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Chicago White Sox Move To ESPN 1000

radioman148 said:
The signal in the near suburbs was poor and even with a special antenna not as good VHF.
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The biggest problem was that Channel 32's transmitter was top of one of the Marina City towers, which BTW was the studio location for not only themselves, but WCFL radio. WBKB/WLS-TV also transmitted from there until Sears Tower was built. Marina City, as far as pre-1970 skyscrapers went, wasn't all that tall. IIRC, it was a couple hundred feet shorter than the Prudential Building, which was the tallest in Chicago in the '60s.

Caray had nothing nice to say about John Allyn--many times.
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And Allyn deserved every bit of it. Caray, despite his reputation for excessive drinking, was a hard worker who prepared for every broadcast. Then he hit the beers once he got to the ballpark. :D
 
My ORD area relatives were just outside the City Limits. They got a good signal on WFLD 32 with the Bowtie, better than Grade A. Seems like WCIU 26 was a little less clear. They were LOS just over the trees.

You can barely see Marina City between the newer taller buildings now. They can even identify many buildings during Fata Morgana events near St. Joseph, MI, plus or minus, but Marina City is generally obstructed. Before cell phones and tablets, by the time you got a camera, it was gone. With many people now having cell phones and tablets, and probably webcams, it's frequently documented. WOOD-TV Grand Rapids has a lot of those pictures, perhaps still on their website. Here's one video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO4_psu-E1M

Circle 7 Video. Didn't it used to be further up on the tower?

http://www.scottchilders.com/timecapsule/marinaani.gif
 
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KeithE4 said:
The biggest problem was that Channel 32's transmitter was top of one of the Marina City towers, which BTW was the studio location for not only themselves, but WCFL radio. WBKB/WLS-TV also transmitted from there until Sears Tower was built. Marina City, as far as pre-1970 skyscrapers went, wasn't all that tall. IIRC, it was a couple hundred feet shorter than the Prudential Building, which was the tallest in Chicago in the '60s.



And Allyn deserved every bit of it. Caray, despite his reputation for excessive drinking, was a hard worker who prepared for every broadcast. Then he hit the beers once he got to the ballpark. :D
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I had forgotten that WFLD was at Marina City. WBKB/LS I remembered and WCFL I had visited many times. WCIU came on the air in 64 and I think they were on the Board of Trade building. The early WCIU signal was terrible!
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
My ORD area relatives were just outside the City Limits. They got a good signal on WFLD 32 with the Bowtie, better than Grade A. Seems like WCIU 26 was a little less clear. They were LOS just over the trees.
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Before moving to Sears Tower around 1978, Channel 26's tower was on top of the Board of Trade Building on LaSalle St. I forget how much power it ran, but it wasn't much, compared to Channels 32, 38, and 44.

My first apartment was in Franklin Park, near Grand and Mannehim Rds. a few miles south of O'Hare. My cheap Korvettes B&W portable TV could get the VHFs and 32, 38, and 44 well, but 26 was always snowy. This was in 1975-76. There was little to watch on 26 anyway.

You can barely see Marina City between the newer taller buildings now. They can even identify many buildings during Fata Morgana events near Sawyer, MI, plus or minus, but Marina City is obstructed. Before cell phones and tablets, by the time you got a camera, it was gone. With many people now having cell phones and tablets, and probably webcams, it's frequently documented. WOOD-TV Grand Rapids has a lot of those pictures, perhaps still on their website.
Click to expand...

When I was a kid, my grandparents lived in Dune Acres IN, which is a community on the lake, just north of Chesterton between the Indiana Dunes National (then-State) Park and Gary. If the smog from the steel mills didn't block it out, the Chicago skyline clearly included both the Prudential Building and Marina City. We could see the skyline from the beach.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
My ORD area relatives were just outside the City Limits. They got a good signal on WFLD 32 with the Bowtie, better than Grade A. Seems like WCIU 26 was a little less clear. They were LOS just over the trees.

You can barely see Marina City between the newer taller buildings now. They can even identify many buildings during Fata Morgana events near St. Joseph, MI, plus or minus, but Marina City is generally obstructed. Before cell phones and tablets, by the time you got a camera, it was gone. With many people now having cell phones and tablets, and probably webcams, it's frequently documented. WOOD-TV Grand Rapids has a lot of those pictures, perhaps still on their website. Here's one video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO4_psu-E1M

Circle 7 Video. Didn't it used to be further up on the tower?

http://www.scottchilders.com/timecapsule/marinaani.gif
Click to expand...

Thanks SC, great video.
 
tvnut said:
The White Sox had a big network, about 90 stations, sponsored by Household Finance, across Illinois and into the deep south, both when WCFL and subsequently WMAQ carried them in the 1950s and 1960s. Household Finance bailed when the Sox bolted WMAQ after the 1970 season amidst a legal tangle with NBC over moving games to WMAQ-FM during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago to allow NBC News coverage uninterrupted on 670, and the big network evaporated. (They had about 18 stations in 2019.)
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The suburban network included these (and potentially other) stations, plus a handful downstate:

WTAQ (1300) La Grange
WEAW-FM (105.1) Evanston
WLNR (106.3) Lansing
WJOL-FM (96.7) Joliet
WJOL-AM (1340) Joliet – weekends only
WVFM (103.9) Dundee
WIMS (1420) Michigan City, Ind. – perhaps weekends only

Downstate

WBNQ (101.5) Bloomington
WSIV (1140) Pekin
WGNU-FM (106.9) Granite City – in the shadow of the St. Louis arch
WFMB-FM (104.5) Springfield
WRVI (96.7) Rockford
WRBR-FM (103.9) South Bend, Ind.

Stations paid the Sox $25 a game for the rights; the station sold all the ads, at least in 1971. So if every station carried a game, the Sox made $300. For a full season, that's $46,800 for the year. And WJOL-AM only carried weekend games.
 
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Amending the end of the last post:

For a full season, that's $50,700 for the year. And no more than nine stations carried every games.
 
tvnut said:
The suburban network included these (and potentially other) stations, plus a handful downstate:

WTAQ (1300) La Grange
WEAW-FM (105.1) Evanston
WLNR (106.3) Lansing
WJOL-FM (96.7) Joliet
WJOL-AM (1340) Joliet – weekends only
WVFM (103.9) Dundee
WIMS (1420) Michigan City, Ind. – perhaps weekends only

Downstate

WBNQ (101.5) Bloomington
WSIV (1140) Pekin
WGNU-FM (106.9) Granite City – in the shadow of the St. Louis arch
WFMB-FM (104.5) Springfield
WRVI (96.7) Rockford
WRBR-FM (103.9) South Bend, Ind.

Stations paid the Sox $25 a game for the rights; the station sold all the ads, at least in 1971. So if every station carried a game, the Sox made $300. For a full season, that's $46,800 for the year. And WJOL-AM only carried weekend games.
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That list looks very accurate although I remember Harry Caray mentioning WVFV Dundee. I wonder if that was an AM?
 
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