D
Deleted member 64531
Guest
For some reason this looks and sounds all too familiar. Back to the future maybe?
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Too bad they can't resurrect their old transmitter site down the road from 1260 and go to 50/5 kW from there. They had a perfectly decent signal in the city and the north and south shores from there. West of the city was another matter. I had friends in Canada who used to be able to listen to Woo Woo Ginsburg on the old set-up.
The problem with re-creating their pre-1981 transmitting pattern is that the large population western suburbs of Boston might not get much of a nighttime signal.
Full disclosure: Where I live in Norwood, Massachusetts, I get WMEX-1510's 100 watt night signal, which while not strong, is listenable.
I found data suggesting that Norwood may not get much in the way of improved night reception, but Boston and the North Shore will get much improved night reception.
I think it's too bad WMEX couldn't have found a site around Framingham where they could have built three towers--one as a nondirectional daytime 25,000 watt antenna with all three used at night for a 1,800 watt nighttime signal beamed towards the east, northeast, and southeast. This would protect other stations on 1510 while providing better night reception in the "Metrowest" suburbs than either the current or proposed setup.
But their new daytime signal should
Full disclosure: Where I live in Norwood, Massachusetts, I get WMEX-1510's 100 watt night signal, which while not strong, is listenable.
I found data suggesting that Norwood may not get much in the way of improved night reception, but Boston and the North Shore will get much improved night reception.
I think it's too bad WMEX couldn't have found a site around Framingham where they could have built three towers--one as a nondirectional daytime 25,000 watt antenna with all three used at night for a 1,800 watt nighttime signal beamed towards the east, northeast, and southeast. This would protect other stations on 1510 while providing better night reception in the "Metrowest" suburbs than either the current or proposed setup.
But their new daytime signal should
Sidebar: it is interesting that people from the Northeast have to put their state along with the city nearly always.
The county I live in is bigger than CT and RI combined, and the one next to us is twice as big as Massachusetts or a little bigger than VT and NH combined.
Norm,
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the CP is for 1510 to go directional at higher power both day and night. Right now, I believe they're only using one of 1260's three towers. The CP would require they use all three towers. This won't be inexpensive or without its problems, I'm sure (phasor unit needed, plus additional filtering to prevent crosstalk with 1260).
Tuning two stations to one tower is easy... each station has a network to match the signal to the tower and reject the other signal.
The real issue is when each station sends different amounts of power in different phase relationships to each of the towers.
But the tuning of each tower is a simple matching circuit for each station and a rejectikon network for the other one.
Actually, it looks like it would remain non-directional with 25kW from only one tower during the daytime mid-day hours only. At "critical hours" time, two hours before sunset, it would remain 25kW but go directional from all three towers. Then, at sunset, it would reduce to 1.8kW directional from all three towers for the night.
Mornings would be the reverse. Going up from 1.8 kW directional at night to 25kW directional at sunrise from all three towers through "critical hours" until two hours after sunrise, then non-directional 25kW from one tower through the mid-day.
I agree, and let me add, there is usually an inexpensive solution to any problem.
If it's not considered a problem, then that could be a bigger problem.
In the case of WMEX , what good is a great station if you can't hear it?
Still big money after design and licensing. Call Kintronic and price it yourself. https://www.kintronic.com/
Fybush's column today mentions what Eli said. By day it could be an improvement for some, maybe a bit better at night too. Many people might prefer to get signal via stream as well. And that FM translator doesn't cover too many people.
I see posts from people noticing the stations that get an FM translator that covers a fraction of what the AM does, then rebrand focusing on the FM freq..years ago WSNO 1450 in Vt dropped talk for CHR when they got an FMt and rebranded as 105.7 Vermont's Beat.
In Boston WRCA's FMt has both stations branded as Bloomberg 106.1 --their own FMt does cover quite a bit. For WMEX the FMt is mentioned but there's no "101.1 WMEX" nickname for both, especially given the tiny footprint the FM has.
I see posts from people noticing the stations that get an FM translator that covers a fraction of what the AM does, then rebrand focusing on the FM freq..years ago WSNO 1450 in Vt dropped talk for CHR when they got an FMt and rebranded as 105.7 Vermont's Beat.
