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

DanStrassberg said:
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.

The FCC won't allow the only local radio service to a community to be moved out of that community to continue operating somewhere else. But it WILL allow an owner to surrender that license. So if someone were crazily ambitious enough to buy WXEX and WADK and WNTN and WVBF, they couldn't move the WADK license...but they could surrender it, and WVBF, and WXEX, and then file a minor change application to move the WNTN license to 1540. That would almost surely require a change of COL, but Newton has other broadcast services (WXKS 1200 and WZBC 90.3), so it would be allowed.

But you'd still have obstacles, foremost among them that you can't overlap the 25 mV/m contour of a hypothetical new Boston-area 1540 with the 25 mV/m of WMEX...er, WITS...um, WKKU...er, WSSH...I mean, WWZN...oh, right, WUFC. It may be an impaired 50 kW signal, but it's a 50 kW signal that puts its daytime 25 in just the wrong spot for our hypothetical super-1540. In order to protect ZNS-1, KXEL and CHIN, our theoretical 1540 pretty much has to shoot east-northeast into Boston from the west-southwest (say, the WEEI site in Needham), and that would be darned near impossible to do without going past WUFC on the way in.
 
^ Scott, as to Boston's 1510, you forgot WMRE. :) That might be the only time I caught it as DX from Florida (1982?)

cd
 
DanStrassberg said:
Is there another audio broadcast service (besides WADK) licensed to Newport?

W243AI 96.5 FM, currently broadcasting the stream of mvyradio.com from Martha's Vineyard (formerly WMVY).

WXHQ-LP 105.9 FM, a community station broadcasting a jazz/world music format.
 
I presume the best situation would be an upgrade for WADK, with day and night patterns probably very different due to WVBF's daytime operation (unless they bought it out and shut it down).
 
cd637299 said:
Are they running the full 50 k?

cd

It sounds to me like it is running at full power. I am in the Saratoga springs area...About 30 miles North of Albany. By the way...1540-CHIN puts a massive signal in to this area at night and is completely audible when you null out WDCD. Just curious....is ZNS 1 50 KW unlimited? I have never heard it here...
 
Time Traveler,
ZNS-1 is 50 kW unlimited time; you probably don't hear it due to its null toward the US.
 
aaronread said:
I know translators don't count towards local service for a City of License, but an LPFM doesn't either?

LPFM's are secondary to primary services. Because they're not guaranteed to stay on their if they're causing interference to a full-power station, they don't count when it comes to primary service to a community of license.
 
Just for the record, 1540 was designated as a Bahamas frequency. But ZNS-1 Nassau and KXEL Waterloo were both Class I-B stations. They have to protect each other. So that's why someone described ZNS-1 as being nulled toward the U.S. That's a lot of territory. I think what they meant was ZNS-1 is nulled toward Iowa. And KXEL is nulled toward The Bahamas.

I know WDCD's nighttime signal is awfully directional to the north and east. That's to protect ZNS to the south and KXEL to the west. I remember driving up the NY State Thruway from NYC at night and hearing KXEL on 1540 even north of Kingston. No sign of WDCD (actually WPTR at the time) till I was past Catskill, about 25 miles from Albany. And I'm sure no one got a listenable signal til they were within 10 miles of Albany.

Still with the signal limitations, you'd think a broadcast with a Class A FM religious station would get some benefit from simulcasting it on 1540. Surely they'll get some donations from Upstate NY and Southern Vermont, who can hear 1540 but not the FM. Or an ethnic broadcaster could make it work.
 
Gregg said:
Just for the record, 1540 was designated as a Bahamas frequency. But ZNS-1 Nassau and KXEL Waterloo were both Class I-B stations. They have to protect each other. So that's why someone described ZNS-1 as being nulled toward the U.S. That's a lot of territory. I think what they meant was ZNS-1 is nulled toward Iowa. And KXEL is nulled toward The Bahamas.

I know WDCD's nighttime signal is awfully directional to the north and east. That's to protect ZNS to the south and KXEL to the west. I remember driving up the NY State Thruway from NYC at night and hearing KXEL on 1540 even north of Kingston. No sign of WDCD (actually WPTR at the time) till I was past Catskill, about 25 miles from Albany. And I'm sure no one got a listenable signal til they were within 10 miles of Albany.

Still with the signal limitations, you'd think a broadcast with a Class A FM religious station would get some benefit from simulcasting it on 1540. Surely they'll get some donations from Upstate NY and Southern Vermont, who can hear 1540 but not the FM. Or an ethnic broadcaster could make it work.

I was stationed about 1 hour from Boston in 1980, and I seem to remember KXEL being at par, if not better, at night on 1540 compared to what's now WDCD.

Not sure what it is like, now.

cd
 
cs1366 said:
so who owns 1540 and who has a shot to get it back on air?

I think one of the bigger problems is that the WDCD 1540 towers sit on a lot of land, which at this point are probably worth more than the license...
 
encarta95 said:
I think one of the bigger problems is that the WDCD 1540 towers sit on a lot of land, which at this point are probably worth more than the license...

According to the town of Colonie, NY where the towers sit, the land is assessed at $700,100.00. - Here on Coastal Maine, WDCD comes in pretty good, but almost always has significant signals underneath, which I presume are CHIN-1540-Toronto and KXEL-1540-Waterloo,IA. Those two are tough to null out as both (AND WDCD) are almost in a straight line west of here.
 
Gregg said:
Just for the record, 1540 was designated as a Bahamas frequency. But ZNS-1 Nassau and KXEL Waterloo were both Class I-B stations. They have to protect each other. So that's why someone described ZNS-1 as being nulled toward the U.S. That's a lot of territory. I think what they meant was ZNS-1 is nulled toward Iowa. And KXEL is nulled toward The Bahamas.

I know WDCD's nighttime signal is awfully directional to the north and east. That's to protect ZNS to the south and KXEL to the west. I remember driving up the NY State Thruway from NYC at night and hearing KXEL on 1540 even north of Kingston. No sign of WDCD (actually WPTR at the time) till I was past Catskill, about 25 miles from Albany. And I'm sure no one got a listenable signal til they were within 10 miles of Albany.

The former WPTR signal is interesting. In the 1960's...I could often pull it in weakly in Cincinnati, Ohio...in spite of it's null in that direction and adjacent channel 1530-WCKY which is also 50,000 watts. I have also pulled it in in West Virginia. In 1993, I spent a couple of nights in Philadelphia...and it came in quite well after the local former WPGR-1540 signed off. Driving back to Albany at night, I noticed that it was receivable pretty much all the way back. Two years ago...I checked 1540 in NYC at night and WDCD came in fairly strongly. The odd thing is that all of these locations are in the directions that 1540-Albany has to protect...Several years ago...I read that some one had DXed WPTR in Wisconsin too...
 
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