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50,000 WATT ALBANY STATION GOING AWAY?? IMPLICATIONS AROUND HERE?

E

Early Byrd

There is discussion on the Albany/Hudson Valley board about the possibility that the owners of WDCD (1540 AM) (formerly known as WPTR in the good ol' days), a religious formatted station, may be closing the station down. I find it hard to believe, but, evidentially, it is off the air now.

If that were to happen, could the Exeter, New Hampshire station on 1540 take any advantage of the demise?
 
WXEX and WADK Newport RI would probably have to build directional arrays for any kind of upgrade. They'd need to protect KXEL, CHIN, and of course, ZNS-1 in Nassau.ZNS-1 has a 2-tower array with a wide, shallow null toward the US.
 
Wouldn't the 1540 Albany allocation have to be protected indefinitely, just in case someone were to reactivate the signal there? Doesn't Boston's 1510 still have to protect the 1510 Connecticut allocation, even though the signal there is long gone?
 
No, that's a major difference between AM and FM. When WNLC New London went off the air, 1510 in Boston let out their signal because they no longer had to protect a New London station. There are no allocations in AM.

BTW, they've got 10 days to get WDCD back on the air or the license is deleted.
 
reelyreal said:
No, that's a major difference between AM and FM. When WNLC New London went off the air, 1510 in Boston let out their signal because they no longer had to protect a New London station. There are no allocations in AM.

BTW, they've got 10 days to get WDCD back on the air or the license is deleted.
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Our stations still have to protect abandoned Canadian AM frequencies, though, right?
 
Yes, Canadian allocations are governed by international treaty, and must be protected...even if dark.

I'm not 100% sure, but knowing the Newport area I guesstimate a near-zero chance that WADK could erect another tower on that site, or anywhere near it. Land on Aquidneck Island is pretty expensive and zoning is hell on towers.

That said, if there were a way for them to move to the mainland, somewhere in south county closer to I-95, then land gets a heckuva lot cheaper, and presumably they could still throw enough signal over Newport to main the COL. No idea how the allocations spacing (and possibly the dreaded "ratchet rule"?) would come into play, though.

Nor can I guess how expensive building out a directional AM would be vs. the cashflow that would result. I mean, sure it'd be nice to have nighttime power...but unless WADK could be made to cover Providence, too, then I doubt the ROI would be there.
 
wickedwritah said:
Isn't 1540 a Class A/Class I/clear channel/whatever the category is called? Even in these times, that gives it value.
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The Albany station is a Class B. The channel it is on--1540--is a Class A frequency assigned to the Bahamas (ZNS-1) and the US (KXEL). Despite its Class A status, any ZNS-1 skywave (or groundwave, for that matter) coverage in the US (or Canada or Mexico or any other western hemisphere nation--other than Cuba, which is not a signatory to the treaty) is not protected. That is also the case with US Class A signals in Canada, Mexico, and western hemisphere nations other than Cuba.

Anyhow, as a Class B, the Albany station has NO protected skywave coverage, even though, as we all know, it has a huge area of UNprotected skywave service in the US and Canada northeast of Albany. Even so, Class B protected coverage is limited to the station's NIF (nighttime interference-free groundwave) contour. My guess for Albany is that its NIF contour is in the neighborhood of 10 mV/m and is mainly determined by the 10% skywave from the two co-channel Class As (ZNS-1 and KXEL). Interference from co-channel Class Bs, such as CHIN, is probably at a low-enough level that it drops out of the NIF calculation.
 
The old Vane Jones book mentioned 1540 as a Bahamas Clear only---not so much the US. If it was a US clear, wouldn't KXEL be non-directional if it wished?*

As to ZNS, I live only 200 miles from them, and can barely hear it at night. I understand that they could go 50 kW non-D if they wished, but their pattern is such that they want to cover as much of the Bahamas as they can....correct?

*In all my years of serious DXn since 1974, I have never -ever- heard KXEL here in south FL, even when ZNS was off for a month (copper thieves) a while back. I -might- have caught CHIN about 20 years ago when I heard "Broadcast News" (isn't that a Canadian network?). How CHIN got night authorization IMO is anybody's guess. They were a daytimer in the early 60s as CHFI to the point that they got a night signal on another frequency, 680, now CFTR!

cd
 
CHFI on 1540 was transmitting from Mississauga, west and a little south of Toronto. If it had operated at night, much of its signal would have been aimed right at WPTR.

After CHFI moved to 680 and became CFTR, the new CHIN license on 1540 was at a different site, on Toronto Island due south of downtown Toronto. When it's operating correctly (which it doesn't sound like it's been doing lately), all of CHIN's night power is aimed straight north into Canada, with near-absolute nulls toward KXEL, WPTR(WDCD) and ZNS-1.
 
1540 is designated as a Bahamian-clear, or at least it was for 30+ years or so. It uses two towers from 10 miles south of Nassau, beaming south-southeast to covers most of the islands like Andros, San Salvador, Abaco, Cat Island, Long Island, Inagua, Mayaguana, Eleuthera, Spanish Wells, etc. Because 1540 (ZNS-1) wants to put all of its strength to th Bahamas, and not west or north to the USA, it beams aways from the US. But in doing so, it misses western-northern-northeastern islands like Bimini, Grand Bahamas(Freeport), Berry Islands and Abaco. For those 4 island groups, in 1973, ZNS-3 was set up on 830 on the dial... later moved to 810. Then there was ZNS-2 in Nassau... a second service which no longer exists on AM, but rather FM. Once, I had a superradio while sitting on a beach on San Salvador, 300+ miles away from Nassau, and 1540 bombed in as though the 50kw transmitter was next to me. It was also a great DX'ing spot for hundreds of USA stations. - The 1540 TX site has had its problems.... stolen copper, hurricane taking down part of one of the two towers. The place (TX site) was later guarded by about 10 very ferocious homeless hungry dogs, who were (story i was told) fed daily by a ZNS employee who drove in real quick, dumped the leftover meat, rolled up his window and sped out of there..
 
