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WBBM AM to diplex with WSCR

Schroedingers Cat said:
WMVP is the only station that puts an M-3 predicted 25 mV/m signal over all of the City of Chicago. WLS is weak on the North end of Chicago. It was even 50 or more years ago. It's surprising that WCFL didn't beat WLS in the ratings often in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Format, audio, DJs all about the same quality.
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Well first, how "weak" could WLS's 50,000-watt signal been in the north end of Chicago? In the 60's and 70's, before a lot of computer issues and new development, the signal had to be very competitive.

Second, you are dismissing the programming elements as not having been a factor. I was an observer from afar, listening to both stations at night in Baltimore. My perception is that when WCFL flipped to Top 40, WLS had grown complacent and lazy. So at that point, while I didn't feel WCFL was great, they had a "more motivated" sound than WLS. Then in the very late 60's, when WLS revamped, they were far better than WCFL. The early 70's, when it was Super CFL vs The Rock of Chicago, I thought both stations sounded incredible.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
Well first, how "weak" could WLS's 50,000-watt signal been in the north end of Chicago? In the 60's and 70's, before a lot of computer issues and new development, the signal had to be very competitive.

Second, you are dismissing the programming elements as not having been a factor. .
Click to expand...

Good points. Where I grew up northwest of Chicago, but about ten miles east of where I am now, WLS and WCFL were roughly equal in signal strength day and night in the 1960s. (Where I am now, WLS is actually a little bit stronger.)

As for programming, what follows is just my observation from experience....

When WCFL launched top 40 in 1965, some of the air staff was holdover from the former regime. While it's probably fair to say that WLS had gotten a little complacent, they still had a talent lineup that had established a following with the top 40 audience. WCFL had dayparts that sounded like top 40 from guys who didn't know or like top 40. Of course that eventually changed. But even then, WCFL wasn't exactly "higher energy" than WLS at first. WCFL also sounded a little more cluttered than WLS for those first few years. It's true that WLS had a one hour news block in the evening up until about 1967 that had to have been a tune-out. But WCFL had news on the hour and half hour along with othe format quirks. WCFL had "mini-spins" featuring snippets of three songs. I guess the idea was to give more exposure to "hot" singles, but I found it irritating. They also played oldies ("encores") that consisted of about a half dozen oldies that were more or less for regular rotation for a week. That was it. No other "encores", and when the week was over you never heard them again, but instead they were replaced with another half dozen. I thought that was just plain "weird". Then there was Dick Orkin's "Chickenman". Admittedly brilliant. But I have to beleive that a certain percentage of the audience looking for music tuned it out. And then there was the overnight jazz program. Which while, excellent, certainly didn't fit the format. Also "out of sync" was the move in 1968 to bring in Howard Miller's morning drive talk show.

Meanwhile, while all of these things were creeping into WCFL's presentation, John Rook was coming on board at WLS and tightening up things in a big way. The new acapella jingle package at WLS screamed "more music".
 
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Capsule Countdown Comments?

Where I spent a few days a year in that era was just three miles from the WJJD transmitter. WMAQ, WGN, and WBBM were about 100 mV/m, maybe a little more. WCFL was about 75-80 mV/m. WLS was way weaker, M-3 prediction was about 17 mV/m. On a 1960 vintage Zenith portable (not my radio), there was noticeable whiite noise in the signal on WLS. WGRT was just a little weaker. WSBC was stronger.

So while WLS had a "decent" signal, it was way weaker than the other five 50000 watt stations.
 
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WLS tried to move to Grace and Fullerton near Elmhurst in the 1970s. A 900 kHz station in Wisconsin kept filing objections as I recall and I don't think the FCC ever approved it.
 
cyberdad said:
Good points. Where I grew up northwest of Chicago, but about ten miles east of where I am now, WLS and WCFL were roughly equal in signal strength day and night in the 1960s. (Where I am now, WLS is actually a little bit stronger.)

As for programming, what follows is just my observation from experience....

When WCFL launched top 40 in 1965, some of the air staff was holdover from the former regime. While it's probably fair to say that WLS had gotten a little complacent, they still had a talent lineup that had established a following with the top 40 audience. WCFL had dayparts that sounded like top 40 from guys who didn't know or like top 40. Of course that eventually changed. But even then, WCFL wasn't exactly "higher energy" than WLS at first. WCFL also sounded a little more cluttered than WLS for those first few years. It's true that WLS had a one hour news block in the evening up until about 1967 that had to have been a tune-out. But WCFL had news on the hour and half hour along with othe format quirks. WCFL had "mini-spins" featuring snippets of three songs. I guess the idea was to give more exposure to "hot" singles, but I found it irritating. They also played oldies ("encores") that consisted of about a half dozen oldies that were more or less for regular rotation for a week. That was it. No other "encores", and when the week was over you never heard them again, but instead they were replaced with another half dozen. I thought that was just plain "weird". Then there was Dick Orkin's "Chickenman". Admittedly brilliant. But I have to beleive that a certain percentage of the audience looking for music tuned it out. And then there was the overnight jazz program. Which while, excellent, certainly didn't fit the format. Also "out of sync" was the move in 1968 to bring in Howard Miller's morning drive talk show.

