Re: [IRCA] WACE 730

[Scott Fybush <scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

bill kral wrote:

> WACE 730 heard 1 hour after LSS must have continued on
> their 5KW power since it would be unlikely that a
> signal from an 8 watt trans would go that distance,if
> that's what they use at night.Is there any point in
> cutting down to such a low power output at night? I
> figure that listeners would get other signals better
> than their local station.8 watts would confine the
> local's signal to the downtown area of that city and
> not even reach city limits.Are they trying to save
> juice or are they required to keep interference to
> others down? For most of the coverage area it would be
> like a complete shutdown.   

Indeed it is. WACE is what's called (under US rules) a "Class D" 
station, which is effectively a daytimer. Many former daytimers, like 
WACE, were allowed very limited night power beginning in the eighties to 
allow them to provide at least a little bit of service after dark. But 
they're required to not interfere with other protected service on their 
frequency (in this case, CKAC from Montreal, which puts a huge signal 
over New England at night), and the service the class D stations provide 
at night is considered "secondary," which means it can be bumped at any 
time by a higher class of facility, and that it has no requirement to 
provide any coverage at all to its city of license.

A few clever class D operators take advantage of that last clause to put 
up a second small transmitter site right in the middle of their target 
coverage area to be used for low-power night operation. A great example 
of this is WSIV 1540 East Syracuse NY, which runs 1000 watts by day from 
a site about 10 miles east of downtown Syracuse. Because 1540 is a 
Bahamas clear channel, and it has CHIN in Toronto and KXEL in Iowa and 
WDCD in Albany to protect as well, WSIV is limited to 57 watts at night. 
 From the rural daytime site, those 57 watts would reach perhaps a few 
hundred potential listeners at best.

So WSIV put up a Valcom fiberglass whip antenna and a low-power 
transmitter on top of a church building in an inner-city neighborhood in 
downtown Syracuse, and from there they run those 57 watts after sunset 
and cover much of the city.

s
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