Two Stations On The Same Frequency Very Close in Distance

[HudsonValley1967]

The two channel 13's in Albany and New York City were a big problem when we set-up a receive site for Teleprompter Cable (now Time-Warner Cable).
The site was in the last few miles of Southern Ulster County near 9W. The co-channel reception of the two channel 13's was resolved by placing the antenna on the South side of the hill we were on. The reception of the unwanted channel 13 (Albany) was shielded by this hill.

When my dad bought his TV in 1949, we were the first TV-set on the block. The neighbors all stopped-by on Friday Nights to watch boxing matches seen on our 17" TV (sponsored by Gillett Super Blue Blades). The antenna for the TV-set was atop a three story apartment building near Mansion Square Park in Poughkeepsie. At the antenna, was Bogen's first TV- preamp (model BR-1). The antenna was a dual-bay conical. This antenna had poor front-to-back ratio and picked up both channel 13's with the same signal strength. Channel 13 from my dad's house was unwatchable.

I always thought the 1948-1952 " Freeze on New TV License" was all about co-channel problems. This freeze never resolved the problem of picking up two channel 13's in Poughkeepsie.

Channel 13 Albany reception was easy as far south as Cornwall Landing. At Cornwall Landing, Storm King Mt. stopped reception of all NYC stations. In the 60's prior to Cable TV, Cornwall Landing homeowners pointed their TV antennas north to Albany.

Just a thought: We go to a 9KHz AM spacing (like Europe) and limit power to 100 watts for all radio stations. With that we would have less concentration of media ownership and a whole new group of "tofu" or community oriented operators. What a boon for the equipment OEM's!

 

[W2JUV_AL]

Knickman wrote: "When my dad bought his TV in 1949, we were the first TV-set on the block. The neighbors all stopped-by on Friday Nights to watch boxing matches seen on our 17" TV (sponsored by Gillett Super Blue Blades). The antenna for the TV-set was atop a three story apartment building near Mansion Square Park in Poughkeepsie. At the antenna, was Bogen's first TV- preamp (model BR-1). The antenna was a dual-bay conical. This antenna had poor front-to-back ratio and picked up both channel 13's with the same signal strength. Channel 13 from my dad's house was unwatchable."

Enjoyed reading your post but you didn't receive Channel 13 from Albany in 1949 because it didn't come on the air until 1954 when it was WTRI on Channel 35. It became WAST in '58 or '59 and simulcast on Channels 13 and 35 for a while. A major transmitter/antenna upgrade was done around 1963. It most likely reached Poughkeepsie after that upgrade.

 

[THE_KNICKMAN]

That was not me Al, it was Hudsonvalley1967 that wrote that piece. Knickman (WB2BGI)

 

[HudsonValley1967]

OK on channel 13 Albany sign-on year. Yes I recall watching the boxing matches on a "Network" station from New York City. Channel 13 in the 1950's from New York City was an independent station (before it became a PBS/EDU). The 1948-1952 "freeze" was in smaller markets. That was the reason channel 13 Albany did not sign-on till later in the 50's.

I think I it was about 1957 I was up on the roof of my house in Poughkeepsie fixing the antenna with my dad. The twin-lead of the antenna was broken. For those
interested in how far NYC stations were picked up off-air: The GE/RCA Cable TV system in Kingston (90 miles from from the Empire Station Building Transmit Site) received TV signals. They used a tropospheric curtain antenna to pick-up channels from NYC before the Albany channel 13 transmitter went on. This same antenna was used to pick-up FM signals from NYC.

 

[cspence]

I'm surprised no mention of WSIV in E. Syracuse and the late 1540 . Now that distance might pass for 1kw stations but WPTR was/is 50kw, ableit HIGHLY directional. Ive never heard a weaker 50kw signal anywhere.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Definitively, this is a second-adjacent example and a bit off the beam, but it was intriguing in two ways.

To this day there is a 5000/1000-watt 1420 station in New Bedford Massachusetts. It has the same calls as it had decades ago -- WBSM. They're loosely directional, with a 2-tower system. Yet, on Radio-Locator, their main signal brushes downtown Fall River.

Just over ten miles west of them, in Fall River, is an omni station on 1400. (The old calls were WALE).
While this 1400 station's main contour doesn't roar through downtown New Bedford, there has to be some nasty overlap between the two towns during the day.

That's pretty close, I'd say. Perhaps at one time they were owned by the same company?

Oddly, when we DXed on western Long Island, the farther station from us, WBSM, was the regular. WALE 1400 was the one we'd hear maybe once every five years.

* * * * * * * *

So anyway : which CO-channel stations are the winners on the thread?

 

[W2JUV_AL]

I'm surprised no mention of WSIV in E. Syracuse and the late 1540 . Now that distance might pass for 1kw stations but WPTR was/is 50kw, ableit HIGHLY directional. Ive never heard a weaker 50kw signal anywhere.

Plenty of spacing between the 1540 transmitters in Albany and E. Syracuse. Driving west on the NY Thruway the WPTR signal just barely reached Canajoharie. You don't hear the E. Syracuse station until somewhere between Utica (Exit 31) and Westmoreland (Exit 32). So that's a good 40-50 miles of dead air on 1540.

 

[Bob1370]

"When my dad bought his TV in 1949, we were the first TV-set on the block. The neighbors all stopped-by on Friday Nights to watch boxing matches seen on our 17" TV (sponsored by Gillett Super Blue Blades). The antenna for the TV-set was atop a three story apartment building near Mansion Square Park in Poughkeepsie. At the antenna, was Bogen's first TV- preamp (model BR-1). The antenna was a dual-bay conical. This antenna had poor front-to-back ratio and picked up both channel 13's with the same signal strength. Channel 13 from my dad's house was unwatchable."

