It Took Longer Than Expected But Bye, Bye Talk 1200

[DanStrassberg]

The signal is everything. Probably the most south I got 1200 was Milton.

Unless you're talking about nighttime reception, you must have been listening on one very sick AM radio! The new daytime directional pattern (only about a year old, give or take; four towers; the original was three; the nighttime pattern was never changed and still uses three towers) may not be close to comparable with WRKO, but it isn't half bad and should deliver a listenable signal as far south as Plymouth and as far north as Lawrence.

1200 doesn't have a killer signal--especially at night, but the signal is not nearly as bad as the folks here are making it out to be. The signal is solid, day and night, at most points inside 128, and during the daytime is also solid in some places north and south of 128.

 

[benale]

I was in Portland, Maine earlier this week and most of the Boston AM's reach up there. WBZ is almost like a local. 1200 made it up there..not a great signal,but listenable.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

The signal is everything. Probably the most south I got 1200 was Milton. And thats a huge chunk of listeners in Bristol and Plymouth County to leave out to try and comepete with the other talkers. (Even though 680's signal blows in SE Mass too).

Sounds like you need to check your car antenna connections or grounds.

 

[raccoonradio]

>>he signal is not nearly as bad as the folks here are making it out to be.

Came in fairly well just now, 2:30-3 am on 128 from Reading to Beverly

 

[Uncle Griz]

I was in Yarmouth Nova Scotia last summer and I can tell you 1200 puts a good signal there. Equal to BZ, and better than the other 50kw ones. I know, the people there probably don't listen to talk 1200, but it DOES get out there

 

[DanStrassberg]

I was in Yarmouth Nova Scotia last summer and I can tell you 1200 puts a good signal there. Equal to BZ, and better than the other 50kw ones. I know, the people there probably don't listen to talk 1200, but it DOES get out there

I can't remember whether the switch from three towers days to four took place before last summer or after. If after, you would probably find today's (four tower) signal somewhat weaker than what you remember. It would still be listenable by day in Yarmouth NS, just a bit weaker. The four-tower signal is a little weaker to the east than the old signal but stronger to the north and south--that is, stronger toward Lawrence and Plymouth.

 

[activeradioactive]

pay attention to the posts from the engineers about the 1200 "signal" it never hit any of the zip codes it needed to

 

[wcozBoston]

Was it worth it for CC to upgrade 1200's signal a few years back?

 

[raccoonradio]

Don't know. Would they try to sell it--and given how moribund AM is, would they get as much back for it now
than they would have had they tried to sell it off before?

 

[indystorm]

How about on a signal that was piss poor!? I thought they were going to "upgrade" the signal..... They ran announcements about it forever. It was still horrible. I get WGIR am610 from Manchester, NH all the way down to Fall River crystal clear- 1200 you can't hear 30 miles from Newton- wtf!?! Crap ass signal= no audience. All the better- WRKO has better coverage and now I won't have to go switching back and forth between stations---- and btw- wgir 610 has Rush and like I said overlaps am1200 coverage and much more- listened to him from Brockton today no problem. Hell WJIB 740am with 250 watts reaches all the way to Worcester from Cambridge....!!!

Cheap channel needs to go away- it's a terrible company and obviously the engineers don't know what they are doing..................

People are reading too much into the right wing part of talk 1200. The bottom line is that it was on a signal that nobody knew about or bothered to sample. That to me was the biggest hurdle for the station. It wasn't like a station that had an audience flipped to conservatalk, it was a station that most people never knew was there. And in Boston, most people that listen to AM don't go past 1030 on the dial, there isn't much past there to listen to unless you're a: Devout Catholic, kid (Radio Disney) or are fluent in Spanish.

If the same format had been on a signal like RKO or 96.9, it would still be there.

It's not going to flip to libtalk either... there's a format that even in liberal towns like Boston doesn't do well because most of the hosts are flops. If they can find a "Rush for the Left" then maybe, but that person hasn't come along. They all tend to be about as light hearted as funeral procession, and I don't know why. The worst one is that Amy Goodman on Democracy Now... my GOD has that woman ever laughed at anything or even smiled in her life??????

 

[WNTIRadio]

I wouldn't go crapping on the engineers, they did the best they could with the allocations that are all around 1200. The goal was to blast signal into Boston, and that was achieved. If you have never done an AM upgrade, you can't go blaming the engineers. It's not easy, it's not cheap.

610 is much lower on the dial than 1200. AM stations in the lower part of the band have much better groundwave than higher frequencies. 5kW on 610 is like having 15kW on 1200 or 50kW on 1580.

 

[Uncle Kaimbridge]

Mw ERP?

Moved to its own thread

 

[reelyreal]

duTreil, Lundin, and Rackley were the consulting engineers on that upgrade, one of the best in the business. The upgrade accomplished the goals of the project. Not every station can be a 1A clear with a direct salt-water path to your door.

 

[DanStrassberg]

duTreil, Lundin, and Rackley were the consulting engineers on that upgrade, one of the best in the business. The upgrade accomplished the goals of the project. Not every station can be a 1A clear with a direct salt-water path to your door.

But there obviously were some second thoughts: 1200's daytime DA--only a couple of years old at the time--was rather substantially revamped roughly a year ago. The new pattern uses four of the five towers at the site vs. the original three. The night pattern was not changed and uses three towers. The new day pattern somewhat improved the signal to the north and south at the expense of a slight reduction in signal strength to the east-northeast. Whose idea was this latest change? Dunno. Someone at CCU Corporate Engineering could have said to DL&R, "Hey, there are still some possibilities here to increase the station's value by increasing the population within the 0.5 mV/m daytime contour." Or DL&R could have been the first to reach that conclusion; they could have put the bug in CCU Engineering's ear. It would be interesting to know who had the idea first.

 

[raccoonradio]

As usual he can't give details but Severin is hinting at a new job/show on twitter. He could just be leading us on but hey he did manage to get on 1200 last year. Would WRKO (who had him years ago) take him back, or WTKK (get the feeling they wouldn't but you never know). Or to another town?