WDIS/1170

If it did go silent , would Umass Radio in Orleans be able to improve its signal on the Lower Cape?

mgpt6 said:

If it did go silent , would Umass Radio in Orleans be able to improve its signal on the Lower Cape?

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Probably not. There is 1180 in Rhode Island and 1170 in Vernon, CT. WFPB/1170 is a daytimer only and even if they got a few watts at night, they would be crushed by WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia at night. WWVA has a killer signal at night here. No doubt WHAM/1180 would splatter 1170 as well. It is what it is.

For what it's worth WCTF 1170 in Vernon, CT was also rumored to be up for sale by Family Radio.

WDIS-1170, since it has to move SOMEwhere, it could change to 1160 and move to the Providence area. And maybe become another 990.

I thought it was the only service licensed to Norfolk. Could it move very far & still provide an adequate signal over Norfolk?

JIBGUY said:

WDIS-1170, since it has to move SOMEwhere, it could change to 1160 and move to the Providence area. And maybe become another 990.

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A move to 1160 might be problematic. No overlap would be permitted between WDIS's 0.25 mV/m and WWDJ's 0.025 mV/m or WDIS's 0.025 mV/m and WWDJ's 0.25 mV/m. OTOH, Alex Langer got a CP (never built, now cancelled) for an 1140 station having lots of daytime power in Greenville RI (same CoL as 990). An 1140 would also have been first adjacent to WWDJ. Conceivably, Langer's station could have diplexed with 990. IIRC, both (990 and 1140) used nine-tower arrays, but Langer never proposed a diplex. Presumably, Langer picked 1140 rather than 1160 because he knew that WDIS would be a problem with an 1160 but would be OK with an 1140.

Dan,

Langer's 1140 CP used 6 towers, the same number as 990.

Isn't 990 deleted already? They haven't been on the air in years. When you think about it though, WDIS could possibly be moved to the 990 site and modified to 990 and could go with considerable power. Then again, WDIS is the only aural service for Norfolk, MA. Who knows?

According the FCC site, the WALE is still "licensed" to apparently the "Debtor in possession".. Even though, WALE's last application for a request to stay silent in Dec 2007 was "dismissed" in Jan 2008. No filings show up since then. So apparently the Commission thinks it's on the air. - Reason WALE gave for wanting slient authority was it was using a dispropotionally-high aomunt of electricity when it was on. - The best way to re-activate WALE is to get it licensed to Providence and put a 1000 watt short stick next to an auto-salvage yard in town. --Or sell WALE and its present site to one of these new sports networks, who can afford to re-activate the site-from-hell in Greenville. - As to WDIS-1170, why couldn't they have 1000 watts (on 1160 or 1140) beaming south from the 550 site?

Could WALE run non-DA with 1000 watts, at least days? A few hundred at night? The site from hell, as Bob put it, is probably worth much more than the station.

Nothing can be done about the communities of license for WDIS & WALE as they are the only audio services licensed to their communities! Plus, how can 1170 move south when 1180 is on in Hope Valley?

N1WVQ said:

Nothing can be done about the communities of license for WDIS & WALE as they are the only audio services licensed to their communities! Plus, how can 1170 move south when 1180 is on in Hope Valley?

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Yes, they are both the only service in those communities, but the FCC might make an exception if they are were aware of all the WALE-tales of the past couple of decades.

1180 in Hope Valley... .For WDIS, 1160 might work (1470 Watertown, MA -vs- 1460-Brockton). Or, as I mentioned, move 1170 to 1140.

JIBGUY said:

N1WVQ said:

Nothing can be done about the communities of license for WDIS & WALE as they are the only audio services licensed to their communities! Plus, how can 1170 move south when 1180 is on in Hope Valley?

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Yes, they are both the only service in those communities, but the FCC might make an exception if they are were aware of all the WALE-tales of the past couple of decades.

1180 in Hope Valley... .For WDIS, 1160 might work (1470 Watertown, MA -vs- 1460-Brockton). Or, as I mentioned, move 1170 to 1140.

