Felger leaving ESPN Boston

[markwa1ion@aol.com]

Just outside the northwestern arc of 128 from Route 2 to I-93, the ESPN 
metro-Boston combo offers unimpressive coverage.

At 3 miles north of the Burlington Mall (and the 'RKO towers), I would 
hardly characterize my home location as on the deep fringes of the 
Boston radio market.

I can drive down 3A, Winn Street, 128, and 93 and be in downtown Boston 
in 25 minutes, at least when traffic is light.

890 does not have what I would call an effective signal.  New York on 
880 is about as strong as 890 here at night.  Maybe stronger.

1400, from 11 miles north of here, has quite a garble of other stuff 
under it.  This does not fully clear up until I drive north of 
Billerica Center (about 4 miles up 3A) and get close to the Concord 
River crossing.

Bedford, Concord, Carlisle, Billerica, Burlington, and Wilmington is a 
pretty good chunk of metro-area population - a good deal of it affluent.

On AM, 590, 680, 850, and 1030 deliver decidedly better signals.

Any FM, whether Pru-based or 128-towerplex-based, would be far superior.

Mark Connelly - Billerica (Pinehurst), MA

<<
However, I take exception to characterizing 890/1400 as low-powered.
890 runs 25 kW-D from super-efficient half-wave towers. The daytime
signal is truly the equivalent of 50 kW! (Check out the pattern RMS,
which exceeds 2000 mV/m @ 1 km; the minimum for a 50 kW ND Class B AM
is 1992 mV/m.) Yes, the transmitter site in Ashland is kind of far
from Boston but the very narrow pattern sends the equivalent of about
350 kW ND to the east. And yes, the 6 kW night signal provides only
half the RMS of the daytime signal and the NIF value of 12.5 mV/m is
not great, but the station does deliver a listenable nighttime signal
to a large part of the market. (The night signal toward Boston is
equivalent to more than 67 kW ND.) Many people seem intent on "talking
down" the 890 signal, but the facts simply don't justify the
bad-mouthing.

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