AM's covering metro-Boston at night (was: Felger leaving ESPN Boston)

[markwa1ion@aol.com]

I've noticed some strange signal variations with WBZ from time to time, 
maybe something to do with maintenance, but they usually do come back 
to their normal primarily-strong groundwave.

Going far southeast where WBZ usually starts petering out, around the 
Sagamore Bridge, most of the FM's also get dodgy - especially if 
there's even a hint of e-skip or tropo to muck things up, not an 
uncommon occurrence especially in spring and summer at pretty much any 
time of day.

I remember back around 1962-1966 listening from cottages near West 
Dennis Beach on summer vacation trips.  At night WBZ got hammered badly 
by a Haitian religious station on the split-channel of 1035.  During 
the day at West Dennis Beach, WBZ did OK (and was indeed heard coming 
 from a number of transistor radio speakers), but more radios were 
actually tuned to WINS-1010 and WABC-770 from New York (and even a few 
on WMCA-570).  Partly this was because of the New Yorkers who came to 
the Cape and, perhaps surprisedly, found that they could get some of 
their favorite hometown Top 40's just fine even at high noon.  But 
people from metro-Boston also twisted their transistor radio knobs, 
heard cool tunes on loud signals, and wound up on the NYC rockers too.  
Boston's leading top 40 (pre-'67) was 5 kW WMEX.  It didn't have a 
chance on the Cape: a feeble signal coming all land through that great 
attenuation pad, the Plymouth Pinelands along Route 3.  WNLC in New 
London was still on 1510 then too, so that channel was not a pretty 
picture on the south side of the Cape.

There wasn't much FM yet on the Cape then.

The definition of the "Boston radio market" has no doubt expanded since 
the '50s / early '60s when Route 128 tended to define the outer 
periphery.

Now people commute into town from places on and beyond 495 - Sandwich, 
Middleborough, Franklin, Milford, Clinton, Pepperell, parts of NH and 
RI, etc.  Someone who works with me here in Wilmington comes in every 
day from York Beach, ME - a totally nutty commute in my opinion.

WBZ-AM and most of the FM's cover this expanded metro reasonably well.  
680 and 850 cover some, but with notable holes here and there - 
especially on the far west side near Worcester.

The comments about 890 WAMG versus 830 WCRN are interesting.  890 not 
only has Chicago's WLS fighting with it, but at least near certain 
coastline areas, a co-channel Cuban gets into the act and there's a 1 
kHz tone present from an Algerian station on 891.  This is particularly 
noticeable up on Cape Ann.

830 has far less co-channel, and for that matter, adjacent channel 
interference.  WCCO is a big nothing here, much weaker than Chicago 
stations for some reason.  Right on the coast, Venezuelan and Cuban 
stations are way off in the background on 830 but generally not 
noticeable until you actually try to null WCRN.

At my home location in Billerica near the Burlington town line, 830 is 
quite strong but does occasionally experience "self-interference": its 
groundwave and skip signals alternately reinforcing and cancelling.  
Farther out, up at the 128 rotaries in Gloucester, there's not much 
groundwave left but the night skip signal is big and quite reliable.  
Sox games on 830 have actually been noted coming in as well or better 
than on 680 or 850.  Luckily 104.9 Gloucester usually runs the Sox too, 
so that's the obvious pick on Cape Ann.

I have spectrum recordings using an SDR-IQ receiver in Rockport that 
show 830 (mostly skip) better than 850 (mostly groundwave) almost half 
the time after dark.  They also show WAMG-890 getting keel-hauled by 
Algeria on 891.

WCRN does provide a very good signal throughout the western crescent of 
495 from 95 in Foxborough up to 3 in Chelmsford.  This was a previously 
very-poorly-served area.  680 and 850 are rubbish out there, especially 
right around the Mass Pike / 495 junction - a very high traffic area.  
Only WBZ and maybe ten FM's blanketed this chunk of metro-west.  The 
Lowell, Concord, Natick, Framingham, Ashland, Marlborough, and Milford 
AM's certainly did not.  They just covered little slivers.

Dan mentioned other good-signal Boston AM's at night in the closer-in 
northwestern suburbs besides 590, 680, 850, and 1030.

1510 is good here near the 3A / 62 junction but takes a nosedive by the 
time you get out to 495 (Chelmsford / Lowell).  1520 Buffalo badly 
"scuffs" it there.

1200 (present Framingham site) has junk at night under it.  Ontario and 
upstate NY are the most consistent culprits.  Good thing I don't give 
two hoots for WKOX's format.  I suppose they will be louder from Newton.

1150 was great - a ton of bricks - when they ran the day set-up at 
night.  Ditto for 950.  Neither is quite as spectacular now.

1060 is good days but fairly useless at night.

1330 (Waltham) is pretty good at night now, just an occasional hint of 
NYC under - not sure if they'll cut the mustard from Newton.

1430 just dominates over co-channel rabble from NJ, NY, and ON.  When 
they were standards I did actually fight the junk to listen to them at 
night - I have antennas that can knock out a lot of stuff from the 
west.  Table radio or car radio reception: dodgy at best.

1260 is usually in a channel-dominance tug-of-war with Fredericton, New 
Brunswick.  If for some strange reason I wanted Radio Disney, I'd go 
with 1560 from NY.

1600: a lost cause.  I used to listen to their Irish show on a 
weeknight once in a while.  Even on 128 in Burlington-Woburn, WWRL from 
the Big Apple cleans WUNR's clock.  I can get WJIB-740 better (despite 
Toronto).

1120 Concord wasn't mentioned.  It's the Spanish-language station in CT 
that gives them the occasional fits, not KMOX St. Louis.  Anyway, even 
here at night, about 8 miles east-northeast of them, they're so much 
weaker than the NY fire-breather on 1130 that it's not funny.

Mark Connelly - Billerica, MA

<<
Every Boston-area AM, INCLUDING WBZ, has signal limitations SOMEWHERE
in the market! ('BZs are on the far South Shore and Cape Cod.) 890's
limitations are in the areas Mark mentioned, and as a relatively new
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. Nevertheless, when you consider Boston-area AM
signals that are inferior to 1030, 590, 680, and 850, I would put 1510
next, 1200 (when it's finally running at full power from Newton) after
that, and 1150, 890 and 1060 (a tie; 1060 has better daytime coverage;
890 is better at night) next in the order in which I listed them. The
next tier includes 1260, 1330 from Newton, and 1600 when they finally
fix whatever it is that's currently keeping it at low power. Of the
stations that are really daytimers, 950 has by far the best signal.
1430, even though it is technically a Class B, has to be ranked with
the daytimers due to its unfavorable night pattern and very high NIF.

Oh, and speaking of WBZ, I wonder whether it might be a victim of
copper theft from its ground system within the past month or so. All
of a sudden I am getting a lot of groundwave/skywave phasing in
Arlington--something I never heard before in Arlington; I did hear it
while driving in Sudbury at night many years ago. Given the proximity
of the transmitter site to salt water, the effects might be less
noticeable at WBZ than at most other stations, but I have to wonder if
something might have happened that nobody at the station is aware of.

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