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What will be the new format for WRCA?

DavidEduardo said:


It's not about "Irish Population" but about Irish heritage persons who like traditional Irish music. You might look at the formats and ratings of stations in Ireland to see how small a segment that is... and that is in Ireland itself. Most Irish in the US today are well beyond first generation and are, like me, only prone to caring about the music on St Patrick's Day, if at all.

For any population, you have to look at how many first generation folks there are, as using of ethnic radio lessens in the second generation and is all but gone in the third.

As mentioned, the market has over 500,000 Hispanics, 11.4% of the population based on 2016 ACS (Census Bureau) data. In most comparable markets, about 50% of Hispanics will be Spanish dominant, with another significant percentage being bilingual. But, since the original population in the Boston area came from Puerto Rico in a migration that lasted through the 50's and 60's, most under-55 year old Hispanics descendant from those migrants are second and even third generation.

On the other hand, there are lots of national buys for Hispanic audiences but there are absolutely zero for Brazilians.
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I may be wrong on this, but I believe most of the Portuguese-dominant population in eastern Massachusetts is Portuguese (mainly Cape Verdean) rather than Brazilian. WJFD in New Bedford, a full-power FM, has served this population very well for years. I assume its billing is nearly 100% local, but you'd think national brands like Budweiser and McDonald's might want to place Portuguese-language spots on WJFD to reach a sizable minority that isn't listening to English-language radio, wouldn't you?
 
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CTListener said:
I may be wrong on this, but I believe most of the Portuguese-dominant population in eastern Massachusetts is Portuguese (mainly Cape Verdean) rather than Brazilian. WJFD in New Bedford, a full-power FM, has served this population very well for years. I assume its billing is nearly 100% local, but you'd think national brands like Budweiser and McDonald's might want to place Portuguese-language spots on WJFD to reach a sizable minority that isn't listening to English-language radio, wouldn't you?
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The cost of doing Portuguese language creative for such a small market is probably the limiting factor.
 
The brokered format was mostly Spanish before anyway, for many years, so if they decide on Spanish of any sort, it would be more of an actual attempt to program Spanish radio on the signal by the company instead of doing it all leased.
 
Jimmy128 said:
WRCA is getting interference at night from WWRV New York, which is also 1330 am. They are sending their signal far to the east over the ocean.

But, they are seemingly going to correct this with sending their signal to the south.
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The maps you pointed to are groundwave coverage contours, and reflect the high conductivity of salt water along the Long Island Sound. This has nothing to do with night skywave. In fact, WWRV has a severe null pointed towards the northeast and in the direction of the Boston area.

WRCA is, in any case, not being interfered with by WWRV. Both are licensed in accordance with the interference rules of the FCC. All stations operating at night produce skywave; the FCC controls how much of each station's skywave can interfere with the signal of others.

So WWRV is not correcting anything. They have to move their site and in doing so have a slightly different coverage pattern.
 
DavidEduardo said:


The maps you pointed to are groundwave coverage contours, and reflect the high conductivity of salt water along the Long Island Sound. This has nothing to do with night skywave. In fact, WWRV has a severe null pointed towards the northeast and in the direction of the Boston area.

WRCA is, in any case, not being interfered with by WWRV. Both are licensed in accordance with the interference rules of the FCC. All stations operating at night produce skywave; the FCC controls how much of each station's skywave can interfere with the signal of others.

So WWRV is not correcting anything. They have to move their site and in doing so have a slightly different coverage pattern.
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I hear Spanish preaching under the music. That's what WWRV broadcasts.
 
Jimmy128 said:
I hear Spanish preaching under the music. That's what WWRV broadcasts.
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You probably are listening outside the interference free night contour of WRCA, which fall inside the inner (red) contour here:

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WRCA-AM&h=N

While a station may show "well" on the "for amusement purposes only" radio-locator maps, at night the FCC establishes the contour inside of which a station should not experience interference at night from other co-channel stations. That interference-free contour can be much smaller than the "local" (which is, today, very unrealistic) contour on radio-locator.
 
Wimmmex said:
Radio-locator finally put back up the the map & pattern for WRCA.

Doesn't look too bad. Seems to put a strong signal over the "inside 128" area both day:

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WRCA-AM&h=D

and nite:

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WRCA-AM&h=N
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Remember that the red contour is 5 mV/m, and in most noisy urban environments, 10 mV/m is usually the minimum for good reception. And also, as mentioned to Jimmy 128, at night the interference free contour is often well inside the 5 mV/m contour.
 
Wimmmex said:
Yes, I know that....and it's getting worse.

You mean you're not Latino?
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First, I am not fond of the term "Latino". One of my daughters used to wear, until it fell apart, a T-shirt that said, "I am not Latino. I am not Hispanic. I am Puerto Rican."

