and Channel 10
> replaced Channel 29. In the end, though, the Channel 10 signal from Vail
> Mills still needed help from Channels 19 and 41 to cover the whole market.
>
> Then, the FCC agreed to grant short spacing to Channel 10, which moved to
> the Heldeberg Mountains southwest of Albany, close to the Channel 6 site
> with a directional antenna protecting Providence. Because Channel 10's
> signal is severely limited to the east, Channel 19 still acts as a
> translator.
>
> I am not nearly as familiar with the Channel 35 situation. But I do know
> that Channel 35 did return to the air as an ABC affiliate and it was also
> granted a short-spaced VHF assignment on Channel 13 protecting WNET in New
> York (technically, Newark). I don't know whether the Albany 13 ever
> transmitted from the Saratoga area, where it would not have been short
> spaced, but I believe that it is now on what began life as the Channel 35
> tower atop Bald Mountain.
>
> I've often wondered why Channels 10 and 13 in the Capital District never
> swapped transmitter sites. Although such a swap would have exacerbated the
> short spacing on both channels, it would have placed the market's
population
> in the direction of the maximum signal strength, rather than the minimum
> signal strength. Of course, everybody now has cable, so it really makes no
> difference anymore. I'm sure that Scott and/or Garrett can fill us in on
the
> transmitter locations and channel numbers of the Capital District's
Channel
> 10 and 13 DTV equivalents.
>
> --
> Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
> eFax 707-215-6367
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "A. Joseph Ross" <joe@attorneyross.com>
> To: "Rick Kelly" <rickkelly@gmail.com>
> Cc: "Boston Radio Interest"
<boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org>;
> <SonnyDaye1@aol.com>
> Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2007 12:36 AM
> Subject: Re: A fun trivia question
>
>
> > On 5 May 2007 at 23:15, Rick Kelly wrote:
> >
> > > WTRY was sold in '55. I don't think WTRY dropped CBS. It was the other
> > > way around, with Lowell Thomas, part owner of WROW, pulling some
> > > strings to move CBS over there.
> >
> > This makes sense, too, because at the same time, WROW-TV, Channel 41,
> > became a CBS affiliate, putting WTRY's sister station, WTRI, Channel
> > 45, off the air for lack of an affiliate.
> >
> > > I don't know who invented the Color Radio moniker. I
> > > thought it was Chuck Blore, but maybe he stole it from somewhere else.
> > > I don't beleive WTRY was using color radio until they bought that
> > > jingle package (in '58?) - but not sure.
> >
> > I don't think WTRY was using Color Radio in 1958.  We moved back to
> > the Boston area in 1957, but I discovered that I could hear WPTR at
> > night, and I was listening at that time, and they were doing Color
> > Radio at that time.  One of their gimmicks was to somehow
> > electronically convert colors into sounds.  They'd play a sound and
> > ask listeners to guess what color it was.  So they actually did have
> > color radio, I guess.
> >
> > --
> > 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
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>