WNSH

[markwa1ion@aol.com]

Dan's pretty much right about the route from Beverly to Yarmouth via 
Mass. Bay / Cape Cod Bay being pretty much an "RF bowling alley".  Even 
the Maine stations sound more "local" than most signals originating 
 from the southwestern or western suburbs of Boston (650, 850, 890, 
1060, 1120, 1150, 1200, 1330, 1510, 1550, 1600).

Where I was listening was *somewhat* inland (nearer Route 6 than 6A) so 
1570's signal was maybe a bit less accentuated in competition with 590 
and 680 than it would be right at the shore.

Speaking of US daytime AM signals getting to Bermuda, the NYC 50 kW's 
are biggest I'm fairly sure.  Watt for watt, the Atlantic City / 
Pleasantville / Wildwood, NJ kilowatt jobs do remarkably well according 
to Charlie Taylor who was stationed at a US Navy facility there about 
25 years ago.  Norfolk / Newport News / Va. Beach area does very well 
too.

Bermuda's 1160 could be heard on the south side of the Cape (e.g. West 
Dennis Beach) before the channel got piled on by two NJ stations and 
Maine.  But that's only half as far as WOKV-690 Jacksonville and R.V.C. 
Turks & Caicos 530 which can also be heard all day in W. Dennis on good 
equipment.

As some on this list know, I do a fair amount of DX listening from the 
car at Granite Pier in Rockport, MA.  Having a "block of rock" (Cape 
Ann) towards domestic stations you want to reduce and open seawater 
towards foreign ones you want to enhance is an extremely effective 
tool, especially when augmented by a directional antenna system 
(car-top cardioid array = loop phased against whip, like an aircraft 
RDF set-up).

See "http://home.comcast.net/~dx_lab/dx_2007-10.htm" for some sample 
receptions made last month.

As far as what to do with WNSH, moving the transmitter to WESX's tower 
would certainly give it some bang over more land area.  Even the old 
WMLO site (Endicott St. in Danvers, not far from a marsh) would have 
been better.

Does siting a "North Shore station" on the South Shore (at/near 1030's 
or 1300's site) and having it shoot NE actually make more sense ?

Mark Connelly, WA1ION - Billerica, MA

<<
Well, there's nothing but salt water from the water's edge in Beverly or
Peabody to the water's edge nearest your QTH on Cape Cod. So all but 
maybe
0.1 miles of the 60+-mile distance is salt water. Let's assume for the
moment that I am right and that the inverse-distance field is 1080 mV/m 
@ 1
km (well below the Class D minimum of 1543). At 100 km, the field 
strength
would be close to 11 mV/m. None of the other stations you listed would 
be
quite in that class. 950 should be next at close to 7 mV/m and 1360 
would
probably be third at around 3.34. If WNSH's application is correct and 
the
efficiency is greater than the Class D minimum, you can increase the 
number
for WNSH by almost 50%--to over 16 mV/m. When WNSH's application was 
for 50
kW directional, a friend of mine, who thought it was going to be 
directional
to the east (it really was not; it was to be directional to the north),
joked that WNSH was going to have the stongest signal in Bermuda of any 
US
mainland AM. Despite the power reduction to 30 kW, I suspect that the 
joke
may be even more true now than it was when the power was to be higher.
Nevertheless, coverage of Cape Cod wasn't supposed to be the idea. 
Still,
neither was coverage of Arlington.

--

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