OK, Now WRCA-AM 1330's Signal Is Way Down

[Laurence Glavin]

Last week, I observed that WUNR-AM 1600's signal had diminished greatly at my home about
30 miles north of Oak Hill Park. Now WRCA-AM 1330 has experienced that same fate, although not
near the vanishing point like WUNR. Last Friday, a violent lightning storm in Walthem felled some
trees and caused loss of power in that City. When WRCA subsequently came in with a much
weaker signal the next day, I thought that they might have been running off a generator; now
it's Monday, and WRCA continues to be weaker and nowhere near the signal strength of WDER-AM
1320 in Derry, NH...they were both just about the same until recently.

 

[chrish]

I had lunch with Grady on Thursday, he told me he had to turn WRCA
on from the new diplex site at low power on Friday the 27th of June as it was all over in Waltham.

 

[Laurence Glavin]

I had lunch with Grady on Thursday, he told me he had to turn WRCA
on from the new diplex site at low power on Friday the 27th of June as it was all over in Waltham.

Interesting...where I live, WRCA is stronger than WUNR right now. It should have a signal as good as, or better than WUNR when at full power. BTW, did he say whether WUNR is testing at reduced or full power...and when will WKOX come on board?

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Interesting...where I live, WRCA is stronger than WUNR right now. It should have a signal as good as, or better than WUNR when at full power.

I'm going to make a guess that perhaps WUNR may have to have a directional null toward you to protect first adjacent 1590 in Nashua.

 

[LA_Guy]

I had lunch with Grady on Thursday, he told me he had to turn WRCA
on from the new diplex site at low power on Friday the 27th of June as it was all over in Waltham.

Interesting...where I live, WRCA is stronger than WUNR right now. It should have a signal as good as, or better than WUNR when at full power. BTW, did he say whether WUNR is testing at reduced or full power...and when will WKOX come on board?

Both WUNR and WRCA are running 5 kilowatts right now. Their DA patterns are still being fine tuned.

 

[DanStrassberg]

I'm going to make a guess that perhaps WUNR may have to have a directional null toward you to protect first adjacent 1590 in Nashua.

Where I live (Arlington Heights near the Lexington line, just north of Route 2) this past afternoon, WRCA, though not as strong as it used to be from Waltham, was noticeably stronger than WUNR. If both stations are running their new--albeit, not fully tuned--new patterns with 5 kW, WUNR should probably have the stronger daytime signal. IIRC, WRCA's day pattern is quite narrow--narrower than WUNR's DA-1 pattern and narrower than WRCA's own (four-tower 17-kW) night pattern. As for WUNR being weaker in Methuen because of the need to protect the Nashua 1590, WRCA has to protect the Derry 1320. It may be a tad farther away from the Newton site than WSMN's old site, but WDER is 10 kW and WSMN's still-licensed but no longer operational facilities are 5 kW. Both 1590 and 1320 are severely nulled to the south.

I just checked out the patterns--the least radiation towerd Lawrence is from WRCA days, next strongest is WUNR, and finally the strongest is WRCA nights. However, there shouldn't be much difference among the three; in that direction, all three signals are close together in strength--close enough that WUNR would be somewhat weaker than WRCA day and night because a signal at 1600 gets attenuated slightly more rapidly as a function of distance than does a signal at 1330.

 

[DanStrassberg]

Both WUNR and WRCA are running 5 kilowatts right now. Their DA patterns are still being fine tuned.

In case anyone needs any further confirmation that WRCA is now transmitting from Newton, WRCA's legal IDs have changed from Waltham-Boston to Watertown-Boston. At 2:00AM today (Wed 7/2), I heard the Waltham ID followed after about 10 sec by the Watertown ID. Later in the morning, I heard only the Watertown ID. I did not tune in at 5:15AM to see if I could catch the pattern change, so I don't know whether WRCA is running its night pattern full time, which would probably be allowed at 5 kW, or is switching between patterns. (The night pattern has to be tuned during daytime hours; the day pattern, if run at night, probably must be run at less than 5 kW.) Whatever pattern/power WRCA was running, the signal where I live (Arlington, near the Lexington line), though nowhere near what it used to be from the much-closer Waltham site, was a lot better than I had expected. At 2:00AM, I could not discern WWRV (the most likely interferer) underneath WRCA but the WRCA signal was easily readable despite the obvious (and somewhat annoying) co-channel interference.

 

[DanStrassberg]

Both WUNR and WRCA are running 5 kilowatts right now. Their DA patterns are still being fine tuned.

After studying WUNR's and WRCA's power-increase applications (both filed on 2002) and listening to both stations, albeit briefly, yesterday day and night, I believe that WUNR was most likely running 1.25 kW ND last night, as specified in its STA. WUNR might be running 5 kW DA during daylight hours using its new pattern. If I read the applications correctly (and I may not have done so) WUNR's NIF contour is 6.9 mV/m whereas WRCA's is 8.4 mV/m. (Seems to me I recall seeing a lower number--in the 5s--for WUNR in an earlier reading of its app several years ago, but I did not find that number this time.) Anyhow, according to the NIFs, 1600 is slightly quieter than 1330 at night in this area. However last night in Arlington Heights, WUNR was totally buried by what I believe was WWRL, whereas WRCA was merely bothered by what I assume to have been mostly WWRV. I can therefore believe that WRCA might have been running its night pattern with 5 kW last night. During the daytime, WRCA sounded noticeably stronger than it did last night, suggesting that it is running more than 5 kW by day--with one or the other of its two new patterns.