no HD on BZ?

[Gary]

One of my fellow ham operators, Dick in Auburn (N1JET) is one of the few
guys left at Verizon who actually works on these broadcast circuits. Let me
run the scenario by him and get his opinion.

Gary

-----Original Message-----

From: boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org [
<mailto:boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org>
mailto:boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org] On Behalf Of
Dale H. Cook

Sent: Monday, January 05, 2009 2:47 PM

To: boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org

Subject: RE: no HD on BZ?

At 02:04 PM 1/5/2009, Peter Q. George wrote:

>I believe that 'BZ's main telco STL path requires them to go through 

>upwards of 15 Central Offices to get that audio from Soldiers Field 

>Road to Hull.

It shouldn't - nowadays in a Baby Bell special circuits within a LATA
usually go from the CO for one terminus to a central location serving the
whole LATA, via a high-capacity digital circuit, then to the CO for the
other terminus via another high-capacity digital circuit.

In this case the studios and transmitter are in different area codes, and so
presumably in different LATAs. In that case, instead of the central location
serving the whole LATA, substitute a long-distance carrier ("the cloud").

Unless the analog program lines are running on the same type of Western
Electric hardware used in the 1960s they would follow one of the two types
of path described in the two preceding paragraphs. 

Daisy-chaining through a series of COs is, IMHO, out of the question. 

As a side note, nowadays most "analog" radio program circuits are actually
digital circuits with A/D and D/A at the termini. 'BZ, however, may still be
copper from each terminus to its CO, with conventional telco equalizers.

>There's always microwave (good luck with SO much multipath prevalent on 

>that water path to Hull).

Multipath doesn't occur over water, but refraction can occur (curable by
space diversity reception). There would not be a direct microwave shot from
studios to transmitter, though - it would have to be hopped via, say, the
top of the Pru.

Dale H. Cook, Chief Engineer, Centennial Broadcasting, Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA
- WZZI / WZZU / WLNI / WLEQ