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WROL 950 not on air Friday evening 2/19

D

DanStrassberg

Was WROL off the air last evening because of technical difficulties or have they just given up on the minimal coverage they get with 90W on a channel where the NIF is 37 mV/m (or maybe a bit less since WPEN upgraded)?

Years ago (decades ago, actually), before WROL began operating at night and even longer before WROL management apparently forgot the location of the Day/Night switch on the remote-control setup (they appear to have recently located it again), WIBX Utica was a nightly catch here, with a good, solid signal. If you look at WIBX's pattern, you can see why; nice lobe to the east. I don't think I've heard WIBX at night here in 30 years--maybe longer. Tonight, WIBX was dominating 950 with local high-school basketball and then Laura Ingraham. The signal may not have been as good as I remember it from back in the '70s, but it was solid, with few fades and no hint of WROL.
 
I caught WROL's sunrise power-up at 6:45 this AM (Sunday, 2/21//10)--right in the middle of a word (it was preaching) with no trace of the signal beforehand and a signal that sounded much weaker than usual afterward. A couple of theories: 1) WROL is in the midst of tower work and is using a much less efficient temporary antenna until the work is complete or 2) the several power levels (I believe that WROL uses three power levels--day 5 kW, PSRA 500W, and night 90W (although there could be a PSSA, which would introduce several more levels between 90W and 500W)) are created not by changing the transmitter power output (requires a fairly modern transmitter) but rather by use of switched attenuators in the antenna-coupling network. The main Tx could be out of commission temporarily and a lower power transmitter could be in use in its place. Presumably there would have been no change in the coupling network, so all power levels would be scaled down by the same ratio. If, for example, the temporary transmitter were rated at 500W, the temporary night power would be 9W. Could I hear a 9W signal on 950 at my QTH? I'm not sure. WSRO 650 runs 9W at night from Framingham. I think I have heard that on occasion, but it is usually masked by electrical interference. In this case, what is doing the masking is WIBX.
 
This morning (Monday 2/22/10) WROL WAS evident but essentially unintelligible (with preaching--Song Time???) shortly before 6:45AM sunrise. At sunrise, the signal improved substantially. I find it hard to believe, though, that the power before sunrise was anything like 10% of the power after sunrise. I could believe 1.8%, which is the ratio of the night power to the day power, however. Although I could make out that what I was hearing was preaching of some sort, I could not copy one word of it (WIBX buried it) and I couldn't recognize the program until after the power increase. It certainly would be interesting to know what's going on and why at WROL and if this operation is temporary, when it will end.

BTW, WIBX appears to do a one-hour locally produced newscast from 5:00AM to 6:00AM. Pretty amazing these days for a station in a market the size of Utica-Rome.
 
DanStrassberg said:
This morning (Monday 2/22/10) WROL WAS evident but essentially unintelligible (with preaching--Song Time???) shortly before 6:45AM sunrise. At sunrise, the signal improved substantially. I find it hard to believe, though, that the power before sunrise was anything like 10% of the power after sunrise. I could believe 1.8%, which is the ratio of the night power to the day power, however.
Click to expand...

Could it be a directional thing? Over here at South Station, they seemed to have been booming in with their normal nighttime power all night.
 
Uncle Kaimbridge said:
Could it be a directional thing? Over here at South Station, they seemed to have been booming in with their normal nighttime power all night.
Click to expand...

Nope! WROL is ND-U. I haven't been by the site in years, but last time I was there there was only one tower. They were going to add two more for their increase to 5 kW-N, but that was never built and they turned in the CP. There were two towers there back when the site belonged to the old WHDH (AM) 850, which ultimately ran 5 kW-U DA-N (protecting KOA). A few years after WHDH moved to Needham (~1948), what was then WORL took over the site as a 5 kW ND daytimer, which signed on early at full power year 'round (as permitted by FCC rules at the time).
 
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