In case anyone has noticed, since yesterday WBZ-AM has been operating at a reduced power so it's signal is considerably weaker. After calling the station just now, they confirmed that they are operating with their auxiliary transmitter at reduced power for the next few days while their main tower is being painted. And yes, it is Sherwin Williams paint according to the station's engineer.
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WBZ-AM 1030 SIGNAL
- Thread starter alg2468
- Start date
got to keep up the painting in that environment, right on the water, besides the F.C.C. LOVES to N.A.L. for tower painting, especially that close to an airport
While on the aux, did they cut the I-CRAP?
NHRadio said:
Their backup tower for when they do maintenance/painting (etc...) on their main Hull towers is that tower next to their studios on Soldiers Field Rd. in Brighton (Allston). They probably can't run 50kW from that location for various technical reasons.
while on "'BZ topic, If main towers are in Hull why doesn't top of hour Id say "WBZ Hull Boston" ?
Eli Polonsky said:
Where I live, I didn't notice a thing, although I suspect that even here (Arlington Heights, near Lexington), the 10 kW ND signal from the rather inefficient antenna in Brighton is weaker than the 50-kW directional signal from the half-wave towers in Hull.
If CBS were interested in spending some dollars on its cash cow (unthinkable in this financial climate), the WEZE 590 towers in Medford would make an excellent auxiliary site for WBZ. The WEZE towers are a bit far apart for 1030, but I think they could still synthesize a nice three-leaf-clover pattern with its center lobe pointed due west and narrower lobes to the north-northeast and south-southeast. The FCC might even allow WBZ to operate with 50 kW from that site (blanketing would be an issue). But even with 25 kw or 10 kW, WBZ would have a killer auxiliary signal.
It's been several years since I've talked to anyone about this, but AFAIK the reason is mostly because the difference in cost between a 10kW transmitter and a 50kW transmitter was too much to justify it for a second-level backup; WBZ actually has two transmitters out in Hull: the IBOC primary and the AM-stereo backup.
Actually I think there's three transmitters out there, the pre-IBOC primary was never taken out of the shelter as far as I know. Seems a bit excessive, but I imagine there's a given amount of effort and hassle involved with moving any 50kW transmitter. Enough so that it's probably not worth the hassle to move it back to Allston. Especially since I'm sure some folks (myself included) still consider AM-IBOC an "unproven" technology and thus you'd want to keep two "proven good" transmitters at your main transmitter site. Even if one of them may very well not be hooked up to anything at the moment.
We do that at WEOS; our old pre-IBOC Continental is sitting peacefully on a pallet in our transmitter room. It's not hooked up to anything and would probably take a solid day to put back into service. But that's a lot faster than it'd take if we had to physically move the damn thing back out to the site. That said, one of these days I've got a mind to move it back to campus and put it on an RF switch with W212BA; the antenna array W212BA was WEOS's old antenna before we moved out the cell tower in Seneca some 15 years ago. It'd make an excellent aux site, too...if the actual room where our gear is wasn't already crammed full of HWS Theater crap because the gym on the other side of the wall has been converted into a theater space. Grrr....
Why? I mean, I hear what you're saying. But, excepting for the regular testing that I assume WBZ does...the Allston tower is lit up for perhaps a week every few years. Why pay money to rent WEZE's towers for something so rarely used? After all, the 10kW backup does work quite well for a second-level backup, especially in town.
aaronread said:
Hull is a very exposed location and nor'easters can really raise hell with the site--big-time. The towers and ATUs aren't the only things there that are vulnerable. High seas could take out the entire building and its contents. And then there's the issue of the site being in a Logan glide path. For a station that is as important as WBZ is to the region it serves, constructing an aux site that provides better market coverage than Allston could be justified--at least when the economy is rockn'. The same could be said about WGY, which should have an aux site at the WROW site or the WDCD (ex-WPTR) site. True, the WEZE site is not invulnerable, either. I suppose it's more vulnerable than 1170 SFR. If sea level rises by 23' by the year 2150 as I've heard it will, and if Boston is still inhabited, and if anyone is still using AM, the issue of whether Wellington Circle would be above water might become an issue. Allston might still be above water under those circumstances. Since the facility at 1170 is there already, it could become the secondary backup site. I think the cost of the belt and suspenders approach could be justified.
Blackroc said:
At night, they've been going back to the regular Hull transmitter. Seems like they're only on the backup during the day while the painting is being done. The easiest way to tell when they're on the backup is to check for the IBOC hash on the sides. If it's not there, they're on the backup.
aaronread said:
I don't think that non-IBOC Hull backup still has analog (C-Quam) AM stereo running on it. I think I've heard them go to it at times in recent years (not the Soldiers Field Rd backup) and there's no IBOC, but no AM stereo either.
