ON FOR 24 HOURS NOW??

[secondchoice]

This close to an election, would any one, who wants to keep their FCC job, do any kind of enforcement on Radio One or any of the operators of right or left wing talk stations? Just about the only way any enforcement action takes place is when there is complaints.

 

[Savage]

There's a lot of this crap going on these days. Within an hour of here there's a 1kw daytimer, owned by "a major group broadcaster," which has been staying on at night (despite its not having PSSA authorization) on its clear channel with, apparently, full power and modulation for its foreign-language format. And there are two DA-2s in the local market who have been operating with day power and pattern for years. One had no tower fences last I checked. A consultant familiar with the operation casually remarked that the phasors haven't been physically able to change pattern for quite some time.)

Nobody does squat about these flagrant violations. Back in the day, an inspector encountering this kind of willful and repeated operation outside of authority would have ordered the licensees to pull the main breaker pending hearings. But God help me if the Commission stops by and I don't have some mandatory piece of paper in the public file. (In January 2012 WYSL celebrates 25 years on the air. Number of civilian public file inquiries since the station commenced operations: one. :)

 

[reelyreal]

Another fun example of a violation (a rather dangerous one There is a five tower array behind the Connecticut School of Broadcasting in Farmington, CT. Four towers in-line for night operation, and a separate daytime tower with auxiliary bays for former sister WRCH. WLAT does pretty well in the ratings with their spanish format and they're next to a building teaching young broadcasters... however! The daytime tower hasn't been lit for at least a year, tower 1 has had the top beacon out for at least a year (side markers still working) and tower four lost its beacon this week. All of this three miles from a small airport.

Nobody cares about anything at the FCC apparently.

 

[raccoonradio]

Earlier at 4:45 pm, WILD was heard playing music (heard while on Rt 128 in Lynnfield). There were announcements for "G and E Productions"--60s pop music. ID at 5:00 (um, they're supposed to go off at sunset?), another plug for G and E
Productions doing the next show, etc. About 5:15 pm in N. Reading I only heard WBAL Baltimore (a salute to a longtime announcer who is leaving due to a serious illness; Balt. traffic reports) with some kind of dead air signal going in and out.
2:45 am, again on 128: A mix of WILD 60s pop music, and WBAL talk. At one point as I got into Beverly, the WILD
signal improved.

 

[DanStrassberg]

Earlier at 4:45 pm, WILD was heard playing music (heard while on Rt 128 in Lynnfield). There were announcements for "G and E Productions"--60s pop music. ID at 5:00 (um, they're supposed to go off at sunset?)

A 5:00PM sign-off is probably OK for WILD in November--as long as they were running PSSA power from 4:30 on. Local sunset in these parts is 4:30 in November, and though I haven't checked, Baltimore sunset is most likely 5:00PM. In most months, Baltimore sunset is 30 minutes after Boston sunset.

 

[DG02816]

God help us if the a Republican gets in and decides ro defund or eliminate the FCC.The Coomish is so strapped now that a lot of inspection isn't done.In WILD's case, first get the modulation up so the station can be heard decently. Then set up the automation to get it off the air at the right time and back on in the morning. WLAT's tower problem is indeed a danger; if a plane hits that, forget it....1110 in Providence would not cut power back at first after going Spanish tropical, and WBT thought a Cuban had fired up on the channel, and wanted the State Dept. to look into it. That 5 kW really got out, as I used to get requests from NJ during the late afternoons, when it was still WHIM.

 

[JIBGUY]

According to the FCC site, WILD gets to broadcast with an average of 20 watts for a period of 15 to 30 minutes AFTER sunset. The wattages, and whether it's 15 or 30 minutes, depends upon the month it is.

To see such authorization, go to
1) - FCC home page
2) - type <am query> in search box.
3) - click on first (usually) result
4) - scroll down and fill in the call-sign
5) - scroll down further and up-down arrow to the third of 5 lines in gray box.
6) - find "Correspondence for W---"
7) - scroll down to see "PSRA authority" and "PSSA authority" and click.

If you type WJIB on #4 above, you'll see that WJIB is authorized to broadcast at 250 watts for 2 hours AFTER sunset, in all months!

