[BC] Re: A new way for small stations to survive!

Thu Apr 26 13:53:20 CDT 2007

Actually, the tower sits on concrete piers about 4 feet tall in the middle of
a courtyard. The ground system used to run over the top of the building (and
connect to the building as well), but all that was cut up by roofing
contractors a few years ago (who also cut the 1/2 inch foam heliax into 4
pieces; WJIB now uses a 200 foot run of RG-8 from the transmitter room to the
tower). There are four ground rods connected to the tower legs below the base
insulators by 4 inch copper straps (and these are bonded to the ATU as well-if
you could call it bonded, the ATU is a rusted out box that's about 40 years
old); right now that's likely the only ground system there is.

Nontheless, WJIB still gets out remarkably well. I only base my conmments on
the fact that it used to come in fairly well in Dorchester
(the far side of Boston) on it's low power night signal, now it's spotty
there.

The transmitter is a 400 watt Nautel; processing is an Orban 9100B. 
Bob does still run in AM stereo (including at night). Studios are on site
which likely adds to the clean audio they transmit.

-D

------ Original Message ------
Received: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 01:13:03 PM EDT
From: "Bailey, Scott" <sbailey at nespower.com>
To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Subject: RE: [BC] Re: A new way for small stations to survive!

I've seen a pic of it. Is that building it sits on a metal building? If
the roof is metal, it may be acting as a kind of ground plane. If not,
maybe a unipole of some sort might help the situation somewhat. Is the
whole ground system gone, or is just parts of it left?  It doesn't
surprise me about the zip cord (HA!)

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net
[mailto:broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of Dana Puopolo
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 12:03 PM
To: Broadcasters' Mailing List
Subject: RE: [BC] Re: A new way for small stations to survive!

The WJIB tower is a square base series fed self supporting tower. The
feed
goes to one of the legs. I made a temporary repair last summer to the
feed.
Someone had put in half a piece of 18 guage zip cord to feed the tower
via a
strut and I replaced it with a piece of RG8 (using both the center and
the
shield for the conductor).  It's probab;ly still there.

-D

------ Original Message ------
Received: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:47:09 PM EDT
From: "Bailey, Scott" <sbailey at nespower.com>
To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Subject: RE: [BC] Re: A new way for small stations to survive!

Dana,
  Is that tower series feed or does it have a unipole on it?  

-----Original Message-----
From: broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net
[mailto:broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of Dana Puopolo
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 11:43 AM
To: Broadcasters' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [BC] Re: A new way for small stations to survive!

Yeah, but the signal isn't whet it used to be. There's no ground system
any
more. It used to go over the roof of the self storage place, but they
destroyed it when they put a new roof on.

-D

------ Original Message ------
Received: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:05:10 PM EDT
From: Rich Wood <richwood at pobox.com>
To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Subject: Re: [BC] Re: A new way for small stations to survive!

------ At 11:27 AM 4/26/2007, David A Gardiner wrote: -------

>I've heard Willie's show on an mp3, and it's well done. And for Bob
>Bittner, what more CAN you say? He's found his audience and is
>superserving it. Maybe the industry would do well by taking note of how
>these two stations do things, and really listen to the audience rather
>than the beancounters...

I used to live in Cambridge. What we're not including here is Bob's 
extreme good fortune in having the best 250 watt signal I've ever 
seen. Kaiser/Globe Broadcasting owned it when it was WJIB(FM) AM as 
WCAS. We were all amazed at the signal. As WCAS we targeted the 
close-in suburbs (Watertown, Cambridge, Arlington, Somerville). The 
station has a history of being responsive to its listeners. Bob has 
racheted it up to superservice.

Rich 

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