I listen to'BZ from Portland Maine and they still have a listenable signal from their backup transmitter.There was a lot of static in some areas,but not bad for 10kw. Here in Portland 590,680,850,1060 & 1260 are all listenable.I'm close to the water.
I know the backup transmitter at Hull did have that capability...I remember someone fired it up when they were installing the IBOC transmitter several years back. The programming was all in mono (I'm not even sure the STL has stereo capability) but if you had C-QUAM radio, you'd see the little stereo light glowing. It was a rare treat, though...as I said, I don't know if WBZ-AM even has the ability to get stereo programming to the site.
Whether or not that AM Stereo transmitter is still there, or is still the "warm standby" backup transmitter, or whether the C-QUAM is still enabled on it, I couldn't tell you. Certainly, there'd be little point to having AM Stereo running at any time for WBZ. Well, maybe during the 4th of July fireworks, but that's about it.
Well, obviously not. If the site were so exposed as you describe, then WBZ would've seen their towers and shelter washed out to sea at least a half-dozen times in the past decade. Since they haven't, I think you're overestimating just how "vulnerable" the Hull site really is. And I think you're underestimating just how effective that 10kW backup in Allston is, too. That signal gets out there pretty far.
aaronread said:
Have you read Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book, "The Black Swan"? I would guess not. It is my understanding that what I described more or less DID happen during the Blizzard of '78. Yeah that was almost 32 years ago, but just because something hasn't happened in 32 years doesn't mean that it can't happen. We were so sure that a financial collapse couldn't happen; after all, there had not been one since 1929 and all the laws that were enacted back then "guaranteed" that such times were behind us. Note that a lot of those laws were repealed as unnecessary during the '90s (Glass-Steagal, for example). People, alas, have short memories. History DOES repeat itself, and the best guarantee that it WILL repeat itself, is that people believe it can't possibly do so. Remember, a private plane felled the KFI tower only about four years ago. The very short top-loaded aux tower at the main site could not be run at more than 25 kW. KFI's coverage was significantly reduced over the years and years of wrangling over a rebuild of the tall tower. WBZ is in a Logan glide path. See the connection?
those towers would have to be 600 feet tall for them to be considered a problem for Logan, look at that cell tower IIRC in Quincy, that is 600+ feet HAAT and that one is a lot more of an issue for Logan that the WBZ towers. My recollection the BZ towers are 525 HAAT
The lights and tower painting is much more important to General Aviation pilots, especially helicopters, than commercial flights going into BOS.
Where the BZ towers are is controlled airspace from surface to flight level 70 (7 thousand feet) so nobody has any business in there without Logan's ATC knowing exactly where they are and at what altitude.
Not too far from that site, within a mile, you can fly from 500 feet to 2000 feet without being handled by Logan's controllers.
The lights and tower painting is much more important to General Aviation pilots, especially helicopters, than commercial flights going into BOS.
Where the BZ towers are is controlled airspace from surface to flight level 70 (7 thousand feet) so nobody has any business in there without Logan's ATC knowing exactly where they are and at what altitude.
Not too far from that site, within a mile, you can fly from 500 feet to 2000 feet without being handled by Logan's controllers.
Maybe Dan S. knows the answer to this.
Would the WBZ aux setup be more efficient from one of the WMKI (1260) towers in the marsh at Quincy?
Possibly, as some suggested, the WBZ aux setup is at the studio on purpose, in case some very extreme weather (or, God fobid, some national emergency) happens in order for the station to stay on the air with all of the personnel in one place.
Didn't WBZ have to go to the 10KW Soldiers' Field aux during part of the '78 blizzard due to extreme conditions in Hull?
Would the WBZ aux setup be more efficient from one of the WMKI (1260) towers in the marsh at Quincy?
Possibly, as some suggested, the WBZ aux setup is at the studio on purpose, in case some very extreme weather (or, God fobid, some national emergency) happens in order for the station to stay on the air with all of the personnel in one place.
Didn't WBZ have to go to the 10KW Soldiers' Field aux during part of the '78 blizzard due to extreme conditions in Hull?
aaronread said:
I remember it was on a July 4th maybe five or six years ago that WBZ made a big deal of promoting that they would go "AM stereo" for the July 4th evening broadcast. I don't remember whether they were running IBOC on the main transmitter yet, but they were already using that new IBOC-ready transmitter as their primary anyway, and they had discontinued regular use of AM stereo.
When it came time for the July 4th evening festivities, they failed to go AM stereo as had been promoted for the previous few days. No stereo light, nothing. I think I read that they weren't aware that AM stereo had been disconnected or dismantled on that Hull auxiliary. That time was the last I ever heard about AM stereo on WBZ.
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