750

[Dan.Strassberg]

Well, at some point within, I'd say, the last 20 years, the FM tower
was found to be distorting the AM patterns (at least the night
pattern) beyond their licensed parameters. I believe that, after
considerable effort to bring the patterns within spec, whoever was
doing the engineering at that time threw up his hands and applied for
a bunch of new augmentations, which were granted. Then later, probably
when Greater Media was getting ready to sell the AM, they brought in
the big guns from Corporate Engineering, who spent a bundle and really
did a lot of excellent work, and the problem--or at least the bulk of
the problem--was fixed. However, that was not the end of the story.
More work was necessary when 1470 moved in. And 1470's problems with
the site didn't end with 1150 or the tall tower. There is a wicked
problem, which seems to come and go, of 1510's audio appearing (or
seeming to appear) mixed with 1470's audio. I know that 1470 has
several times reverted to operating ND at low power while engineers
worked on the problems. The 1510 problem MAY be a problem with my
radios and not with the station, but it has gotten so bad sometimes
that 1470 has become unlistenable. I live just about a mile northeast
of the site, in Arlington, near the Lexington line.

As for a base insulator under the FM tower, I looked for one--even
think I once brought a pair of binoculars to the site--and couldn't
see anything. Of course, I was right outside what once was the Tx
building--now mostly leased out as office space. That's probably about
500' from the FM tower.

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "chris2526" <chris2526@comcast.net>
To: <boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 2:59 AM
Subject: 750


> While there is no actual AM ground system associated with the tall
> FM tower (WCOP-FM 100.7) in Lexington there is a base insulator at
> the
> bottom and insulators just above the midway point to break up
> the re radiation at 1150 Khz. There are also detuning units at the
> base
> and another at the mid point. The detuning units were tied into the
> ground system of the three 1938 self supporters when erecting the
> tall tower for WCOP-FM and what they were hoping to be WCOP-TV
> Channel 5 in 1948.  I know this for a fact as I was CE for the AM
> and FM twice and the AM several more times down the road.
>
> Chris Hall