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BRW: WQOM 1060 set to debut at full power

The fact is that, despite the power increase, the new daytime facilities will rather dramatically reduce the station's daytime coverage. The former 40-kW daytime signal from the old WKOX towers on Mt Wayte Ave in Framingham produced a cardioid pattern centered on the northeast. The signal spread out from there to reach well into central MA, southern NH, and even a bit of southeastern VT. The new day pattern, whenever they get it on the air, will beam due east. Central MA, including Worcester, any of VT, and a lot of southwestern NH will be lost from the coverage area.

There will be two big advantages from this "upgrade" and they will be advantages only to the station, which will be able to boast of a 50-kW signal and will no longer have to lease TWO transmitter sites--one for days and the other for nights. There will be very little, if any, new population served and if there is some, it will lie in areas along the southern Mass coast where, despite claims to the contrary in WQOM's application to modify its CP, there is bound to be substantial normally prohibited overlap with first-adjacent WEPN.

As for going on the air on Nov 1 with 50 kW and the new day pattern, sorry, I'm not going to believe that until it is confirmed by my own listening and by the report of somebody I believe who is an engineer and is connected with the station. I do not know whether Grady Moates, who was contract CE for the station under Alex Langer's ownership, is still acting in that capacity under the new ownership.

I don't question that the station will be able to return to the air on Nov 1, but, regardless of what the new General Manager said in his press release, returning to the air on that date with the new facilities and higher daytime power seems impossible. Simply too much equipment had to be ordered, built, delivered, installed, and tested for the work to be completed in the six-week period between when the FCC approved the transfer of control to Holy Family and November 1.

The lead time for the custom-built antenna-phasing equipment, ATUs, and diplex filters alone is almost always WAY more than six weeks. Moreover, I have yet to see any notice that the FCC has approved WQOM's application for modification of CP that would enable the station to use only three of the five towers at the transmitter site during the daytime. Without that approval, the new setup would have to be built according to the previously granted CP, which required the use of all five towers and would significantly restrict the station's daytime coverage to the northeast and southeast.
 
I decided to see what I could find out by taking a look at the Sewell St site. Drove out this AM (Sunday 10/24). Thought there was a good chance that personal inspection would not reveal much. It didn't. The tall weeds that grow all over the property outside of the barbed-wire-topped chain-link fence that keeps the curious (me, for example) and the mischief makers out of the area closest to the bases of the five towers and the buildings that contain the two stations' transmitters, phasors, ATUs, and diplex filters precluded my seeing very much in the areas of the site where the action would have to be. I will say this, though: there was only one reasonably fresh set of tire tracks on the road that leads up to the fence. No way could the engineers have completed much of the required work on a single visit!

I'm quite willing to believe that WQOM will be back on the air on Nov 1 and will be broadcasting full-time from Sewell St. BUT as I said back in September, I expect the station to be using its five-tower night pattern during the daytime and the daytime power is not likely to be much greater than 5 kW. I think it will be next summer before the 50-kW day signal and the new three-tower day pattern go on the air. We'll see.

It must be five years since my last visit to the site. The most visible change is the tower illumination. Since 1981 when the site was completed, towers 1, 3, and 5 had been strobed (white) but were painted red and white. IIRC, towers 2 and 4 were unpainted; they definitely were (and still are) not illuminated. (Each tower is 205.5 degrees at 1060 and the tower-to-tower spacing is only 100 degrees, which is a perfect setup for not illuminating towers 2 and 4.) Sometime since my last visit, the illumination of towers 1, 3, and 5 was changed to flashing red beacons. Since LED beacons can now be used either for either white strobes or red lighting (I believe that the new KFI tower uses LEDs for both purposes), it is not obvious that there was any economic incentive to change from the white strobes to the red beacons. Presumably, LED beacons, whether red or white, have much greater longevity than Xenon flash tubes or incandescent beacons and also have significantly lower power consumption than incandescent beacons. So it would be interesting to know why the beacon color was changed. NIMBY protests against the white strobes?

