After the move is completed it will be interesting to hear if WBBM’s sky wave is as good as it was. Last winter they were heard on the Hawaii, & European SDRs, among others. I realize the station doesn’t care about sky wave coverage, but I’ll be curious.
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FCC grants WBBM a CP to move transmitter site
- Thread starter CADXER
- Start date
I wonder where WLS would move to if this ever happens.
Where I am in Chicago, WBBM is clearly more powerful than WSCR. I can usually pick up stations on 660 and 680 at night if I do things right, but on 790 I have never been able to identify any station, the only frequency I have left where I have recorded nothing. It's all WBBM interference. Even hearing WABC on 770 can be challenging. Maybe when they move I'll be able to finally get something on 790.
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That's a really interesting question. Would they try to find room on an existing site (with their own stick or diplexing). Off the top of my head, I think WCPT's site might be the closest. We have plenty of room in our "neck of the woods", including the WAIT site in an open area. But I'm pretty sure Cumulus wouldn't want to be this far from the city.
WLS' stick has always been south of the city. I can't imagine them moving north, but who knows?
I wonder if that location to the south was intentional or just coincidence? It does make sense that "The Prairie Farmer Station" would want to be located as close as possible to the farm area it served.
I once read that the owners of WLS did not want to be in Cook County because they were angry about taxes and that's why the site in the Will County section of Tinley Park was chosen.
I've always thought this was the reason. The area to Chicago's south....and west....contains some of the choicest farmland in North America. The Tinley Park location is (or was) ideal for propagating the WLS groundwave signal in those two directions. Even today, the WLS day signal in downstate Illinois and adjacent areas generally tends to be more competitive with the Chicago blowtorches lower on the dial than it is in points north and east.
WLS tried to move to Grace and Fullerton in the 1970s. It's on the History Card. I noticed how weak it was when I first visited my relatives, who lived just three miles SE of WJJD's towers, in 1962. WLS was noticeably noisy on my Uncle's transistor radio, a big boxy Zenith about the size of an old RCA Field Strength Meter with the 1.5 V filament batteries and 67.5 volt plate batteries. I always wondered why WCFL didn't do better in the ratings with a signal 5 times stronger in the Northern parts of the market. In case you don't remember, almost all transistor radios circa 1960 were insensitive like this. Anyway, WLS ran into a few obstacles trying to relocate, and fixed their ground system and decided it was good enough where it is. However, the target demographics now would favor a better signal in the Northern Suburbs. It's probably hurting for that reason. WCPT listener types think its the programming.
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Grace and Fullerton? That might have helped some on the north side of the city as well as in adjacent close-in suburbs. On balance, however, I don't think it would have been much of a bargain. Especially when you fast-forward to today. Staying put and fixing the ground system was probably the right call.
FWIW was a teenager growing up in Wauconda (ten miles east of where I live now), I had two radios with S-meters. Both showed WLS and WCFL with roughly equal strength day and night. Which meant weaker than 670, 720, and 780. And about on par with WIND (560). I also spent about a year in the late 1970s working with a guy who had been in sales management at WLS. He told me on a couple of occasions that the brass at WLS was very aware that they were a "south side station". He said local agencies viewed WLS that way also.
V-Soft Zip Code link:
Put in 60068. WCFL was about 4 times the field strength that WLS is.
http://www.v-soft.com/on-line-based-software/zipsignal
I'd say if anything that WLS was weaker and WIND stronger than the predicted values. A big part of the path between Griffith, IN and my RL was water, and maybe a lot of ions from industrial effluent at that time.
Put in 60068. WCFL was about 4 times the field strength that WLS is.
http://www.v-soft.com/on-line-based-software/zipsignal
I'd say if anything that WLS was weaker and WIND stronger than the predicted values. A big part of the path between Griffith, IN and my RL was water, and maybe a lot of ions from industrial effluent at that time.
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@SC: Interesting stuff. Thanks.
"Just for fun" I put in both my zip code from the place where I grew up, as well as the place where I live now.
Where I grew up (60084), WMVP shows up as about 40% stronger than WLS daytime. Slightly stronger at night. I remember them in their top 40 days as WLS and WCFL being roughly equal day and night. I wonder if what we're seeing is the effect of the oft-discussed degrading of the WLS signal due to the extensive suburban development near the WLS tower site.
At my home location (60014), ten miles west of where I grew up, WLS and WMVP show up as being roughly equal daytime, WLS stronger at night. That pretty much squares with my actual current experience....although both at home and in my car, WMVP is more prone to electrical noise.
"Just for fun" I put in both my zip code from the place where I grew up, as well as the place where I live now.
Where I grew up (60084), WMVP shows up as about 40% stronger than WLS daytime. Slightly stronger at night. I remember them in their top 40 days as WLS and WCFL being roughly equal day and night. I wonder if what we're seeing is the effect of the oft-discussed degrading of the WLS signal due to the extensive suburban development near the WLS tower site.
At my home location (60014), ten miles west of where I grew up, WLS and WMVP show up as being roughly equal daytime, WLS stronger at night. That pretty much squares with my actual current experience....although both at home and in my car, WMVP is more prone to electrical noise.
I figured out where the WENR WLS tower was in Downers Grove. It's on the History Card. It was about 4 miles South of the WMVP tower. There is a park there now. I think it said 3.5 miles South of Downers Grove. It was on the main North South road on the East side as far as I could figure from the Google Satellite view.
Remember when stations' slogans were "The Rock of..."? WCAR...WDFN's towers were/are in Gibraltar, MI, so I called it "The Rock of Gibraltar". I called WLS "The Rock of Mokena".
Remember when stations' slogans were "The Rock of..."? WCAR...WDFN's towers were/are in Gibraltar, MI, so I called it "The Rock of Gibraltar". I called WLS "The Rock of Mokena".
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@ SC, Where is the url for the history card? Thanks!
They show the pin on the municipal office area, but I assumed that the center of Downers Grove was at Ogden and Main St. But looking at the satellite photos, it looked like older CBD buildings are at Curtiss and Main St. So that would be a mile or two further South. I'll revise that distance from the WMVP towers.
https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getimportletter_exh.cgi?import_letter_id=62822&.pdf
https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getimportletter_exh.cgi?import_letter_id=62822&.pdf
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There were two locations proposed.
WLS Addison, IL Coordinates N 41 55 05 W 88 00 19 Grace and Fullerton.
WLS West Chicago, IL N 41 55 53 W 88 08 50 Lies Rd. Between Marton and Kuhn.
WLS Addison, IL Coordinates N 41 55 05 W 88 00 19 Grace and Fullerton.
WLS West Chicago, IL N 41 55 53 W 88 08 50 Lies Rd. Between Marton and Kuhn.
Thanks
Disregard my earlier comments about Grace and Fullerton. I thought this referred to a proposed location in the city of Chicago.
I thought that too. I figured I was forgetting something about Chicago's streets.
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