HD Callsigns --> Question re AM HD

[Sid Schweiger]

>>Why should Citadel care whether someone 200 miles from New York City
can
hear a Detroit station, or vice versa? Is WJR selling Syracuse to its
advertisers as a market they can reach? As for WYSL ... geez, I've been
a
BCB enthusiast for years, but even I realize that the stations on the
band
are intended to serve their cities of license and immediate areas, not
DXers
in far-off cities with local broadcasters of their own. How, exactly,
is
WYSL's complaint actionable? Seems to me that as long as people in Avon
and
its immediate vicinity can hear WYSL, any other listeners the station
might
lose to IBOC splatter from WBZ don't matter, right?<<

I don't know the specifics on the Citadel situation, other than at
least one report I've seen on the Internet which claims that WJR and
WABC were interfering with each other at night.  Since both stations
rely on national and network advertising, and since those buys are
related in part to station coverage at night (even outside the NIF
contours), that could directly affect the bottom line.  Bob Savage is
claiming that the interference from WBZ is reducing the nighttime
interference-free contour of WYSL...that is, the coverage he is supposed
to have *inside* his community of license.  That's apparently the nut
that has to be dealt with on AM-HD...that, if one believes the reports,
the interference from the HD carriers at night affects stations hundreds
of miles away.  This has nothing to do with ticking off DXers.  This is
(again, according to the claims) reducing coverage of a station in its
community of license that it had previously, and upon which its business
was built.  Savage is claiming (and states that he has engineering data
to back up those claims) that people formerly served by WYSL's nighttime
signal can no longer hear it.  His view is that the FCC has officially
sanctioned interference which harms his ability to do business.  What
the FCC will do with this claim and the submitted engineering data is
anyone's guess at this point.



Sid Schweiger
IT Manager, Entercom New England
WAAF - WEEI AM/FM - WKAF
WMKK - WRKO - WVEI AM/FM
20 Guest St / 3d Floor
Boston MA  02135-2040
Phone: 617-779-5369
Fax: 617-779-5379
E-Mail: sid@wrko.com