I'm posting this here even though WBLI is a Long Island signal because it has to do with the station's signal within the city, or lack of it sometimes. If it's only 30 miles out, then why can it be so difficult to pick up? There are several recievers on Global Tuners in the city, and only one seems to be able to get WBLI, and even then, it seems to be largely dependent on which way the antenna is turned, though I don't know which way it's turned right now, though guessing away from WBLI. Even so, at 30 miles, shouldn't it be clear as a bell?
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WBLI in the city
- Thread starter bobdavcav
- Start date
WBLI is highly directional. While it is nominally 49 kw, the signal towards midtown Manhattan on the 260° radial is 7.8 kw. Its 60 dbu barely hits the Nassau County line. It protects adjacent channel WQXR on the ESB.
WBLI is down 8 db in the deepest point of its null, while WALK is only down 3.8 db. WALK has about 15 kw ERP towards Manhattan, while WBLI sends about 7 kw in that direction.
My history/memory is both vague and vivid on WBLI, since I don't have any documentation.
But if have it right, the station was WPAC 1580's FM sister and ran at 1000 watts omni (and mono). The owners were Adams-Getchall, who also owned the AM and FM of what became WRCN.
Beck-Ross, who owned an FM station in Hartford on 105.9, bought the small and somewhat neglected FM 106.1 for -- iIrc -- $170,000. In early 1971 'WBLI' operated from a trailer in the pine barrens next to WPAC's two towers, and broadcast off one of them for a while.
Within a short while the station moved the studios to something called the Wedgeworth (?) building .... began broadcasting from a self-supporting stick in Famingville .... and raised the power.
And for a few years after, WBLI, a Drake-sounding Top 40, blew away every other Long Island station in the ratings. I believe WBLI ran something like 11,000 watts. With the power increase they were made to protect then-WHBI Newark on 105.9. (I doubt the new WBLI 'unofficially' needed any such arrangement with Hartford's 105.9, since they were owned by the same company, but engineers here would know more about that.)
So if I get this right, the most recent fly in the coverage-contour ointment was the 105.9 move from Newark to the ESB? If that's so, then it becomes 105.9's duty to avoid bouncing into WBLI's signal, correct?
Back when Arbitron publicly released every result of 12+ short of fingerprints on FCC operators' licenses, WBLI regularly showed with things like a 0.9 to a 1.1 in the New York book. Fellow Bald Hill mountain dweller WALK used to do the same. For WBLI, a station whose main signal misses a mere 13,000,000 of New York NY's audience, that's not too shabby.
But if have it right, the station was WPAC 1580's FM sister and ran at 1000 watts omni (and mono). The owners were Adams-Getchall, who also owned the AM and FM of what became WRCN.
Beck-Ross, who owned an FM station in Hartford on 105.9, bought the small and somewhat neglected FM 106.1 for -- iIrc -- $170,000. In early 1971 'WBLI' operated from a trailer in the pine barrens next to WPAC's two towers, and broadcast off one of them for a while.
Within a short while the station moved the studios to something called the Wedgeworth (?) building .... began broadcasting from a self-supporting stick in Famingville .... and raised the power.
And for a few years after, WBLI, a Drake-sounding Top 40, blew away every other Long Island station in the ratings. I believe WBLI ran something like 11,000 watts. With the power increase they were made to protect then-WHBI Newark on 105.9. (I doubt the new WBLI 'unofficially' needed any such arrangement with Hartford's 105.9, since they were owned by the same company, but engineers here would know more about that.)
So if I get this right, the most recent fly in the coverage-contour ointment was the 105.9 move from Newark to the ESB? If that's so, then it becomes 105.9's duty to avoid bouncing into WBLI's signal, correct?
Back when Arbitron publicly released every result of 12+ short of fingerprints on FCC operators' licenses, WBLI regularly showed with things like a 0.9 to a 1.1 in the New York book. Fellow Bald Hill mountain dweller WALK used to do the same. For WBLI, a station whose main signal misses a mere 13,000,000 of New York NY's audience, that's not too shabby.
Yes, and that is why 105.9 is 600 watts from the ESB. It had to protect the WBLI contour, just as WBLI protects the original Newark operation's contour.
But on the other side, all of Long Island is also part of the New York book, what listening any station that only covers that area has will be part of the NY book.
WKJY is in Hempstead in Nassau County, only a few miles from the eastern edge of Queens. The other two are in the middle of Suffolk County, and barely put a usable signal into the eastern part of Nassau County.
Hey there homeboy-of-sorts DJL ....
My Grandpa, after whom I was named, lived during the 50's and 60's in Massapequa, along a canal. IIrc the address was 64 Jackson Place.
Maternal cousins, refugees from Queens, lived at 321 Ocean Avenue Massapequa Park.
Wow, were both places 'way out in the country then, hi.
Super-directional WGLI 1290 sent a horrible signal into both Massapequa's.
Anyhow: The farther south in the older Massapequa one went, the louder WGLI was. Anywhere in the populated portion-- and closer portion -- of the newer Massapequa PARK, the big northern half, WGLI was fuzzy.
Translation : WGLI could not send one more watt westward, for fear of stepping a toe onto WADO 1280's turf. Decades later -- I know the CE of WGLI at that time -- WADO 1280 bought WGLI and euthanased it. There was a try to put a 'new' WGLI back on the air .... something like 50 watts or 100 watts. The move went nowhere.
Denouement: WQXR 105.9 can't send any more of their watts east. WBLI holds the high card this time.
My Grandpa, after whom I was named, lived during the 50's and 60's in Massapequa, along a canal. IIrc the address was 64 Jackson Place.
Maternal cousins, refugees from Queens, lived at 321 Ocean Avenue Massapequa Park.
Wow, were both places 'way out in the country then, hi.
Super-directional WGLI 1290 sent a horrible signal into both Massapequa's.
Anyhow: The farther south in the older Massapequa one went, the louder WGLI was. Anywhere in the populated portion-- and closer portion -- of the newer Massapequa PARK, the big northern half, WGLI was fuzzy.
Translation : WGLI could not send one more watt westward, for fear of stepping a toe onto WADO 1280's turf. Decades later -- I know the CE of WGLI at that time -- WADO 1280 bought WGLI and euthanased it. There was a try to put a 'new' WGLI back on the air .... something like 50 watts or 100 watts. The move went nowhere.
Denouement: WQXR 105.9 can't send any more of their watts east. WBLI holds the high card this time.
If memory serves me correctly, I once saw a WGLI media kit and they were 5000 watts north east / south west during the day, and 1000 watts south at night. I have heard 2 stories of their signal going where it shouldn't have been. The first one was someone damming up the waterway that was behind and around their towers one day and as a result they were getting calls from New Jersey. That incident was quickly rectified. The other one (and I actually listened to this one), one Saturday evening the DJ that was on went to change over from day time to night time power and direction, he didn't know it, but the direction didn't take, and they were at 1000 watts non directional, and I was picking them up clearly the whole drive to Kings Park which is on the north shore. And the night time pattern was supposed to start dropping off about a mile north of the towers.
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