WJIB at 101.3

[Rob Landry]

Ajit Pai has warned that the FCC will go after pirates' landlords and 
advertisers for "aiding and abetting". We'll see if he can follw through; 
I've a hunch he can no more do so than the Romans could clear the Goths 
out of Gaul.


Rob

On Wed, 16 Aug 2017, Bob Nelson wrote:

> Here on the North Shore lately I don't really hear the pirate cutting in but
> I have picked up occasionally talk station WVQM Augusta ME or the WMRC
> translator. Friday, I was at the Fresh Pond rotary and went Rt 2 to 128
> north and the WJIB translator didn't take long to disappear in favor of the
> WMRC one especially on 128. Yes there were ads for places like a sports bar
> in the area; the "my 101.3" nickname etc.
> The W267CE (//WJIB) has a signal pattern that doesn't go as far to the north
> or west as one would suspect to protect stations on or near 101.3. Last
> night on 114 in Peabody, 128 in Danvers and 62 in Beverly it was the WJIB
> translator just about all the time but not perfect due to my being on the
> fringe of the signal.I don't know if the pirate shut down or turned down
> power. 
> 
> Maybe the pirate is still around and affecting the WJIB // to the
> south.While the pirate affects WJIB's translator, the same happens to those
> trying to get Big City...overpowering it or interfering. Some of the
> pirate's listeners are wondering on Twitter or Facebook why some oldies
> station as they put it is cutting in or why they can't get Big City at all
> now.
> 
> Think I read WJIB's translator pushes both horizontal and vertical while the
> pirate only does one way? If Big City tries a different frequency (not that
> it would be any more legal than what they're doing now) they may find there
> are pretty much no open frequencies available. And if they cause trouble to
> a huge company like Beasley, Entercom, CBS, etc they may find themselves
> silenced extremely quickly (like a 93.5 in Mattapan). FCC issued a letter of
> warning recently (one of many over the years I'd think); so far no fines or
> seizures unless the feds moved in just now or the pirate shut off the
> signal.I have no way of knowing.
> 
> On Wednesday, August 16, 2017, A Joseph Ross <joe@attorneyross.com> 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
> 
> 
>