The New York Radio Message Board has a thread about the silencing of 1230 AMer WFAS in White Plains NY (in the county just north of the Bronx) along with some history and nostalgia posts.
I almost immediately raised Radio-Locator to see if WEEX Easton, as a result, could change their pattern some and get more to the northeast.
But I had to stop upon seeing that WEEX is omni.
Hold out a Vane A. Jones station log for me to swear that I saw WEEX a few times as being directional; that it featured a sort of loose north-south signal that also carried well east, halfway through New Jersey. It was by far the better of the two 'local' Easton signals in the car that way along I-78; WEST 1400 being the other.
The only other 'local'/Class 4 directional I can testify remembering -- I worked across the river -- is WTXL 1490 in Springfield Mass. Two towers. Both it and WOLF Syracuse are listed as 'U-5' licenses in an older National Radio Club logbook.
But WEEX 1230 there in that same logook -- listed as U1 ..... full-time, omni, 1000 watts .... (and as 'WODE').
It's certainly not a big deal nowadays, what with stately WFAS and its legendary school-closing cumes and AQH's long gone, and with WEEX getting a 0.1 in the latest Allentown book with its Fox Sports, but yeah; two questions anyway:
1. Was WEEX 1230 ever directional or am I mis-remembering?
2. Can someone refresh my DX memory that got lost last century and tell me what does U-5 mean?
I almost immediately raised Radio-Locator to see if WEEX Easton, as a result, could change their pattern some and get more to the northeast.
But I had to stop upon seeing that WEEX is omni.
Hold out a Vane A. Jones station log for me to swear that I saw WEEX a few times as being directional; that it featured a sort of loose north-south signal that also carried well east, halfway through New Jersey. It was by far the better of the two 'local' Easton signals in the car that way along I-78; WEST 1400 being the other.
The only other 'local'/Class 4 directional I can testify remembering -- I worked across the river -- is WTXL 1490 in Springfield Mass. Two towers. Both it and WOLF Syracuse are listed as 'U-5' licenses in an older National Radio Club logbook.
But WEEX 1230 there in that same logook -- listed as U1 ..... full-time, omni, 1000 watts .... (and as 'WODE').
It's certainly not a big deal nowadays, what with stately WFAS and its legendary school-closing cumes and AQH's long gone, and with WEEX getting a 0.1 in the latest Allentown book with its Fox Sports, but yeah; two questions anyway:
1. Was WEEX 1230 ever directional or am I mis-remembering?
2. Can someone refresh my DX memory that got lost last century and tell me what does U-5 mean?