Oh, and I did not spot the old WXOX towers at 100 Mt Wayte Ave as I drove along Route 126 in Framingham on my way to Sewell St. It would seem that at least one of those towers would have to remain standing because it is used by WSRO 650. WSRO was definitely on the air (I checked), so I assume that I just missed seeing the WKOX towers as I tried to avoid driving off the road as a result of rubber-necking. However, if someone from Framingham knows the status of the Mt Wayte site, please post something here.
 
Excerpt from WQOM's application filed 10/1/2010

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/w...xt=25&appn=101401829&formid=910&fac_num=21109

A MODIFICATION APPLICATION (BMP-20100811ABC) TO MODIFY THAT CONSTRUCTION PERMIT WAS FILED TO REDUCE THE NUMBER OF TOWERS REQUIRED FOR THE DAYTIME ARRAY. THAT APPLICATION REMAINS PENDING AT THE FCC. HOLY FAMILY IS AWAITING GRANT OF THAT MODIFICATION APPLICATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE MODIFIED FACILITY AT THE NIGHTTIME SITE TO RESUME OPERATION. AS SOON AS THE MODIFICATION APPLICATION IS GRANTED BY THE FCC, HOLY FAMILY WILL IMMEDIATELY UNDERTAKE SUCH CONSTRUCTION AS NECESSARY TO MODIFY AND TUNE THE DAYTIME ARRAY, AND EXPECTS TO RESUME FULL OPERATION OF THE STATION WITHIN TWO WEEKS OF THAT GRANT. ASSUMING THAT THE MODIFICATION IS GRANTED SOON, HOLY FAMILY ANTICIPATES RETURNING THE STATION TO OPERATION BY NOVEMBER 1, 2010.

Note that as of this morning (10/25/2010) CDBS contains no record of a grant of Holy Family's application to modify WQOM's CP for 50 kW-D from Sewell St to use three towers instead of five.

Also, I don't believe that the above reference to FULL operation can be intended to mean operation at 50 kW-D using the proposed three-tower daytime array as I do not believe it is even remotely possible to obtain delivery of, install, and tune the required new equipment within a two-week period.
 
Tweet to me from Mark S./bostonradio who "just got the press release":

>>1060 Is firing up its 50,000 'blowtorch' at 8am on Mon. Special mass w/Cardinal O'Malley

No sign yet of press release at boston radio watch. Checking WQOM site and facebook--
nothing yet. We'll see if it really is 50kw, or much less, come Monday
 
raccoonradio said:
Tweet to me from Mark S./bostonradio who "just got the press release":

>>1060 Is firing up its 50,000 'blowtorch' at 8am on Mon. Special mass w/Cardinal O'Malley

No sign yet of press release at boston radio watch. Checking WQOM site and facebook--
nothing yet. We'll see if it really is 50kw, or much less, come Monday
Click to expand...

As a practical matter, the only way this could be happening is if WQOM purchased, installed, and adjusted the new phasor, ATUs, and diplex filter(s) without benefit of a grant of a modification of the CP for 50 kW-D that would permit the use of a three-tower array instead of the five-tower array that was specified in the granted CP. I have not tried tuning in the station on a regular basis to see if I could catch some tests, but I have tuned in occasionally and have heard nothing. My trip to Sewell St was inconclusive but it did not appear that any large equipment had been brought to the site recently. For sure, a 50 kW phasor and the diplex filters to keep the 25-kW 890 signal out of the 1060 gear and a 50-kW 1060 signal out of the 890 gear are large items that require a pretty big truck. We're talking high-power analog electronics here. High power equates with large physical size. Lastly, during the roughly 24 hours between when WBIX breathed its last and WQOM signed off until Nov 1, WQOM was clearly operating at reduced power. I could be wrong, but I'd say that there is pretty good (albeit inconclusive) evidence that the person who is putting out these press releases has been consuming some substances whose consumption is not encouraged by the Vatican. I have a doctor's appointment on Monday morning, so I probably won't be able to tune in until afternoon but I will be interested in hearing the signal. Surprisingly, if it is 50 kW using the three-tower pattern, it should not be discernibly stronger here than the 40-kW non-CH signal from Mt Wayte Ave was. Still, that was a very solid signal (~12 mV/m). What I heard just before WQOM shut down wasn't close to that!
 
