Big tower in Crystal Lake?

[DanStrassberg]

In fact if I'm reading Dan's comments correctly it would actually turn out to be detrimental to them.

No arguing that the idea of using a 1500' tower 40-odd miles from the Loop for a major AM licensed to Chicago is quite far-fetched and is economically completely impractical. But it is still fun to discuss! After reading the article about the meeting of the local zoning board (if it WAS the zoning board), my conclusion is that they guy who is promoting the tower either is concealing its real intended purpose (definitely possible) or he doesn't know what he is talking about (also possible and perhaps slightly more likely than that he is concealing the proposed tower's true purpose). Regardless of whether he is sneaky or stupid, I would not trust him.

 

[stormy01]

Another Northwest Herald article on the proposed tower picked up by Radio World:

http://www.radioworld.com/article/75220

http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2009/02/20/r_odop_kbrqavv2ir5psmua/index.xml

 

[ROCKMEISTER]

Here's a couple of possibilitie's but I hope I'm wrong.It could be a G.W.E.N. tower,Ground Wave Emergency Network, working in conjunction with H.A.A.R.P.,High Frequency Aurol Research Project.Very mindblowing if real.

 

[stormy01]

Follow up: Not gonna happen - http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=317252

 

[w9wi]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why would WSCR even consider moving to a tower in McHenry county?
Their signal wouldn't be improved enough to justify the tremendous expense in this economy.
In fact if I'm reading Dan's comments correctly it would actually turn out to be detrimental to them.

Even if they did get more mV/m at a given distance, the much greater distance would mean a considerably *weaker* signal in the heavily-populated areas of Cook, Lake, and Kane Counties. (among others) Better signal over more square miles but far fewer people.

 

[[email protected]]

It was a goofy idea from the "get-go".

 

[stormy01]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why would WSCR even consider moving to a tower in McHenry county?
Their signal wouldn't be improved enough to justify the tremendous expense in this economy.
In fact if I'm reading Dan's comments correctly it would actually turn out to be detrimental to them.

Even if they did get more mV/m at a given distance, the much greater distance would mean a considerably *weaker* signal in the heavily-populated areas of Cook, Lake, and Kane Counties. (among others) Better signal over more square miles but far fewer people.

There's no need for any of the omnidirectional 50kW stations to move except WLS. WSCR, WGN and WBBM are in about the right place, centrally located in the metro.
1500' for 670kHz would be a full wave antenna. It is not necessary or a good idea for a medium wave broadcast station to use a full wave vertical - WLW had a 5/8 wave tower in the beginning and had to shorten its tower to about 1/2 wave to alleviate signal distortion caused by cancellation between the groundwave and skywave signals to cities within its coverage area at that time. Efficiency is about optimum for medium wave stations using a 1/2 wave vertical. http://www2.arrl.org/arrlletter/02/0111/ page down to ==>IN BRIEF: Correction:

The company that wanted to build the tower was going to have MediaFlo as its first tenant; MediaFlo is a video technology for cellular devices to view broadcast TV. It uses Channel 55. http://www.mediaflo.com/ I cannot imagine any local FM station using the 1500' tower. For instance, WZSR 105.5 has excellent coverage now with 1.6kW at 568' At 1500' the ERP would be 145 watts http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/fmpower.html Not a saturating signal, and 1.4 watts IBOC injection of 1% (;

 

[DanStrassberg]

It is not necessary or a good idea for a medium wave broadcast station to use a full wave vertical - WLW had a 5/8 wave tower in the beginning and had to shorten its tower to about 1/2 wave to alleviate signal distortion caused by cancellation between the groundwave and skywave signals to cities within its coverage area at that time. Efficiency is about optimum for medium wave stations using a 1/2 wave vertical.

A sectionalized radiator 1/2 wave over 1/2 wave center fed (AKA Franklin) is considerably more efficient than even a 5/8 wave standard vertical radiator. Franklins have their problems, though, and are not popular with the engineers who have to maintain them. Hence, they are not very widely used. KSTP has one (used daytime only), however, and the efficiency (511 mV/m/kW @ 1 km) is considerably higher than that of a standard 5/8-wave tower (440 mV/m/kW @ 1 km). Also, there are none of the phasing problems you spoke about because the vertical pattern does not have a high-angle lobe. KFBK has two Frankins used day and night in their DA-2 setup. Other sectionalized radiators that are considerably taller than half wave (but are not true Franklins) are at KDKA and WHO. I think those four are all of the Franklins or Franklin-like tall antennas still in use at US Class A AMs. WOAI used to have a Franklin-like tower but has replaced it with a conventional tower.