 

[raccoonradio]

I could see poss. cuts to FCC funding but it would not be eliminated. It's needed especially to deal with stations not interfering with each other--now, are they doing their job? That's debatable. They could say "we don't have the budget"
or "we only respond when people complain"--i.e., unless the owners of WBAL, etc. put up a stink, they don't bother. They have raided pirates, etc.--perhaps with help from U.S. Marshalls, who have other things to deal with--but in many cases warnings get sent, or fines issued, but have they actually collected these? Don't we have people being issued forfeitures of $17k or so but they haven't collected...

>>a lot of inspection isn't done

Again they could well be cash-strapped...If they can collect those fines it would help. IF.
>>get the modulation up

The owners need to do that, although the oldies I heard actually wasn't too soft. But at other times like during news or discussion shows, the modulation is definitely low.

The FCC can't be eliminated--stations need to be licensed and need to follow the rules so the agency must exist.
And I'm glad,so that nobody gets the idea they can just turn on a station on or next to my frequency in the same
town to "jam" us. (And those that do, get taken off--witness DATZ HITS 99.7. At least we hope so.)

If there were no FCC I would suspect some stations, maybe college etc., would have the F-bombs and
S-bombs, etc., flying at any and all hours. Stations would increase their power if they felt like it. Why not?
Who's gonna stop em if there's no FCC?

 

[raccoonradio]

Let me try that for WILD (thanks for info, Bob)
>> WJIB is authorized to broadcast at 250 watts for 2 hours AFTER sunset, in all months!

I tried it and saw no info about PSRA or PSSA for WILD but then again, WILD is "Daytime Only" while
WJIB does have night operation at low power.

Sunset for today 4:14, tomorrow 4:13. As I said I was listening to WILD at 5 pm yesterday then 15 min later
I was mostly getting WBAL but with some kind of "signal" (dead air) getting louder and softer. And music
was heard in the wee hours...

 

[Laurence Glavin]

I have a radio that shows the relative strength of available AM stations. When I tune to a frequency that contains at least two signals, the dial moves either slowly or a bit more rapidly from right to left. In late fall and winter in the morning or late afternoon for example, WWKB-AM 1520 and WIZZ-AM 1520 (which oddly does NOT offer streaming audio; I wonder if WHIZ radio in Zanesville, OH does) will battle each other; also 1540 in Exeter, NH and Albany, NY; 1590 in Nashua, NH and Warwick, RI, etc. It was a long time ago, but the prize instance of this occurrence happened when the station then known as WITS-AM 1510 was installing its Waverley Oaks Road facility in Waltham, while still broadcasting from North Quincy with 50,000 watts days. I assume the testing may have been done at night, but one day I heard them running both transmitters at the same time during daylight hours! My signal strength meter was swinging from one direction to the other like Willard Mitt Romney changing positions. Anyway, lst night (Monday, 11/28) I tuned it to 1090 and WBAL was, as suspected dominant. But I did notice a slight oscillation, regular in nature, but no interfering audio, as if some OTHER station not far away but weaker was broadcasting.

 

[raccoonradio]

Broadcasting a dead air signal or as we say unmodulated carrier? Kind of like the 103.7 in Saugus, formerly in Salem.
which HAD been // WSMA 90.5 back when they broadcast from a site nr an alarm company on Rt 107 in Salem, but now
they just have...dead air, as observed last night on 128 in Lynnfield. No WEEI simulcast from Westerly, no WPKQ country from N Conway NH, just dead air on 103.7 at that location. Same as 1090 about 5:15 pm when I was in N. Reading, the unmodulated carrier getting louder and softer along with WBAL talk.

Yet again by the wee hours they were on and running 60s pop music.

 

[JIBGUY]

I tried it and saw no info about PSRA or PSSA for WILD but then again, WILD is "Daytime Only" while
WJIB does have night operation at low power.

It's there. (for WILD)... Their PSSA IS just that... those little 15 or 30 minutes, at +/-20 watts.

 

[raccoonradio]

thanks, didn't see

 

[DanStrassberg]

If you type WJIB on #4 above, you'll see that WJIB is authorized to broadcast at 250 watts for 2 hours AFTER sunset, in all months!

