Felger leaving ESPN Boston

[Dan.Strassberg]

Yes but, by dint of being licensed to Lawrence and not to Boston
(though Hildreth and Rogers obviously had their sights set on Boston),
WLAW was forced to find a more northerly and somewhat more easterly
site and use a pattern that was closer to a figure-eight than to a
cardioid. In my opinion, the result turned out to be fortuitous indeed
(especially years later when WRKO was able to modify its day pattern
to improve its daytime coverage of MetroWest). The Burlington site
just beats the Needham site hands down! WRKO covers both Southern NH
and (because of the salt water path) Cape Cod like a local; WEEI does
not. Heck, with the exception of its inability to cover much to the
west of 128 because of WTAG, WEZE with only 5 kW and electrically
short towers, has a better signal in many parts of the market
(including downtown Boston) than does WEEI with 50 kW from half-wave
towers.

By choosing the Needham site, WHDH was forced to send a huge signal to
the east to deliver 25+ mV/m to downtown Boston despite the horrendous
soil conductivity. That wastes a lot of energy over Mass Bay to the
east. And without the salt water to help out, the 850 signal on Cape
Cod is at best mezza-mezz. Meanwhile, Nashua and Manchester are at
least a dozen miles closer to Burlington than they are to Needham.

Needham may have been an obvious choice but Burlington was, in fact,
by far (and probably out of necessity) a better one.

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Fybush" <scott@fybush.com>
To: "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>; "Dan.Strassberg"
<dan.strassberg@att.net>
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 9:58 AM
Subject: Re: Felger leaving ESPN Boston


> Garrett Wollman wrote:
>> <<On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:58:03 -0400, "Dan.Strassberg"
>> <dan.strassberg@att.net> said:
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> That's true.  But when I hear people talking up signals like 1260,
>> I
>> feel the need to remind people that more than half of the market is
>> located west of 128.
>
> Which raises an interesting question: given the rules then in effect
> (25 mV/m over the main post office of the COL), if you'd been a
> consulting engineer in the thirties or forties who happened to be
> possessed of a population map of Greater Boston circa 2008, where
> would you have put your big AM transmitters in those halcyon days
> before NIMBYism?
>
> I'm thinking WHDH got it just about right...
>
> s