Felger leaving ESPN Boston

[Dan.Strassberg]

Garrett: Since you live in Framingham, you are probably never reminded
of WCRN's major problem inside of Route 128--SERIOUS phasing between
skywave and groundwave. This affects the signal at night as well as
during the day (during critical daytime hours, anyhow). The effect is
so serious that it often renders the signal unlistenable. Mr Carberry
might indeed be able to sell time on WCRN to Boston advertisers, but
if the reps carried radios with them to demonstrate the signal to
prospective clients, the reps would have to be very careful to avoid
calling on clients after sunset in the winter or in the two hours
after sunrise and before sunset year 'round.

WCRN's towers are quarter wave and I frankly had not expected the
phasing problem to be as severe as it is. I think there might be some
value to top-loading the towers to reduce the high-angle radiation,
even though doing so could necessitate a slight power reduction to
compensate for the increased radiation efficiency. WCRN is tucked in
very close to WEEI and keeping the contours exactly where they are now
after increasing the electrical height of the towers to 120 degrees
would require reducing the power to 43 kW. The cost would probably not
be prohibitive and the number of listeners who would receive a
listenable signal might increase significantly. But 43 kW instead of
50 kW on the letterhead could be a turnoff to advertisers who don't
understand the finer points of AM allocations.

Oh, and there is a unique problem that affects WCRN in areas northwest
of Boston where both WRKO and WWZN have very strong signals. 1510-680
= 830. And since WWZN operates intentionally slightly off frequency
(but not so much that it is out of spec) to avoid interference to TV
sets in Watertown and Belmont, the 830.01 (or is it 829.99) -kHz beat
note (generated by the beginnings of saturation in the receiver)
causes 830 to have a "gravelly" sound. Not fatal, but annoying.

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org>
To: "Dan.Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@att.net>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2008 11:46 PM
Subject: Re: Felger leaving ESPN Boston


> <<On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:23:31 -0400, "Dan.Strassberg"
> <dan.strassberg@att.net> said:
>
>> signal (went on the air less than 20 years ago, I believe), 890 has
>> deficiencies that are more pronounced than those of the 60- and 70+
>> year-old signals.
>
> But 830's signal is far, far better over more of the market than
> 890's, except in the immediate vicinity of Needham on radios with
> poor
> second-adjacent rejection.  830's licensed NIF is 10.289 mV/m, but
> with CFJR gone it should be about 6, and in practice I don't think
> the
> ten microvolts WCCO puts over this area have any meaningful impact
> on
> the WCRN signal, so their actual NIF is probably closer to 3.
> WCRN's
> 5 covers Framingham; the 2.5 should land somewhere in Newton, and is
> quite listenable on the Turnpike at night.  If Carberry wanted to
> sell
> (and there's no evidence that he does), Entercom would be crazy not
> to
> snap it up, as it is almost perfectly complementary to both of their
> current AMs.  (They'd presumably want to dump 1440 in exchange.)
>
> -GAWollman
>