The other channel 13 besides Newark, NJ's WATV which your dad was picking up back then wasn't Albany (it wasn't on until about 1959); it was WKTV in Utica, which was on 13 from 1949 until 1958. It moved its transmitter off Smith Hill in Utica to higher ground a few miles east and moved down to channel 2 (where it probably should have been all along) to make room for WAST/13 in Albany and WOKR/13 in Rochester. The TV allocation table in upstate NY was indeed a mess, and the Hudson Valley remained a problem on channel 13--but at least the situation got better and accommodated a few more full-market-coverage signals in the major upstate cities from 1958 onward.

 

[necrat123]

WNYT was also innovative in the fact that the directional panel antenna they used for VHF 13 was circularly polarized.
If you lived in the zone of co channeled stations, all you'd have to do is tilt the antenna vertical and eliminate reception of the Horizontally polarized 13 out of NYC.

 

[fybush]

WNYT was also innovative in the fact that the directional panel antenna they used for VHF 13 was circularly polarized.
If you lived in the zone of co channeled stations, all you'd have to do is tilt the antenna vertical and eliminate reception of the Horizontally polarized 13 out of NYC.

...assuming the polarity of the received 13 NYC signal hadn't been scrambled in the process of bouncing off the hilltops up and down the Hudson Valley, of course...

 

[W2JUV_AL]

WNYT was also innovative in the fact that the directional panel antenna they used for VHF 13 was circularly polarized.

But did WNYT go to circular polarization as part of the transmitter plant upgrade in 1963? Seems to me the circular polarization antenna came about sometime in the 70's. I lived about 25mi. from the Bald Mt. site in Brunswick during the 1960's and recall a very strong signal from WNYT, but multipath (ghosting) was a major issue that eventually led to the circular polarization antenna.

 

[W2JUV_AL]

WNYT was also innovative in the fact that the directional panel antenna they used for VHF 13 was circularly polarized.

But did WNYT go to circular polarization as part of the transmitter plant upgrade in 1963? Seems to me the circular polarization antenna came about sometime in the 70's. I lived about 25mi. from the Bald Mt. site in Brunswick during the 1960's and recall a very strong signal from WNYT, but multipath (ghosting) was a major issue that eventually led to the circular polarization antenna.

Oops.....I believe Albany-13 was still WAST when all this took place.

 

[rtetro]

Closest I know of (on the same frequency) would be three more 1340 stations -- WRAW Reading, WHAT Philadelphia, and the big-signalled WMID Atlantic City.
Reading is not that far a drive up the Schuylkill from Philadelphia. But there is a bit of terrain-factor.

I was doing contract engineering for WHAT until last year for the previous owners. We seriously studied all three signals to see if there was ANY possibility of improving our coverage...which was, of course, a fruitless effort. WMIDs tall stick gives it such a powerful signal that it can be heard almost into Philly. And they are not even licensed for a full 1KW. Because of their tower height, and the great ground conductivity of the salt water surrounding their site, WMID is actually llicensed at 800W to meet Class C specs. WRAW has just the opposite issue. The ground conductivity is poor and the tower is short for 1340. Their signal barely makes it to Pottstown. There is just enough room to squeeze WHAT in between them.

Regarding WALL. I grew up in Middletown and worked for the station in the 70s. Considering the poor ground conductivity in that part of the state their coverage has always been good. I'm not sure about the comment saying that WALL covers only to Harriman. We were always listenable much further east - pretty much all the way to Highland Falls. The other descriptions - toward Liberty, etc - are pretty accurate. We had good listenership throughout Orange, Sullivan, and southern Ulster Counties. I could also always pickup the station as far as the Orange-Rockland border on the Thruway without any problems. Once you got into Rockland, however, splatter from 1330 in NYC would become a problem.

On the air, we used to call our coverage area "Walland" in the 60s and 70s. (I think that was a Larry Berger creation). It was considered to pretty much be from New Paltz in the North to Sussex in the South, and from Milford, PA in the West to Wappingers Falls in the East. At that time our tower on Monhagen Avenue in Middletown was just 186 feet tall - a bit more than a quarter wave length. That tower was replaced in the early 80s with a 300 foot tower so that WALL-FM (now WRRV) could up its signal to a full class A. So, one would think that, all things being equal, their signal should be a little better today than it was in my days... apart from the almost universal increase in man-made noise.

In so far as the original WKNY-WDLC issue is concerned, it must be remembered that these stations are so old that the allocations date back to the days when local stations (then Class 4) only ran 100-250 watts. When the Commission gave an almost universal bump to 1kw in the early 60s to Class 4s, part of the deal was that they would have to accept whatever mutual interference may result in exchange for the much improved coverage of their local areas and cities of license.

 

[HudsonValley1967]

Great on WALL-Land! I recall that the penalty for not listening to WALL was a ride to Roscoe. I could hear WALL in the 60's
on my 1964 Oldsmobile (it had a trunk large enough to sleep in) under the RT. 17 bridge in Roscoe.

Ground conductivity had always been an issue in the HV. The ground in the HV is some of the oldest and hardest in North America.
While I was not there to see the damage done, a former engineer at WPUT-1510 in Brewster, NY claimed he once attached the antenna ground grid to the New York Central Harlem Division Railroad Tracks!

 

[rtetro]

Great on WALL-Land! I recall that the penalty for not listening to WALL was a ride to Roscoe.

If I remember correctly, wasn't Gene Pelc from Roscoe? He always made comments about Roscoe on the air. Likewise, Al Larsen, who was from Shahola, PA would regularly intro the weather by saying, "And now the weather for Shahola and the rest of Wall-land."