WATD and WMEX

[Rob Landry]

On Tue, 3 Dec 2019, Martin Waters wrote:

>     But the big issue for this facility results from WMEX operating on a 
> Class A (once I-B) clear channel. When the FCC finalizes its rulemaking 
> that abolishes all skywave protection and the extra groundwave 
> protection for Class A (used to be I-A and I-B) stations, a station like 
> WMEX, 50kW full-time or even 5 kW at night, would be in a good spot to 
> loosen up its night pattern and perhaps get a nighttime power increase 
> from Quincy. It no longer would have to protect WLAC in Nashville. And, 
> again, other stations on 1510 in the eastern United States are likely to 
> jump in then, applying for their first nighttime power or nighttime 
> power. I think I can hear the engineering consultants they already have 
> hired tapping their keyboards  and calculators even though it's 
> midnight. 

That'll be just what we need: more noise and interference on the AM band.

One of the few advantages AM offers over FM is the ability to reach beyond 
the horizon. Many a summer evening I've listened to Yankees games on 660 
while driving in northern New England. Now stations that come in perfectly 
clear at night will be drowned in interference from people trying to serve 
no more than their local communities but whose signals go hundreds of 
miles farther. That's bad spectrum management.

AM should be a regional band and FM a local one, as nature intended them 
to be.


Rob