Hi, Bob: But WJIB isn't using the 250W two-hours in-all-months PSSA, right? That would be because it was part of Media Bureau Engineering's big PSRA/PSSA fiasco of what? five years ago? All stations that had PSRAs and/or PSSAs (and there were hundreds--maybe more than a thousand--of them, and the stations were, for the most part, using those old PSR/PSS facilities) were given new authorizations, nearly all with facilities that were radically different from the ones they had been granted originally and were using. A few stations (WJIB was one and I think WJTO may have been another) were granted better (in some cases significantly better) pre-sunrise and/or post-sunset facilities than they had previously been using. Most stations got considerably worse facilities, though. In a few cases, stations that had been running more than 100W were now told that they had to reduce pre-sunrise or post-sunset power to as little as 1W. It was a disaster and the FCC very soon notified all affected stations that the formulas used to determine the new facilities were in error, so the stations were to disregard the new facilities that the FCC had announced and were to revert to the old facilities. These stations were to be notified of revised new facilities "shortly." That was about five years ago and, AFAIK, no station had heard a peep on this subject from the FCC. As they say in government, "Oops!"

 

[Savage]

I don't think aircraft collisions with AM towers are very likely, unless they're gigantic ones like half-to five-eighths WL. Usually AMs use 90-degree-ish towers with heights ranging from 160 to 300 feet depending on frequency/wavelength. If you're flying at 200 feet at night, you're already in a heap of trouble. Along comes a little shear or downdraft, and you're in the trees. (Or as one of those NTSB accident reports dryly referred, you've suffered "premature arrival.")

That's not to diminish the importance of AM arrays as navigational aids for VFR (visual flight rules) pilots. The view out of a small plane at night can be nightmarishly generic and confusing. When the chart calls out "Radio Towers," you want to look down and see them.

 

[reelyreal]

I don't think aircraft collisions with AM towers are very likely, unless they're gigantic ones like half-to five-eighths WL. Usually AMs use 90-degree-ish towers with heights ranging from 160 to 300 feet depending on frequency/wavelength. If you're flying at 200 feet at night, you're already in a heap of trouble. Along comes a little shear or downdraft, and you're in the trees. (Or as one of those NTSB accident reports dryly referred, you've suffered "premature arrival.")

That's not to diminish the importance of AM arrays as navigational aids for VFR (visual flight rules) pilots. The view out of a small plane at night can be nightmarishly generic and confusing. When the chart calls out "Radio Towers," you want to look down and see them.

That was more along my line of thinking... I previously worked in an area where the local LifeFlight helicopter would head south from its base, and on clear nights would know to head right when it got to our tower.. I know that's an over-simplified explanation, but I was surprised when I learned of aircraft using towers as landmarks at night. The market I'm in now has three separate tower sights that form a triangle that point toward the airport.

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

I beg to differ. WLYN is on a 400 foot tower, several miles from Logan Airport.
If the tower is unlit, or the top beacon is out, it would be a
major problem for air navigation...

 

[Laurence Glavin]

When the weathercritters were talking about how warm this month is around here, I recall being on a flight back from Chicago on the Sunday night after Thanksgiving. There was actually a lightning storm over the ocean so the pilot flew west-to-east over metro Boston and although it was nighttime, passengers could look down at individual automobiles on the Mass Pike and such as. I'm sure it was higher up than the Pru and JH Buildings, but not by much. I was in the Air Force in the Pacific Northwest, flying as a passenger all over WA and OR, some with propellers rather than jets, and they tried to stay below the clouds that are endemic to the region.

 

[Savage]

Hey, no question that towers are painted and lit for a reason. Certainly a 400-foot tower without lights in the vicinity of an airport is a big problem. As far as nav hazards go, though, they're a matter of degree. If you've got a AM array of, say, 210-footers and some of the code beacons are out but there are side markers, that is less of a problem than the WLYN scenario.

All I'm saying is, you're asking for an accident if you're flying around unfamiliar terrain at night 200 feet AGL. Suppose you miscalibrated your altimeter and it's reading 75 feet high? Suppose the tower lights went off 20 minutes ago? There's no time to get a Notice To Airmen (NOTAM) out to you and the impact is just as deadly whether the lights went out while you looked down at your instruments, or 6 months ago. VFR rules require a minimum altitude of 500 feet over populated areas.

 

[Wright County Guy]

(Or as one of those NTSB accident reports dryly referred, you've suffered "premature arrival.")
.

Am I a total ass for laughing the loudest and hardest I have in days when I read this line?!!?