Thought there was a thread on this subject earlier, but don't see it now. Any idea what this cancellation submission was for? A CP perhaps or digital signal?
Last edited:
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
720 WGN filing
- Thread starter JJSPC
- Start date
You are likely on to something there. On the question "Is this a request to cancel the entire facility?" the answer given is no.
I just noticed this. It looks to me like they have cancelled building the new tower. Perhaps the deal to sell the land fell through, or was modified so as to not require moving the tower. I went through all the exhibits. I didn't find a narrative regarding an explanation for the cancellation.
If WGN cancelled its license, that would signal the impending end of AM BC.
If WGN cancelled its license, that would signal the impending end of AM BC.
Last edited:
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
My guess is that it's the cancellation of BP-20221014AAA, which was a CP issued to construct a new nighttime non directional antenna:
Engineering statement under that file number:
Engineering statement under that file number:
This is the correct answer.
Most likely, the original poster realized what the filing was and deleted it.
Thanks for posting. I had never seen that, and it has better pics than most transmitter site ones. I love the tower base shot, showing the very tall insulator, a kind I had never before seen.
I started DXing in 1961. I was in third grade, and I explained DXing at a Show and Tell. My teacher was dismissive and said, "Well, if you're interested in that kind of thing". The last Delco tube radio in the car, a 1961 Oldsmobile, picked up WGN in the Daytime in Genesee County in the car. One Sunday, I heard WGN 720, CBL 740, and WJR 760 in the car, all with the same syndicated Classical Music show. My relatives from near Chicago moved there in August, 1962. We got a Magnavox Stereo Theater in November, 1962. Our relatives visited around Christmas, and the kids had already started listening to WLS. The oldest daughter said, "I bet you could get WLS on that". We tried, but the 20 kHz sidebands from WFDF interfered too much. I tried WGN, and we could get that. By the mid 1960s, WGN was sandwiched between an upgraded CJSP/CHYR 710 and newly signed on WVIC/WVFN 730, and it was still possible but more difficult. Those Maganavox Stereo Theater AM FM radios weren't super sensitive or selective. I'm not sure if it had an amplified RF Stage, and the AGC was such that on FM, you had to turn the volume way up to hear Detroit, Tri Cities, and Lansing FMs. The Zenith Consoles shortly after were much better, much better sensitivity and selectivity and AGC on AM and FM.
We got a Super Sensitive AM Sony Portable with a TRF stage in 1967. That was the one that got WGR and WKRC on 550, WAIT and WOSU on 820, and WSAM and WJLB on 1400 in the Daytime just by turning the radio to null the other one out. I heard KNX 1070 on that Radio one Night. CHOK may have been off the air, and with WIBC's null toward CHOK, it was never heard, except during 50 kW Day facility use during an Emergency.
We got a Super Sensitive AM Sony Portable with a TRF stage in 1967. That was the one that got WGR and WKRC on 550, WAIT and WOSU on 820, and WSAM and WJLB on 1400 in the Daytime just by turning the radio to null the other one out. I heard KNX 1070 on that Radio one Night. CHOK may have been off the air, and with WIBC's null toward CHOK, it was never heard, except during 50 kW Day facility use during an Emergency.
Last edited:
Totally off subject, but...
In about 7th grade in Junior High, I took a year of French. It was obligatory. At the end of the year, the teacher said, "you are excused from the language requirement and have to transfer to another class as you have no ability to learn a foreign language."
Of course, now my primary language at home and work is Spanish. I do OK in French, Italian and Portuguese and used to speak fairly fluent Quechua.
I was crap at school, dumped in the lowest class for most stuff, and didn't go to college. I just didn't get on with the school environment at all. Then I got a first-class degree in my 30s and now work at a top-10 selective university, where there are plenty of people like me who are there later in life but struggled in school.
It's almost as though schools don't really know what they're doing, have teachers who are phoning it in, and are full of negative and unpleasant behavior like bullying, and aren't a good preparation for the real, civilized world at all. I'm amazed that we are still using this old Victorian model of education - it can't be because capitalism needs a place to dump kids so parents can work, of course.
A ham in my neighborhood had the same problem with French. He was obviously a near genius, but he spent most of his time on amateur radio. Excellent cellist too. He explained to me how harmonics and intermodulation (demonstrated on the piano with the loud pedal down) were applicable to radio and Music Theory, and also particularly string instruments and antennas. Non string instruments are more like resonant cavities and waveguides, but still similar.
I took Latin, the language of Music. Helps with understanding Italian, but not much with Spanish and French.
Both MisTuned and Schroedingers Cat bring up something that I learned in school and later applied to radio.
For every contest or station promotion, I wrote (and I generally wrote all that stuff myself) at least two versions, which one friend who was a psychologist told me was "smart... you are kinda' talking to the left brain and right brain with the different writes."