Meanwhile, while all of these things were creeping into WCFL's presentation, John Rook was coming on board at WLS and tightening up things in a big way. The new acapella jingle package at WLS screamed "more music".
Click to expand...

I agree with you about the holdovers from the former format. Dick Williamson doing evenings comes to mind. And you're correct about the news block and overnight jazz. I also felt WCFL's first jingles as a Top 40 station, which won acclaim from some professional observers, were much too long and sounded like they came from a Broadway show. But WCFL surpassed WLS in ratings around 1967. ABC Corporate brought in John Rook to fix things, and that he did. By 1969, WLS was sounding great and shot back to the top.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Capsule Countdown Comments?

Where I spent a few days a year in that era was just three miles from the WJJD transmitter. WMAQ, WGN, and WBBM were about 100 mV/m, maybe a little more. WCFL was about 75-80 mV/m. WLS was way weaker, M-3 prediction was about 17 mV/m. On a 1960 vintage Zenith portable (not my radio), there was noticeable whiite noise in the signal on WLS. WGRT was just a little weaker. WSBC was stronger.

So while WLS had a "decent" signal, it was way weaker than the other five 50000 watt stations.
Click to expand...

Living in the Northern Chicago suburbs I do agree that WLS was weaker than the other 50K Chicago signals at my location. However, they had no serious Top 40 competitor until WYNR in 1962. WYNR's signal in the northern suburbs, especially at night was much worse. As you know WJJD was not on later in the evenings and by 62-63 they were mixing in more AOR anyway.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
I agree with you about the holdovers from the former format. Dick Williamson doing evenings comes to mind. And you're correct about the news block and overnight jazz. I also felt WCFL's first jingles as a Top 40 station, which won acclaim from some professional observers, were much too long and sounded like they came from a Broadway show. But WCFL surpassed WLS in ratings around 1967. ABC Corporate brought in John Rook to fix things, and that he did. By 1969, WLS was sounding great and shot back to the top.
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According to PD Ken Draper, WCFL wasn't out to best WLS, but to siphon off ratings and be more competitive on the Chicago radio dial. The Blore produced Encore jingle package and strong personality jocks (Jim Runyon, Joel Sebastian, Ron Britain, Barney Pip) set WCFL apart from the staid sounding WLS. While WLS had first crack at ABC-TV's popular and campy Batman series, WCFL had Dirk Orkin's creative Chickenman series. But all these features, and more commercials from higher ratings, took its toll on WCFL. Mini-spin was an attempt to play more music by shortening two songs into the time one song would take. If you really liked one of the songs, you were really pissed that WCFL chopped it. If you didn't care for Chickenman, you had to wait seemingly forever before hearing music on WCFL. And so, by Draper's own admission, they were trapped when WLS started to place more emphasis on the quantity of music it played under PD John Rook. What was built as essentially a radio gingerbread house, could not be easily remodeled by chef Draper. Interestingly enough, it was years later when Rook consulted Super 'CFL that the station finally beat WLS, but for only one book.

About the only thing this has to do with radio towers is the WMVP transmitter site in Downers Grove. It still has WCFL on the building: https://www.google.com/maps/place/4...!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d41.818086!4d-87.988396?hl=en
 
radioman148 said:
I don't know why they still have their HD on, all I can tell you is that they do still have it on.
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They both occasionally turn it off during pre-dawn hours. independent of each other. But there's no apparent pattern to it, and mostly it stays on.
 
We had WSCR on in the car coming back from Monday night's Cubs-Brewers game at Miller Park and I was extremely impressed at the HD signal. Locked on in the parking lot and, except for a few dropouts near buildings heading back to the freeway, 670's HD signal held up all the way back to Wrigleyville.
Had I not been in the car with four relatives, I'd have checked WBBM's signal to see how it sounds in Milwaukee. On past visits, it's been very good, but that also was long before this diplexing.
 
I don't believe the move has happened yet. According to FCC both the WBBM move and diplexing with WSCR as well as new WBBM auxiliary antenna are in CP (Construction Permit) stage.
 
Ah OK. Once it does, I am guessing Milwaukee could be an area where a difference (however slight) could be heard.
 
schmave said:
We had WSCR on in the car coming back from Monday night's Cubs-Brewers game at Miller Park and I was extremely impressed at the HD signal. .
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I was at the same game. :)

i don't have an HD radio in the car, but I do have experiences with them in and around Milwaukee. Central Milwaukee (including the Miller Park area). is usually where the HD signal from WSCR begins to fade. It's been a few years, but IIIRC, WBBM's HD is usually good up until about the southern city limits. But all of that said, IME, both the WSCR and WBBM HD signals continue to be "in and out" for about 20 miles north of the city limits on I-43.
 
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