[A Joseph Ross]

And how much does the power of the signal affect things?  As I said, I 
got a useable signal for WBZ in the daytime in Amherst, but only 
sometimes at night in the dorm.  When driving, I think the fact that I 
was in a moving vehicle made things worse, and the constantly changing 
nature of the reception led me to tune elsewhere.  In fact, as I recall, 
I found the entire AM band unusable while driving home at night from 
Amherst until I got close enough to Boston.

WGY came in well in Amherst.

So what does WPTR have that made it reach Boston so well back in the day?


On 6/6/2015 10:44 PM, Mark Connelly via Boston-Radio-Interest wrote:

> kip zone is typically where groundwave reaches its outer limit of effectiveness (under 54 dBu / 0.5 mV/m) and skywave strength is not up to the full first-hop level typical of 200-600 miles.
>
> Over poor soil characteristic of New England inland areas, the groundwave of even a 50 kW station tends to peter out in the 100 mile range low band and considerably less than that high band.
>
> A vertical antenna puts less power up at the high angles more than 45 degrees off the horizon than lower down.  Also when the take-off angle is steep, the signal is more likely either to pass through the ionosphere about 75 miles up or be absorbed by it rather than cleanly bouncing back as a ray of light off a mirror would.
>
> That's why a Boston signal that is fair in metro-west and gasping for air in Springfield is then boomingly-loud out around Utica and Rochester, NY.
>
> In partial over-water situations where strong groundwave does extend out to 200 miles, such as some of the NYC stations here on Cape Cod, night reception sometimes gets complicated by the fact that skywave and groundwave are comparable strength and, as the phase relationship slides through the ± 180 degree shift region, deep fades occur - worse than if on an all-land route where the groundwave would be an order of magnitude weaker than the skywave.
>
> As far as the quality of WBZ reception in Schenectady versus WGY reception in Hull, it's "apples versus oranges."  WBZ is running a DA with gain and the first 7 miles westward over salt water.  WGY is omni and in a sandy pitch-pine belt like Plymouth, MA west of Rte. 3, a big attenuation pad.  No comparison.  WBZ wins.

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