What I realized is that not everyone learns the same way. So if I gave listeners several different perspectives on a contest, new show or even a promo for an artist interview coming that week, I could strike different resonant points in each listener. I also re-wrote long-running contest promos several times a week and tried to get real listener voices into some of them for variety and refreshed interest.
For every contest or station promotion, I wrote (and I generally wrote all that stuff myself) at least two versions, which one friend who was a psychologist told me was "smart... you are kinda' talking to the left brain and right brain with the different writes."
What I realized is that not everyone learns the same way. So if I gave listeners several different perspectives on a contest, new show or even a promo for an artist interview coming that week, I could strike different resonant points in each listener. I also re-wrote long-running contest promos several times a week and tried to get real listener voices into some of them for variety and refreshed interest.
I dropped out of secondary school in the Junior year. I could not take any more. I built a radio station instead.
Ten years later, I had to take a GED in Arizona to go to ASU. I wanted to get some higher level business classes as well as psychology and sociology I thought I needed college level teachers for.
At the GED center they asked if I had taken preparation classes, because I was a high school dropout. I said no, and the said they would let me take only one of the five tests "to see if it is worth continuing". They scored the test, and said, "sit down and take the rest of them". I had the highest scores they had ever registered in the state up to that time.
Just shows you how good my preparatory schooling was that I did not need the last two years of it. And probably did not need the first ones, either.
Again, this illustrates that radio (or podcasts or whatever) has to make sure that there is an understanding that not every listener reacts the same way to information. It's not about playing to the lowest common denominator, which is a mistake as dumbness drives away at least half the listeners. It's about telling people your story in ways each one understands.
Long ago I read "Confessions of an Advertising Man" by David Ogilvy. He explained, in a book that is about 60 years old, how things had to be "sold" to consumers in ways that each one might understand. It's the same principal, whether applied to advertising or our station promos.
Back to the original thread topic.
In the reference copy of the filling, it is stated that the filling is to cancel application BP-20221014AAA, which was an application and a CP to dismantle the existing main tower and built a new one 0.119 km to the east/northeast on the same parcel of land. According to news reports in 2023 this was to make room for a data center to be built on the land owned by Nexstar.
There was also an application and a CP (BXP-20221018AAD) to move the auxiliary tower. Remains to be seen if there will be a cancellation filing for that one.
It also remains to be see what happened with the plans to built the data center.
In the reference copy of the filling, it is stated that the filling is to cancel application BP-20221014AAA, which was an application and a CP to dismantle the existing main tower and built a new one 0.119 km to the east/northeast on the same parcel of land. According to news reports in 2023 this was to make room for a data center to be built on the land owned by Nexstar.
There was also an application and a CP (BXP-20221018AAD) to move the auxiliary tower. Remains to be seen if there will be a cancellation filing for that one.
It also remains to be see what happened with the plans to built the data center.
Data centers use a lot of power. Perhaps there was a problem with delivering enough power to the site.
Up I-94 a ways West of Racine, WI, they have been madly building and expanding roads for several years for a data center. The plans are constantly changing. Many new high tension towers are being built. So much for semiconductor junctions not needing much power, when you have billions of them.
Perhaps they needed screening to prevent interference to the facility from WGN? Any more speculation? Bueller?
Up I-94 a ways West of Racine, WI, they have been madly building and expanding roads for several years for a data center. The plans are constantly changing. Many new high tension towers are being built. So much for semiconductor junctions not needing much power, when you have billions of them.
Perhaps they needed screening to prevent interference to the facility from WGN? Any more speculation? Bueller?
It seems like the sale agreement between Nexstar and the developer simply timed out.
In July 2023, the Daily Herald newspaper wrote:
(Link: https://www.dailyherald.com/2023071...h-data-centers-and-pickleball-courts-to-come/ )
I looked at Cook Co. property records, and the whole parcel is still owned by Nexstar Media, and the subdivision into a northern parcel and southern parcel did not occur. I do wonder if there were remonstrations by residents against the subdivision and/or re-zoning. There almost always are.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
If you read some of the DXing posts on this site, apparently stucco with the medal "chicken wire" really does a number on RF. Considering the dollars involved, I sure some consultant with a really high hourly rate, will come up with something that works better than chicken wire imbedded in stucco.
My house is completely enclosed with it, save for the windows, of course. RF attenuation is anywhere from approx. 20 to 40 dB, depending on the frequency. AM reception indoors is almost impossible, between the attenuation of the signals and all the radiating devices inside.
But that much lath/stucco on a large building close to a 50 kW AM transmitter may not do all that much. It keeps signals from 25 miles or so away out of the house, but a blowtorch practically next door is another story.