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WCRN may be testing its 50-kW night signal

D

DanStrassberg

According to Scott Fybush's NERW, the new tower (fourth overall, third in the new night array) was completed a little over a week ago, on Thursday, February 8. So the idea that the 50-kW night signal could already be on the air, though unlikely, is not impossible. I can't prove it, but I think that for the last two nights (that is, the mornings of Friday 2/16 and Saturday 2/17), WCRN has been running 50 kW at least in the "experimental period" between midnight and 6:00AM. I live in Arlington on the Lexington line just north of Route 2 and just a bit less than 40 miles east of WCRN's transmitter in Leicester. WCRN's day signal here is supposed to be about 2.2 mV/m, which is OK though not huge. Because the new night pattern is slightly narrower than the day pattern and is oriented much closer to due east, the night signal should be a bit stonger; I think I calculated about 2.5 mV/m, IMS. The main problem with reception of WCRN at night seems to be the long-standing selective-fading problem. I'd say that the program material becomes unintelligible for--on average--about 10 sec out of every three minutes. However, distortion is sometimes audible even when the program remains intelligible. The effect does seem to depend somewhat on which radio I use. A GE Super Radio III appears to be worse than a Kloss Model 1 teamed with a Select-A-Tenna tunable passive loop. The combination of the Model 1 and the loop results in overall sensitivity comparable to that of the SR III.

Anyone else have any reception reports?
 
Just _before_ midnight on a Saturday night, coming in moderately well in Beverly (Jerry Doyle rerun)...maybe
an 7 out of 10 though another station is behind them (maybe WEEU from PA)--whoops! Just heard
the station "behind them" say, "We'll wrap it up. It's 10:49 pm and this is 830, WCCO"
(so, Minn. coming in behind them...) WCRN's programming is audible but the WCCO in back is distracting

And now WCRN is fading a bit (I have a loop antenna on back on my stereo, swiveling around;
still not doing much better) and WCCO a bit clearer in back
 
I had the same experience at the same time, only I didn't know the background station was WCCO. Before WCRN even existed, I never got that strong a signal from WCCO most nights. One of my radios has a signal-strength pointer and it appeared that WCRN was bouncing between a 3 and 4-out-of-a-possible-5 just about where it rests during the daytime. I can't tell if it was from a nighttime 50K operation or was being batted around by the WCCO signal. While I was observing nighttime signals, it appeared that WROL-950 was STRONGER than it should have been at 11:45 pm...nothing unusual about that.
 
Raccoon, WROL does indeed have CP's for higher night power. Night power increase has a city-of-license change to Revere. One app shows a relatively relaxed 3 tower pattern with 1 kW, the other shows a somewhat tighter pattern with 5 kW at night. Seems as thought a lot of the RF is dumped out over Cape Cod Bay in order to protect stations like WPEN down here.

Dave Gardiner

WVCH 740/WNWR 1540

Philadelphia
 
raccoonradio said:
WROL does sounds stronger--I think they had a CP for higher power?
Click to expand...

No change days. Because of the ratchet rule, WROL CAN'T change ANYTHING days without giving up A LOT of coverage. Any proposed change in day faculities would immediately invoke the requirement to substantially reduce prohibited overlap with 960 in Fitchburg. As for nights, the CP for 5 kW DA-N was never granted. WROL was going to add two towers to its existing site and change its CoL to Revere. The night pattern (quite similar to WTTT's but with even more tightly restricted radiation to the northeast, north, and northwest) would have sent a HUGE night signal toward Provincetown and the lower Cape and then on to Bermuda (where WROL could duke it out with WPEN's highly directional 21 kW night signal, which also aims in that direction). I wonder whether WROL's transmitter site has been classified as a wetland, which would prevent any tower construction there. If that's the case, it explains why no CP was granted.
 
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