It would have been 1000X easier if they had stayed with the original 5 tower pattern, because the station would have been a DA-1 (only one pattern-just a decrease in power to 2.5 kW at night). All they would have had to do was upgrade some phasor components to take 50 kW. NOW they have to install a whole new phasor with all this extra switching and 890 filtering.

I predict the first of the year, if that.....

No, Grady is no longer involved with that station.
 
LA_Guy said:
It would have been 1000X easier if they had stayed with the original 5 tower pattern, because the station would have been a DA-1 (only one pattern-just a decrease in power to 2.5 kW at night). All they would have had to do was upgrade some phasor components to take 50 kW. NOW they have to install a whole new phasor with all this extra switching and 890 filtering. I predict the first of the year, if that.....
Click to expand...

But I presume that the 2.5 kW phasor, which I imagine can handle 5 kW, would have required replacement. You may know the truth of this, Dana, but it seems unlikely to me that a phasor that could handle 50 kW would have been installed at a station that was to be licensed for only 2.5 kW. The cost difference would have been significant. Moreover, back when the phasor was designed, it was not believed that the teardrop night pattern could be used at 25 kW, let alone 50 kW, because of the need to protect WBZ. It was only after field-strength measurements were made in connection with WAMG that revealed a large area of incredibly low (0.1 mS/m) soil conductivity to the east-northeast of the Ashland site that the possibility of running the night pattern by day at a power of more than about 10 kw was recognized.

WGTR's original (1981) 25 kW day pattern had a pair of lobes (one to the north-northeast and one to the south-southeast) at which the radiation maxima occurred. Between those two lobes was a broader lobe of lesser intensity centered at 90 degrees true. The reason for the complex pattern (the CE at the time, the late Bob Lund, described the pattern as looking like a pregnant banana) was to protect WBZ. IIRC, at 90 degrees true, the inverse-distance field of that original D pattern was 1330 mV/m @ 1 MILE (not km in those days). The two ID-field maxima (at ~20 degrees and ~160 degrees true were approximately 2100 mV/m at 1 MILE. 1330 mV/m @ 1 mile=2141 mV/m @ 1 km. IOW, along the 90-degree radial, the equivalent power of the five-tower (teardrop) night pattern running at 50 kW would be almost exactly 10 times what the 1981 day pattern, running 25 kW, delivered along the same radial. Now, maybe the equivalent power difference was 10 times and not 20 because the 1981 design took into account re-radiation from the high-voltage AC power line that runs north and south about 1 km east of the electrical center of the array. Supposedly, that power line has been detuned at both 890 and 1060, but the detuning wasn't done until decades after 1981.
 
Another point: There are a couple of reasons why the three-tower day array that WQOM proposes in its application for modification of CP makes more sense than does the daytime use of the five-tower night array proposed in the original application to combine the night and day sites. Because the three-tower pattern (a modified cardioid) is so much broader than the five-tower pattern (a teardrop), much less coverage is lost compared with the old 40 kW (Mt Wayte Ave) day pattern. OTOH, the three-tower pattern increases the area of normally-prohibited overlap with WEPN along the southern Mass coast. The FCC allows this overlap because it is the result of the long salt-water path from New York, but if WEPN ever starts running IBOC, the upper sideband will make WQOM's signal essentially useless in that area.

The other advantage of the three tower array is that it gives WSRO a transmitter site in the event that CCU wants to take down the towers at Mt Wayte Ave.
 
I believe the original WGTR pattern also had a null to the northwest to protect the station in Peterborough at 1050 (WSCV?). I was listening to it on route 495 one day while this pattern was in effect and it disappeared almost entirely for a mile or so below Fitchburg/Leominster and bounced right back nearing Worcester.
 