Interesting stuff about ZNS.

I will say though, as one who lives not far from the Bahamas, the Freeport ZNS 3 on 810 was once on AM 1060 in 1974---if they were on 830 a year earlier, I missed out on a great DX opportunity.

I would assume that the Titusville 1060 (which was a recent move for them from 1050 so they could get night power and higher day power) complained about ZNS 3. Possibly KYW did the same. They have been on 810 since about January 1975 or so. If they ever were on 830, I'd guess that the former Belize 834 made it unlistenable at night.

Does anyone know about what happened to ZNS 3's 810 signal the last 2 years? I think their power has been reduced maybe from 10 kW to 1 kW. Sounds like it. IMO it was possibly Hurricane Irene around 2011. Also at times, like yesterday, tropo DX brings in 810's FM relay on 104.5---yup, the same frequency Nassau uses to relay its 1540.

My wife and I went down to the FL Keys yesterday, and both 104.5's were battling it out for a bit (US 1 Mile Marker 108 is THE spot to monitor---unfortunately I need to keep eyes on the road---its a high bridge).

I know, I know----this is about WDCD. :)

cd
 
Could someone buy-out WADK-1540 in Newport, WXEX-1540 in Exeter, New Hampshire, WVBF-1530 in Middlebourough, and WNTN-1550 in Newton, turn in their licenses of the latter three, move WADK to the Boston area (perhaps diplexing on the WAMG-890 or WCRN-830 site) with a 50,000-watt signal beamed east towards Boston??

This could bring another 50,000 watt AM signal into Boston.
 
Joseph_Gallant said:
This could bring another 50,000 watt AM signal into Boston.
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Do you really think all of that would be worth it to anyone these days with a very limited part of the audience still listening to the AM dial at all? No way...
 
Like Boston needs any more radio stations, especially fringe A.M.s. What about the listeners on Aquidneck Island? Thankfully, there a fatal flaw in the plan to move WADK: it's the only full-time primary radio service licensed to Newport. Anyway, I've got a better idea: how about 1060 gets moved to Providence, 1200 gets moved back to Framingham & 1570 goes dark so WPEP can get back on?!
 
Joseph_Gallant said:
Could someone buy-out WADK-1540 in Newport, WXEX-1540 in Exeter, New Hampshire, WVBF-1530 in Middlebourough, and WNTN-1550 in Newton, turn in their licenses of the latter three, move WADK to the Boston area (perhaps diplexing on the WAMG-890 or WCRN-830 site) with a 50,000-watt signal beamed east towards Boston??
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Is there another audio broadcast service (besides WADK) licensed to Newport? I don't think so. So if I'm right about WADK being the only broadcast station licensed to Newport, the answer to your question is NO.

As for a 50-kW station on 1540 broadcasting from the WCRN site in Leicester and beaming its signal to the east to serve Boston, it wouldn't work. WCRN, with 50 kW on 830, barely delivers 2.5 mV/m inside of Route 128. 1540 is almost two times 830, so even if you could add five or six towers to WCRN's four, you wouldn't be able to narrow down the pattern enough to do as well inside 128 as WCRN does. And the Town of Leicester made WCRN jump through hoops before it was allowed to add the fourth tower to its array so it could increase its night power to 50 kW. The fact that towers of the same height as WCRN's would be more efficient at 1540 than they are at 830, would not improve the signal enough to make it viable in Boston.

The WAMG/WQOM array has different problems: (1) Two high-power stations are already using the towers (WAMG uses all five 24/7; WQOM uses three towers days and all five at night), with the result that adding a third high-power station would be prohibitively expensive and (2) the towers are too widely spaced to produce the necessary (to get an adequate signal into Boston) teardrop pattern at 1540, and (3) the towers are WAY too tall for 1540. Yes, it is theoretically possible to skirt the upper 200' or so so that only the bottom 300+ ft. would be active at 1540, but such schemes are unlikely to work satisfactorily in a high-power triplex that is already very challenging to keep tuned to the extraordinarily tight specs of WQOM's night pattern. (4) The transmission lines that carry the RF signals to the the five-tower array's end towers are already carrying all the power they can withstand. Replacing those lines with larger ones that could carry higher power would necessitate replacing the ground system yet again.
 
Joseph_Gallant said:
Could someone buy-out WADK-1540 in Newport, WXEX-1540 in Exeter, New Hampshire, WVBF-1530 in Middlebourough, and WNTN-1550 in Newton, turn in their licenses of the latter three, move WADK to the Boston area (perhaps diplexing on the WAMG-890 or WCRN-830 site) with a 50,000-watt signal beamed east towards Boston??
Click to expand...

Why would you want to deprive those communities of their four stations, all four of which actually present some locally produced, fairly unique programming for their local niche audiences and have local support, for yet another AM vying for listeners on Boston's crowded, saturated AM dial where AM listenership is generally declining for the most part?
 
Joseph,

The market has already seen what you want: WPEP was taken dark to let 1570 Beverly up power, so Keating Wilcox could have his Boston rimshot. Now, it no longer even speaks English. What a waste.
 
DG02816 said:
Joseph,

The market has already seen what you want: WPEP was taken dark to let 1570 Beverly up power, so Keating Wilcox could have his Boston rimshot. Now, it no longer even speaks English. What a waste.
Click to expand...
Yeah & he sold it for $400k! That was worth it! ::)
 
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