WDER-AM 1320 DA Out Of Tolerance; Running NDA Temporarily

[Laurence Glavin]

WDER-AM 1320 in Derry, NH is authorized for 10,000 watts directional days. It must be pretty directional since I
 receive only a moderately strong signal not far from the MA/NH border and the towers are a little more than
 halfway between Methuen, MA and Manchester, NH. But for a couple of days thru Thursday afternoon, while
 I was scanning the AM dial, it was considerably stronger. The WDER website offers a comments block, so
 I emailed the station to see what was happening. (The FCC records show no CPs or other authorized
 changes). In the reply, their engineer stated that the antenna array had gone out of compliance and they
 are currently running 2,000 watts NDA. WDER has a fairly impressive set of towers, and the 2K into just
 one of them is providing a pretty good signal at home and on the road. The subject of short vs more-or-less
 tall towers for AM has been discussed lately. I don't know about the qualities of the terrain in the center
 of Derry, NH that might help an AM signal, but while work is being done on the array, that one tower is
 emitting better coverage to the south that their authorized pattern offers.