How much longer will WBZ stay at 1170 SFR?

[Scott Fybush]

Dan.Strassberg wrote:
> American Tower owns the 1150/1470 site. AFAIK, Salem owns the 950 site. 
> Don't know who owns the 590 site, but I'm pretty sure it isn't Salem. 

Salem at least owns the towers, if not the underlying land. The towers 
are registered to "Pennsylvania Media Associates" (a Salem shell 
company) at Salem's Camarillo, CA address.

> Don't know who owns the 890/1060 site. 

"METRO-BOSTON BROADCASTING, INC. DBA = TOWER SITES, LIMITED," with an 
address in Georgetown, TX. I don't know who that really is.

 > 1090 is already diplexed (with
> 1430). Clear Channel may own the site, but I don't know that they do. 
> Anyhow, as you point out, 1030 and 1090 are extremely close in frequency 
> for diplexing, although diplexing has been done with stations separated 
> in frequency by less than 5% of the higher frequency. The closest pair I 
> know of are in Santa Barbara on 1290 and 1340, but these are both 
> low-power stations and it's a single tower site. Also, little else is 
> right for WBZ about the 1430/1090 site. Triplex with 1430 and 1090--not 
> good. Towers very short. Unlikely that the towers could handle any 
> reasonable additional power for a WBZ aux. A diplex of 1030 and 1060 is 
> absolutely out of the question! 

Clear Channel does own the 1430/1090 site. It would not be necessary to 
diplex 1090 and 1030, however. 1090 uses only one of the two towers in 
the array, after all, so 1030 could go into the other one, diplexed with 
1430. (But, yes, they're skinny little things and not very tall, either.)

 > 950 and 1030 are also kind of close in
> frequency. 950 has a dynamite signal for 5 kW, but if WBZ's own site 
> couldn't be used per Scott's suggestion, why would you use the 950 site, 
> especially in view of the flooding problem? There are still the 850 and 
> 680 sites, either of which would be good, with 850 looking like the 
> better choice for an ND diplex with WBZ.

And Entercom would want its direct format competitor (to both of its big 
AMs) on its AM towers why exactly?

Since we're talking about what's essentially an emergency auxiliary 
antenna, I still think the best bet might be some sort of folded unipole 
strung on the tower behind the CBS Radio studios. It's an 
industrial/commercial area that's unlikely to generate much in the way 
of NIMBY action, and the entire facility would be under CBS control this 
way.

As for the WBZ-TV tower...remember that CBS doesn't own it anymore. What 
would Richland charge for stringing a folded unipole all the way up that 
beast?

> Oh, the downside of using the WBZ Hull site as an aux as well as a main 
> is the flooding problem there. Not as bad as the flooding problem is 
> Saugus, but bad enough to raise questions. I don't know of a flooding 
> problem at the 850 or 680 sites.

I don't think the flooding problem at Hull is so serious as to render it 
unusable as an aux site. How often have the elevated tower bases gone 
under water in the 71 years the site's been in use?

s