In Boston WRCA's FMt has both stations branded as Bloomberg 106.1 --their own FMt does cover quite a bit. For WMEX the FMt is mentioned but there's no "101.1 WMEX" nickname for both, especially given the tiny footprint the FM has.
If WMEX promoted the FM translator more than just the hourly ID, they know that most listeners would be disappointed that they can't hear it. I was told that they wanted a more powerful FM translator located closer to Boston, but couldn't get such an allocation from the FCC at the time, so they took what they could get (16 watts in Weymouth) just to keep a translator license alive and on the air for now, for a future opportunity to hop it into one with more power and/or closer to Boston, perhaps on a different frequency.
I was in Weymouth last year, and it was strong only within a couple of miles radius of Weymouth center. I've heard it recently on Route 3 around the Route 18 Weymouth exit, but on the highway it gets all broken up or all chopped up (maybe both) by a combination of mostly Class B WGIR-FM Manchester, NH and former sister station WBMS's 220 watt co-channel translator in Brockton.
There's also another momentary spot where I hear it quickly blip in and out up by the Braintree spilt (Routes 3, 93, and 1). I don't know what causes that, maybe Blue Hill's shadow briefly attenuating WGIR-FM's signal from the northwest?
Also I've noticed that WMEX-LPFM 105.9 Rochester, NH has been branding as "WMEX-FM" in their programming and liners lately, to differentiate from 1510 AM WMEX, which does come in up in coastal NH in the daytime, and the two were causing some confusion for listeners trying to find one or the other online. If 1510 WMEX does get a significant FM translator signal sometime, I don't know if that might be an issue again.
Last edited:
That's because there are many, many duplicated place names. I'm in Hartland, Vermont, which is not to be confused with Hartland, Connecticut. I used to live in Meriden, Connecticut, not to be confused with Meriden, New Hampshire. In fact, Hartford, Norwich, Windsor and Woodstock, all near me, are also in Connecticut. This is all due to the English origins of New England's colonizers and those colonizers' later migration to other colonies (which later became states).
D
Deleted member 64531
Guest
I came across this while viewing an Amendment to the recently filed application for WMEX. It may be interesting to those not overly inconvenienced by having to go to a link.
Um, what exactly is it that you'd like us to know? I did open and the link and browse through it, but I didn't see where any changes made were clearly marked.
D
Deleted member 64531
Guest
Very good! You get a cookie.
I've always wondered why WLAC (Class A) had to protect WMEX (at the time, Class B). 1510 is an interesting frequency. The other Class A station on 1510 (KGA Spokane WA) first downgraded its night signal to 15 kW, and now has downgraded further to 540 w, so that a co-owned station near San Francisco could improve it's signal. And then we had the strange situation where WNLC on 1490 in New London was allowed to move to 1510 and upgrade to 10 kW, not to mention CJRS in Sherbrooke, QB also being assigned to 1510 (I used to hear French being spoken underneath WMEX). So WMEX was "hemmed in" by the powerhouses on 1500 and 1520, and a lot of co-channel noise too.
????????????????????????
re: the comment that WMEX should find land in metro west and put up 3 towers.
1) find a place where the NIMBY's wont go crying to the town to re-zone the land the second word gets out what is going on.
2) show me ANY AM in Boston, except WBZ-A and WRKO that have the revenue to support the debt service on a 2 Million dollar piece of property and a 3 tower build out complete with transmitter. Even if you could get a commercial service or public safety antenna on a tower, or a cell site.... or even a diplex with another station..... or a translator, LPFM, ANYTHING to generate more income to carry the burden, there is no way it is financially possible with land prices inside of 495.
1) find a place where the NIMBY's wont go crying to the town to re-zone the land the second word gets out what is going on.
2) show me ANY AM in Boston, except WBZ-A and WRKO that have the revenue to support the debt service on a 2 Million dollar piece of property and a 3 tower build out complete with transmitter. Even if you could get a commercial service or public safety antenna on a tower, or a cell site.... or even a diplex with another station..... or a translator, LPFM, ANYTHING to generate more income to carry the burden, there is no way it is financially possible with land prices inside of 495.
- Status