[BC] Coastal 1A s

[Robert Meuser]

Bill Brister wrote:

>I have a question about coastal 1A radio stations. Only two coastal 1A's
>that I know of use directional antennas. WBZ, Boston to eliminate signal
>waste over the Atlantic Ocean and WWL, New Orleans to eliminate the Gulf of
>Mexico. They put a much stronger signal over the land areas of the country
>as a result.
>
>The rest use non-directional antennas. It seems that stations like KFI and
>KNX in Los Angeles put half of their signals into the Pacific Ocean. The
>1A's in New York City would have a little bigger challenge covering New
>England and the East Coast but I would think that could be overcome rather
>easily.
>
>  
>
The problem with New York 1 As is that Long Island and Conneticuit are 
both east of the market. To directioanlize away from the ocean, would 
cut out a lot of the market. At one time WNBC had a directional on Long 
Island; when there was not much population on the eastern end of the 
island. Long Island's poor ground conductivity is in general not a good 
place to place an AM transmitter site.

I was just thinking the other day that it would actually be in the 
interest of some stations to have no max power limit, provided the 
excess RF did not cross the Canadian or Mexican border.  That stations 
either radiate the equivaent of 50 KW into a 200 deg tower or their max 
radiation now towards those countries but could push all the RF they 
wanted across a market into the ocean. As an example in New York a 
station located in the Meadowlands could push a lot more RF through 
Manhattan (where they all need more) and then across Long Island. KFI 
could locate East of LA and do something similar.  I am not sure how 
many stations would take advantage of such an option, but it is not 
unlike the exception make for expanded band 10 KW operation at night.

R