Red Sox Coverage At The Lake

[Rattlesnake Gal]

We've had no luck getting reception for Red Sox games at the lake. :emb:
Hopefully WASR Radio 1420 AM (http://www.wasr.net/) is the ticket!
The Lake Winnipesaukee Network, Inc.
Listen to every game...all season long. :banana:
Check out their great schedule.

[Grant]

A few years ago, my dad had cable installed at his place. Wow -- what a difference after years of turning the antenna this way and that to get a better signal from WMUR and the Portland station. Now he gets NESN and watches the Sox just about every night from May through September. I suppose that for those who want NESN on an island, satellite is the only answer. But I don't know. Do any of you islanders have cable?

Another option: Some radio stations have web streams that are made public, while others have them and they aren't public (but still exist). I was just given the URL for a major local station's web stream yesterday.

Funny -- I've found that I get Boston radio stations (AM) CLEAR AS DAY driving between DC and Baltimore. Must be that long stretch of open ocean between the two regions that allows the signal to travel. Pretty cool. I also listened to the Sox-Yankmees opener in my truck down here in Philadelphia area this year.

[Steve]

WEEI isn't allowed to stream Sox games. It's against the contract with MLB. I purchased the "Game Day Audio" from MLB.com for $14.95 for the season. Now i can catch the game wherever I am if I have internet access. By the way, the stream is still WEEI. Go figure.

[Rattlesnake Gal]

Steve and Grant, thanks for the information about the web stream. It sounds pretty good, though I’m not sure if our dial up is fast enough. I’ll certainly look into it.
Lack of Sox coverage is the thing we miss most when at the lake. Unfortunately, Rattlesnake Island is not equipped with cable. (Not always a bad thing.) Satellite won’t work where we are, too much rock to catch a signal. I think we would have the same trouble with an antenna. Right now we get three stations, Maine, Maine and Maine. None of them broadcast the Red Sox. Occasionally we get lucky with a Sea Dogs game.
Thanks again! Hope it works for us too.

[jrc]

Assuming you can get coverage due to satellite direction. Their web page says:

Starting with Spring Training, XM brings you LIVE, play-by-play game broadcasts from every MLB team, all season long on XM Channels 176-189. Select MLB games will be broadcast in Spanish on XM 190

You won't get every game but they are the defending champs, they should get quite a few games broadcast.

[Skipper of the Sea Que]

I looked at the 2005 Red Sox Radio Network Affiliates (http://www.redsoxconnection.com/audio.html) web site for stations that may reach the Lake. Today the list does not include WASR Wolfeboro so the web list may be outdated.

Concord WKXL 1450 AM
Franklin WFTN 1240 AM
Hillsboro WKXL 107.7 FM
Laconia WEMJ 1490 AM
Lebanon WTSL 1400 AM
Littleton WLTN 1400 AM
Manchester WGIR 610 AM

The signals of both WEMJ 1490 and WASR 1420 are somewhat limited. Night time makes it harder to hear both stations. WASR also reduces their signal at night. Prime signal is in the local area defined by the red line.

The predicted WASR daytime coverage map
http://www.radio-locator.com/pats/WASR_AM_LD.gif

and at night the prime coverage shrinks to:
http://www.radio-locator.com/pats/WASR_AM_LN.gif

The WEMJ predicted coverage pattern looks like this:
http://www.radio-locator.com/pats/WEMJ_AM_LU.gif

Hope this is of some help in predicting where you will be able to hear the Sox.

[Mee-n-Mac]

{snip} Night time makes it harder to hear both stations. WASR also reduces their signal at night. {snip}

The statement above tweaks my curiousity. I take it that it's not uncommon for stations to reduce their power at night. Why would they do this ? I can only guess that atmospheric conditions and trying to prevent overlap might play into it. Then again maybe it's pure economics. Can you satisfy my curiosity and clue me in :D

[pmj]

The new 107.7 FM (the Pulse) is the new Red Sox affiliate station in the Concord/Lakes Region area. The reception is great here in Alton and I think you will be pleased with an FM station carrying the games.

PMJ

[Skip]

...I can only guess that atmospheric conditions and trying to prevent overlap might play into it. Then again maybe it's pure economics. Can you satisfy my curiosity and clue me in :D

Always go with your first guess.

In layman's terms (even though I am addressing an engineer) the warming of the atmosphere at lower levels during daylight hours causes low level ionization. Since transmissions in the AM band by nature propogate by ground wave, and the ionization of the atmosphere at low levels tends to observe skywaves, range during daylight hours usually will not exceed 100 miles even at high power levels.

At night the lower level ionization dissipates. This allows skywave propogation and a high powered AM transmitter in the frequency band we're concerned with could propogate thousands of miles. Since there are a limited number of AM channels available, and those channels are repeated over and over, chaos would result as stations overlapped.

Also, many AM stations consist of multiple antennas that are configured as to give the transmit site directional vice omni-directional range.

Now, except for some high profile stations with "clear channels" that broadcast thousands of miles at night, the FCC requires most stations to change power levels and directivity during day or night operations.

Here on the seacoast you can actually listen to local AM station WTSN (1270) shift power and directional patterns around dawn every morning. If they aren't on the ball when they switch over, usually static and dead air follows.

As the Skipper will tell you, gone are the days when stations had an engineer on duty to handle these technicalities. Nowadays, to save a few bucks, everything is computerized or handled by the on-air personality. Makes for some comical mistakes at times!

Phew, that was long. I'm sure the Skipper may weigh in with some clearer details.....hey, this is the stuff that may get some interested follower involved in ham radio!

73, ;)

Skip

[Mee-n-Mac]

Thanks for the explanation Skip, that's what I was thinking. As a result I will be refunding the last tuition check you sent. :laugh: