Fwd: Re: WJIB at 101.3

[Rob Landry]

Remember, it's tropospheric ducting season. Yesterday morning something 
was interfering with WBUR on my way up I-95 towards New Hampshire, in 
places where I've never heard inerference before.

This morning I'll bet there's a lot of tropo. The air was thick with smog 
and humidity; just the kind of conditions that seem to come with tropo. 
Low-powered signals such as translators will be the first to notice it.

Last summer WTSN in Dover, NH added its translator on 98.1. The first time 
I heard it, it suffered from WCTK interferenmce all the way up I-95 well 
into Maine; but the next day it was clean as the proverbial whistle from 
the Hamtopn tolls all the way to Wells.


Rob


On Wed, 16 Aug 2017, A Joseph Ross wrote:

> I listened to the WJIB translator while driving to my office yesterday and 
> today (Tuesday) to see how it would come in.  Monday, I had a lot of 
> interference with a competing signal around my home in Washington Square, 
> Brookline and going up Beacon Street to about Cleveland Circle.  After 
> Cleveland Circle, going out Beacon Street to Newton, the translator signal 
> was pretty clean, with only a few cut-outs until I got to Newton Centre and 
> turned onto Centre Street.  In the parking lot of my building on Centre 
> Street, WJIB had a lot of competition from some other station.  From the 
> sound of it, I suspected that the station interfering in Newton was not the 
> same one that was interfering in Brookline.
>
> Tuesday, the translator signal was mostly clean in Brookline, to the extent 
> that I think whatever station was competing with it was off the air.  In 
> Newton Centre, I began to hear another station.  At one point, it cut in with 
> just an announcer saying "101.3" before WJIB came back.  By the time I got 
> into the parking lot, I had heard enough of the competing signal to think it 
> was not a pirate but a professional station.  I even heard part of an ad for 
> a business in Milford.  When I parked the car, the other station was coming 
> in loud and clear, so I stayed and listened for a little bit, and they IDed 
> as WMRC, Milford.
>
> A quick look at Wikipedia shows that WMRC is at 1490, with a translator that 
> they just put on the air last December.  They're calling the station "MyFM 
> 101.3" and playing adult contemporary music.  They seem to have a lot of 
> local commercials from in and around Milford.  Not a pirate, and they must 
> have quite a signal to be able to reach Newton Centre.  Before WJIB's 
> translator came on, they must have been easy to pick up in Newton, at least 
> on a car radio.
>
> I still think that whatever I heard interfering in Brookline was a different 
> station.  Stay tuned.
>
>
>
> On 8/9/2017 6:50 AM, Rob Landry wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Tue, 8 Aug 2017, A Joseph Ross wrote:
>> 
>>> Looks like even Newton is on the boundary between local and distant.
>> 
>>> Now that my office is in Newton Centre, I'll have to try and listen from
>>> there. Unfortunately, the pirate seems to make the FM translator hard
>>> to listen to in most of the translator's local coverage area.
>> 
>> Newton Centre is on the border of what we used to call "intermod alley", 
>> the area around the towers near Route 128 where receiver overloading from 
>> the nearby transmitters interferes with reception of more distant signals. 
>> I've noticed an increase in interference to WHRB's signal on my car radio 
>> due to something new going on the air in the area; I've not ye had the time 
>> to figure out what it may be. But it wouldn't suprise me at all if receiver 
>> overloading is an issue with receiving WJIB's translator in Newton Centre.
>> 
>> 
>> Rob
>> 
>
> -- 
> A. Joseph Ross, J.D. | 1340 Centre Street, Suite 103 | Newton, MA 02459
> 617.367.0468 | Fx:617.507.7856 | http://www.attorneyross.com
>