Laurence Glavin said:
I believe the original WGTR pattern also had a null to the northwest to protect the station in Peterborough at 1050 (WSCV?). I was listening to it on route 495 one day while this pattern was in effect and it disappeared almost entirely for a mile or so below Fitchburg/Leominster and bounced right back nearing Worcester.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Also to the southwest to protect KYW and WHN (now WEPN). Since the array is in-line and the azimuth of the line of towers is due east-west, the theoretical pattern MUST be symmetrical about 90 degrees true. All in-line arrays produce theoretical patterns that are symmetrical about the line of towers. Only when you get into measured patterns do you encounter departures from such symmetry. These departures are quantified by augmentations to the theoretical pattern and are reflected in the so-called standard pattern.

A major problem with the Sewell St site is the high-voltage AC transmission line that runs north to south right in front of the patterns of both WAMG and WQOM about 1 km east of the center of the array. Until the towers of this AC power line were detuned (no small feat to detune such a line at two frequencies), it was impossible to adjust the patterns within the very tight limits for protecting WLS (WAMG) and KYW (WQOM). Before the line was detuned, one of WAMG's patterns showed almost double the theoretical signal strength along the 90-degree radial to the east of the site. I have never heard an explanation of why only one of WAMG's two patterns was affected in this way.

Oh, and was the Peterborough 1050 WSCV? The calls stood for Serving the Contookook Valley, but I thought those calls were used only on the FM (92.1, now WFEX). I thought the AM was WRPT, which I imagine must have stood for Radio PeTerborough. Anyhow, in due course, the Peterborough AM moved to Ashland, changed frequencies to 650, and became WSRO. That move was what made it possible for WMEX (later WBIX) to diplex by day at high power from the Mt Wayte Ave site of the former WKOX.
 
They are due to debut in half an hour or so; I am getting the sound of inspirational music (like the Benedectine monks chanting or something, softly) maybe some WBZ in background (commercial: "press one for pigs in a blanket"--Danversbank ad). Now I don't hear the "chanting"...

oops, now they're back. Let me try to do a sample

http://raccoonradio.freehostia.com/Air/WQOMprelaunch.mp3
recorded from Beverly
 
Recording the debut now; a mass...no sign of legal ID yet and I may give up after awhile. Thou shalt not miss thy legal ID! Maybe the prelate (Cardinal O'Malley?) will mention the station in the homily.As for music on WQOM, I am not expecting any gospel by Mahalia Jackson, Johnny Cash,
Elvis ("His Hand In Mine")...

FATHER GUIDO SARDUCCI (Don Novello) on Saturday Night Live: "I have here the new album by Pope John Paul II. I gotta admit, it's a pretty good album. I mean, he's no Smokey Robinson...
but if you like Polish folk songs, this is the album for you" :)

Still no legal ID, for shame...oh well. I put the pause button on...
 
hey racoon they just mentioned it at 819am!!! now there telling the history of catholic radio inthe area or something. via live stream!
 
Tuned in briefly just before and after visits to a laundromat here in Beverly via car radio. Not the best signal. If this is them at 50,000 watts, I'd demand a refund (I get the feeling it isn't...) Or
to use their parlance, Chief Engineer, pray for us ::)

First was a talk show accepting calls, talking about homosexuals and lesbians. Then it was a
host and co-host discussing family rearing ("she has to learn that Mommy is in charge, not
a nine year old"). But signal wise...well, many listeners might be better off listening online...
 
1060--what a history! John Garibedian was a smart man cashing out on G 1060 years ago. Bless me WQOM --for I have sinned! ;D ;D ;D ;D
 
raccoonradio said:
Tuned in briefly just before and after visits to a laundromat here in Beverly via car radio. Not the best signal. If this is them at 50,000 watts, I'd demand a refund
Click to expand...

I tuned in for a short bit...and noticed the signal bouncing up and down (between high and low power?).

Anyone know if they are having difficulties this first day keeping the sitgnal on at full power?
 
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