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The reason why 1470/Watertown worked was that Marlborough still had Channel 66 (whatever that is worth). As long their service contours (1460/1470) did not touch each other, 1460 and 1470 theoretically work alright. Norfolk is a different scenario. 1170 is the only audio service for the community. It's not exactly the Hub of the universe, but then again, neither is Greenville, RI. If 1170 or 990 were to be moved, legally, a substitute frequency must be put in place in lieu of the old frequency. I believe that is the rule. They could try to get a waiver with some very "creative" engineering to still put a City Grade over Norfolk but aiming the major lobe to a more financially viable location like Wellesley, Norwood.. et.al. Who knows.....

NHRadio said:

Could WALE run non-DA with 1000 watts, at least days? A few hundred at night? The site from hell, as Bob put it, is probably worth much more than the station.

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I doubt it. There's a 990 in Connecticut (2.5 kW DA-D), in Southington, south of Hartford. I think the calls are WXCT. Before that (probably 40 years ago--at least) there was another 990 in CT licensed to Torrington. The calls were WLCR and it ran 1 kW ND-D. WXCT came along when WLCR went dark. 1000W ND in Torrington might (or might not) work with 1000W ND on 990 in Providence, but WXCT is directional and protects WALE by day (though not at night). Despite the DA, WXCT is too close to to Providence to work with a 1 kW ND co-channel station there. WALE's 50 kW sent the equivalent of ~125W ND toward WXCT. WXCT sends the equivalent of ~250W D toward WALE. The distance between WALE and WXCT is ~71 miles.

WDIS would augment WVBF's coverage nicely.

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I don't think anybody listens to WVBF tho!

DanStrassberg said:

Alex Langer got a CP (never built, now cancelled) for an 1140 station having lots of daytime power in Greenville RI (same CoL as 990). Conceivably, Langer's station could have diplexed with 990. Langer never proposed a diplex.

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By the same token...IF 990 owner Peter Arpin were smart, he would file with the FCC to move WALE from 990 to 1140 (using the same site from hell in Burrillville RI, using 6 towers as specified in the Langer CP), with the signal pattern that had been proposed by the CP for 1140.

The proposed signal pattern, as I remember, was somewhat less restricted, especially north and west of the site. In theory, an "1140-WALE" with the CP proposed 27KW daytime and 1.2KW nights would possibly be a more viable entity than the current 990 at 50KW/5KW.

Dighton Rockhead said:

The proposed signal pattern, as I remember, was somewhat less restricted, especially north and west of the site. In theory, an "1140-WALE" with the CP proposed 27KW daytime and 1.2KW nights would possibly be a more viable entity than the current 990 at 50KW/5KW.

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1140 may have an NIF advantage over 990. The Rochester NY 990, though only 2.5 W at night, sends a wicked skywave toward Providence. OTOH, Langer's 1140 would have run only 1.2 kW at night, whereas WALE, if it ever returned to the air, would run 5 kW at night. Does anyone know where Langer had proposed to locate the 1140 transmitter? He was probably tightly constrained as to location in order to deliver an NIF signal to at least 80% of the population of Greenville, as required by FCC rules. That would probably rule out a 990/1140 diplex, unless a different CoL (Burillville, maybe) could be found for 1140. However, if WDIS can be resurrected as a full-timer, 1160 might be a better choice than either 990 or 1140. No Canadian issues that I'm aware of and the only US Class A is in Salt Lake City. There are Class Bs in ME and the Albany NY area, but protection should be easier than protecting Canada (990) or WRVA (1140).

On 1160 I hear WOBM coming in.

If I remember, the Langer 1140 CP had 3 rows of 2 towers, with the tower pairs closely spaced to each other. Not sure if the RCA phasor at 990 could be tweaked to run that pattern. If indeed it could be done, power levels would have to drop a bit due to the higher radiation efficiency of the 990 1/4 wave towers, vs. a quarter-wave at 1140.