Does anyone know how WLAW's (the old 93.7) signal was from WRKO's site in Burlington when they were there? What was their output power at their height? Why did use the shortest of the three towers?
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Zion Hill, Woburn MA
- Thread starter robotique
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WNTIRadio said:
You're right that WEEI's current aux antenna probably wouldn't work if as a DA, but I didn't mean to suggest that anyone try to do so. I was just using that height on the tower as an example, showing how WCRB would be dialed back significantly in power if they moved to that tower, even if not at the top.
I wouldn't know about who listens to WCRB or what people in Revere and Chelsea listen to. I've never visited Boston before (apart from the airport), and I've never listened to WCRB. I just ran the numbers for fun.
You quoted my first post (which was made inadvertently), and seem to have missed my conclusion, which was that the coverage wouldn't be great from the WEEI site, and so that there is no point in moving. On that, we agree.
Actually, what would fix all of this RE: the sub-par 99.5 signal in Boston-Cambridge would be either increasing power on the 96.3 repeater (retaining a tight cut toward Worcester) or to mirror the old WFNX repeater setup on 101.3. I remember the 101.3 repeater covered the city and Cambridge pretty well, even with only a few watts. I believe it was on the top of the new Hancock.
It just seems so weird to me that the classical music station in market can't be heard clearly at Symphony Hall and Berklee!
It just seems so weird to me that the classical music station in market can't be heard clearly at Symphony Hall and Berklee!
Mighty little WHRB is probably the music majors' preference. They play the hard core classical music: Mozart followed by Bartok or John Cage, back to something easier on the ears. All other Boston radio rotates formats but 'HRB is the same as it was when I was a Northeastern undergrad in the 70s. Jazz, classical, rock all night. Too bad they didn't change their class back before the Kiss in Maine went on the air. :-\ Actually, they play hard core everything: truly educational radio.HHH said:
HHH said:
I don't think that the 101.3 frequency was considered usable by the FCC because of the second-adjacent to 101.7, except for that WFNX made a special agreement for their second-adjacent translator to relay only THEIR OWN programming. I doubt that Clear Channel, now owners of 101.7, would now agree to a second-adjacent translator relaying different programming from the Hancock, a mile from their transmitter on Financial Place.
The 96.3 translator also had to get a special agreement from 96.9 just to allow third-adjacent five-watt operation from a mile across the river from their transmitter on the Pru. I doubt they would agree to an increase for it.
Funny thing is about 101.3, if you put it up high enough, and in the same place (1 Financial) the interference wouldn't even go halfway to the ground.
It's all about ratios, and with the sites co-located (would require some tight BP filtering on the translator) the ratio of 5-10 watts vs. 1.7kW would make the translator work.
96.3 serves a very specific purpose of covering Beacon Hill. It was put there at the urging of a wealthy WGBH donor that couldn't hear it due to the shadowing from the hill itself. Not sure how 99.5 comes in on the hill, but I would imagine better since it faces the WCRB transmitter. Haven't checked it out in the neighborhood lately.
It's all about ratios, and with the sites co-located (would require some tight BP filtering on the translator) the ratio of 5-10 watts vs. 1.7kW would make the translator work.
96.3 serves a very specific purpose of covering Beacon Hill. It was put there at the urging of a wealthy WGBH donor that couldn't hear it due to the shadowing from the hill itself. Not sure how 99.5 comes in on the hill, but I would imagine better since it faces the WCRB transmitter. Haven't checked it out in the neighborhood lately.
From the folklore that I've heard 98.5 never actually turned on a transmitter in Burlington. The antenna pylon was put there when the middle tower was built but an antenna was never installed on it. I've been in that Burlington building a number of times over the past 40 years and there is no sign that an FM transmitter was ever in there.
WGBH tried mightily to move from Blue Hill to one of the Newton/Needham towers. They asked, and were given, permission from WZBC but the FCC rejected the application. Not because of 3rd adjacent issues with ZBC, but because WGBH wanted to keep their (equivalent) grandfathered ERP even though they'd moved. It would've been a killer signal...60kW @ 350m HAAT or something like that (most Needham/Newton stations are closer to 10kW). But the FCC demanded that if they were gonna move, they'd have to de-rate down to Class B equivalent (50kW @ 150m HAAT) like everyone else.
Still would've been a nice signal, but arguably the 98kW from Blue Hill would've been better. So they gave up and stayed.
Still would've been a nice signal, but arguably the 98kW from Blue Hill would've been better. So they gave up and stayed.
WNTIRadio said:
Not necessarily true in this case! I believe that when WLAW-FM left the WRKO center tower, Class B FMs were still permitted to run only 20 kW @ 500' AAT. The WLAW-FM antenna came down in an ice storm and the owners of WLAW AM/FM (Hildreth and Rogers and the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, I believe), decided that FM wasn't worth the hassle and turned in the FM license.
Another possibility that has been mentioned for 99.5 is the old 100.7 tower in Lexington (co-located with AM 1150 and 1470). However, even if 99.5 were to downgrade to a B-1, I think that site would also be short-spaced to WPLM-FM. I don't recall who owned 93.7 when it moved to Peabody, but that site must have seemed better to the owners than either of the two AM sites I just mentioned.
DanStrassberg said:
American Radio Systems, the call letters were WEGQ ("The Eagle"), the format was '70s (and some '80s) pop and rock, a format that would nowadays be called "classic hits".
101.3 was only allowable because it was co-owned and was a fill-in translator for the old WFNX when it was by Malden Hospital. There was no way to keep it on the air once 101.7 moved to One Financial Center by South Station.
If 96.3 could be expanded, WGBH would've already. It has to have an incredibly tight null westward because of WSRS 96.1's mammoth signal out of Worcester. At the time it needed a third-adjacent waiver from 96.9, too...although in today's climate that would be more routine.
More to the point, though, is that low-wattage translators can reach impressive distances for in-car listening but classical typically targets more of an in-building listening audience and you can't do that in Boston with a 10 watt translator, or even with a 100 watt translator. Too many "concrete canyons", too much blanketing interference from OFC and the Pru. You really need at least 1000 watts to have enough building penetration for reliable indoor FM listening.
aaronread said:
Under current rules, it would be trivial to make a no-interference D/U showing to co-locate the 101.3 translator with 101.7 at One Financial Center, and would probably be simple enough to make such a showing for the new Hancock as well. But what seems obvious in 2013 - keep the translator around and feed it from an HD2 - wasn't even within the realm of conceivability when the old W267AI existed. In 1990-whatever, the correct answer to "why do I need a translator that's co-located with my main signal" was "you don't; shut it down." 0
KC9AIC said:
there is free-software for this
http://www.qsl.net/kd2bd/splat.html
USGS releases terrain information which can be loaded into it somehow..
AFAIK, SPLAT doesn't do Longley-Rice contour plots and analysis; that's what you need as far as the FCC is concerned.
SPLAT is handy for making signal matrix plots that probably are more accurate in representing listenable signal coverage, but not contour plots. It's also fantastically difficult to use as it's a command-line program...a poor choice for serious work in this arena.
SPLAT is handy for making signal matrix plots that probably are more accurate in representing listenable signal coverage, but not contour plots. It's also fantastically difficult to use as it's a command-line program...a poor choice for serious work in this arena.
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