Dan Strassberg

[Mark Connelly]

Thanks to all who have responded to my query about Dan Strassberg. He was very talented and will be missed very much from our little group. 

He knew nuances of local terrain that could help or hurt signals. The Lexington 1150/1470 site near his house had hills and poor ground conductivity going most directions but a nice slot southeast (roughly parallel to and just west of Mill St., Belmont) over meadows and wetlands that assisted the directional array in packing big signals into Watertown, Brighton, and the eastern edges of Newton and Waltham. When 1510 was operating out of Waverley Oaks Road (Rte. 60) in Waltham, it too was in a site compromised get-out-ability wise in most directions. It did enjoy an alley of low damp soil along Beaver Brook and the railroad tracks heading east and then Fresh Pond was next. Fortunately this was where the main beam from the DA was headed. The signal screamed right down the Charles River basin so at least the northern end of Boston along with other towns along the Charles and Mystic got a great signal. Go north or south much and things dropped off in a hurry (and, obviously, west of the towers was the dead zone). Dan found these technical discussions interesting. I sent him links to mp3 files of Boston stations being heard far afield by myself and other ham/DX hobbyists: 1510 heard from South Africa, UK, Sweden; 1030 from Iceland, Midway Island, Australia; 850 from Ireland and UK etc. Dan commented on the crazy distances salt water and a benevolent ionosphere could produce even as some stations could barely get out of their backyards. 

We'll miss Dan, that's for sure. 

Mark Connelly (WA1ION)
South Yarmouth, MA 
On Thursday, February 13, 2020 Kevin Vahey <kvahey@gmail.com> wrote:
I am sad to report that Dan passed away in 2018

https://www.edn.com/memories-of-dan-strassberg/

If there was any doubt this line on the tribute page confirms it

As much as Dan loved oscilloscopes, he also loved radio. I'm convinced
that he knew the location of every AM, FM, and TV station in the
country, as well as the coordinates of their antennas, the height of
their towers, and their effective radiated power.

On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 10:53 AM Sean Smyth <ssmyth@alumni.psu.edu> wrote:
>
> Someone posted here in recent years about Dan. He was then in his 80s and
> wasn’t really online anymore. His anecdotes and his knowledge are missed,
> and it’s great that they’re on the record.
>
> I’ve thought the same of posts from Counselor Ross, who fortunately still
> checks in.
>
> I only got to one of those gatherings, at the old Firefly’s in Framingham,
> and I enjoyed it.
>
> On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 3:00 AM Mark Connelly via Boston-Radio-Interest <
> boston-radio-interest@lists.bostonradio.org> wrote:
>
> > The sender's mail server does not allow the list to forward their
> > message unchanged due to misguided anti-spam measures. The original
> > message as received by the list is shown below.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Mark Connelly <markwa1ion@aol.com>
> > To: boston-radio-interest@lists.bostonradio.org
> > Cc:
> > Bcc:
> > Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2020 06:38:54 +0000 (UTC)
> > Subject: Dan Strassberg
> >
> >
> >
> > It has been a number of years since I have seen any items by Dan
> > Strassberg on this list.
> >
> > Is he still alive? If so, still in Boston area?
> >
> > You may remember that he had a very good command of radio technology
> > including expected AM signal performance based on directional array set-up,
> > ground conductivity, night skip, etc.
> >
> > Before I had moved to the Cape from Billerica in 2012, there was a Boston
> > Radio Interest outdoor gathering at the ice cream place on 3A in
> > Chelmsford. Dan and I had a great chat about AM DXing, '50s/'60s Boston and
> > NYC radio, and oldies music. Donna Halper was also there and I had good
> > talk with her too.
> >
> > Mark Connelly (WA1ION)
> > South Yarmouth, MA
> >
> > --
> Sent from my iPhone