I am classified as Hispanic by the Census (In Puerto Rico, the Census taker does the classification, not the respondent. Since I am culturally Hispanic, that's what they filed me as...).

No different than my distant relatives in Mexico (including a professor at the UNAM and the wife of the former Mexican Ambassador in London) who are descendants of the San Patricios.

I know of areas in LA where KFI has a 25 mV/m signal and still gets covered with man-made noise. And in most homes and businesses, the dimmers, wall warts, other switching power supplies, CFLs and LED bulbs and fluorescent lamps make AM virtually impossible. I lived in townhouse style condos there for 23 years, and AM was very hard to listen to... made hearing the AM I programmed, even with its 50 kw, a challenge until I put an outside antenna on the roof! (I don't think the average listener is going to do that.)
 
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DavidEduardo said:


You probably are listening outside the interference free night contour of WRCA, which fall inside the inner (red) contour here:

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WRCA-AM&h=N

While a station may show "well" on the "for amusement purposes only" radio-locator maps, at night the FCC establishes the contour inside of which a station should not experience interference at night from other co-channel stations. That interference-free contour can be much smaller than the "local" (which is, today, very unrealistic) contour on radio-locator.
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I'm listening from Salem and Peabody which are both just outside the inside contour.

BTW, I was getting WWRV at night when WRCA was off the air. Whatever the reason, I'm just glad they are changing their signal at night.
 
Jimmy128 said:
I'm listening from Salem and Peabody which are both just outside the inside contour.
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That is likely the area where WRCA is not guaranteed interference free reception.

[FONT]BTW, I was getting WWRV at night when WRCA was off the air. Whatever the reason, I'm just glad they are changing their signal at night.
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The radiation towards Boston will not be significantly decreased. There is already a null with its minima at 60°, and that does not change. What they are doing is moving about 2 miles south and about a quarter mile east referenced to the old site. The pattern is nearly identical to the old one, but with a bit less energy wasted off the back of the main lobe.[/FONT]
 
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DavidEduardo said:


The radiation towards Boston will not be significantly decreased. There is already a null with its minima at 60°, and that does not change. What they are doing is moving about 2 miles south and about a quarter mile east referenced to the old site. The pattern is nearly identical to the old one, but with a bit less energy wasted off the back of the main lobe.
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It still may be some sort of improvement. At least according to the map. And they will be operating at less power at night.
 
Jimmy128 said:
It still may be some sort of improvement. At least according to the map. And they will be operating at less power at night.
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I looked at the radials in the FCC filing. There is very little difference in the signal in the deep null towards the Boston area. A small change in power is not going to have much effect on skywave, anyway.

The radio-locator maps used to have a disclaimer "for amusement purposes only". They should still have that notice.

And the radio-locator site says, "Please note that this map only shows the predicted "groundwave" coverage of this radio station. At night, changes in the Earth's ionosphere can greatly extend the coverage of AM radio stations. This is known as skywave propogation (sic) which is not shown on this map. So at night, you may be able to hear this station from a distance much farther than indicated above."
 
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I thought R-L's contours were the exact same as the FCC's, and are thus just as accurate (and could still be used in an advertising campaign, etc.)
 
Wimmmex said:
But Gleason is of Irish decent, no?
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It's a Celtic name, via migration from what is present day Galicia and Basque Country in today's Spain.

Vicente Fox, Carlos Slim, Alberto Fujimori, Carlos Menem, Assad Bucaram, Jaime Nebot, Patricio Aylwin, Bernardo O'Higgins, Guillermo Brown are all names of significant past and present political and business leaders from Latin America.

And that is without looking at the many Indigenous names from the Andean zone... Maiguashca, Quispe, Guayasamin, Chasi, etc.

Less than 30% of the surnames in the Buenos Aires phone book (looking back to when they last had them) are "Spanish" (from Spain or the various regions in Spain). Over 40% are of Italian origin, with large groups of German, English, Irish, French, Russian and Polish names, as well as a huge Lebanese heritage community.
 
Tomgsinger said:
I thought R-L's contours were the exact same as the FCC's, and are thus just as accurate (and could still be used in an advertising campaign, etc.)
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They are plots of the basic data from the FCC. They are not measured contours, and in the case of FM, they do not take into account certain aspects of terrain. In the case of FM, they do not take into account deeper surveys of ground conductivity.

The major issue is that what they call "primary" is exaggerated. What they call "secondary" is often absurd, given co-channel and adjacent channel stations in areas they supposedly cover in those maps.

In the case of AM, we know from ratings analysis that there is very little total listening outside the 10 mV/m contours of stations, and essential no indoor listening outside that contour. Yet Radio Locator considers 5 mV/m to be a primary contour. With today's interference, that just does not happen except in very rural areas.

In this case, the poster is referring to the skywave interference on WRCA, something the R-L maps do not show at all.
 
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