FM News and Talk

[davideduardo]

Unfortunately (for WIND) the big BUT here is that WLS is much stronger in the city itself and it does a much better job of penetrating buildings than WIND can muster with 5 kw.

When comparing two stations, it's not about power, it is about field strength.

With WIND pushing about 15 kw towards Cook County and downtown Chicago from NW Indiana, it should have a field strength in the Loop that is relatively close to that of WLS.

5 kw does not give 1/10th the coverage of 50 kw. If you look at it the other way, to double the coverage of a 5 kw station you have to quadruple the power. Add in the considerably superior performance, watt for watt, of 560, and you have fairly equivalent stations in most of the MSA, which is all that matters.

WIND covers 7.7 million in its 5 mV/m contour; for WLS it is 8.8 million.

 

[davideduardo]

I'm the guy that put 2000 oldies on cart for PD Bob Moomy when they went oldies around 1970-ish.

In the late 90's whenever I did diary reviews for WiND, I would always find mentions of Howard Miller and WIND.

Of course, the diarykeepers were in their 70's and 80's, and were obviously confusing that new kid on the block, Wally Phillips on 'GN with Howard... and they certainly did not know that 560 was a Spanish language station.

One could also find occasional diary entries of WIND 720 or WGN 560, showing how similar the stations were during part of their lives.

 

[BRNout]

Unfortunately (for WIND) the big BUT here is that WLS is much stronger in the city itself and it does a much better job of penetrating buildings than WIND can muster with 5 kw.

When comparing two stations, it's not about power, it is about field strength.

With WIND pushing about 15 kw towards Cook County and downtown Chicago from NW Indiana, it should have a field strength in the Loop that is relatively close to that of WLS.

5 kw does not give 1/10th the coverage of 50 kw. If you look at it the other way, to double the coverage of a 5 kw station you have to quadruple the power. Add in the considerably superior performance, watt for watt, of 560, and you have fairly equivalent stations in most of the MSA, which is all that matters.

WIND covers 7.7 million in its 5 mV/m contour; for WLS it is 8.8 million.

Actually, I test with a radio (G8) which has a numerical signal to noise ratio as part of the s-meter. My PL-310 has one too. They aren't accurate to the extent that you could use them for an engineering study, but they do very well in telling you which station is sending you more signal than the other. Given that, I can assure you that WLS sends a tad bit more juice into Lake County than WIND does and a lot more juice into Chicago proper than WIND does.

Also, I very well know that 5 kw doesn't offer 1/10 of the range that 50 kw does. With each doubling of power, you increase overall range (miles from tx site) by 10%. And, the lower frequency position compensates for raw power as far as groundwave is concerned. Despite all that, WIND is NOT stronger than WLS north of the city. It's close, but in all my various amateur measurements of their respective signals, WLS always has the edge.

For the record, WBBM and WGN slaughter them both when it comes to signal strength in our area. I think that WLS is only superior to them if you're in the south suburbs or NW Indiana (Gary, Munster) - places where I rarely have need to go.

 

[Prais]

Certainly, some of what you speak of is because WLS's transmitter is South of the city in Tinley Park, 'GN and 'BBM's transmitters are West of the City near Roselle, and 'ind's transmitter is SE of Chicago in
Hammond.

 

[audioguy]

WLS suffers from selective fading in the DAYTIME due to NVIS. My PAINTER, of all people, pointed this out... he listened to WLS talk during the day on a big GE Superadio.

 

[davideduardo]

Despite all that, WIND is NOT stronger than WLS north of the city.

And who said that it was?

 

[DanStrassberg]

5 kw does not give 1/10th the coverage of 50 kw. If you look at it the other way, to double the coverage of a 5 kw station you have to quadruple the power.

If you change nothing else, but quadruple the power, you will double the signal signal strength at any point where you choose to measure it. If by "double the coverage," you mean double the area enclosed by any signal-strength contour you choose, then your statement is, in general, not correct. Quadrupling the power can more than double the coverage (in the case of excellent soil conductivity and a low AM frequency), just exactly double the coverage (with a rarely achieved "perfect" combination of soil conductivity, power, and frequency) or not come close to doubling the coverage (very likely at high AM frequencies and in areas of poor soil conductivity--such as New England and many other parts of the US).

I'd wager that, in more cases than not, a four-fold power increase increases the area covered by less than a factor of two. OTOH, because of the excellent soil conductivity in most of the midwest, quadrupling the power there probably stands a better chance of doubling the coverage than it would in most other parts of the US. But then there is the question of what good it does to double the area covered. Population density can vary tremendously even within a single metropolitan area. It is not very likely that doubling the area enclosed by, say, a station's 5 mV/m contour, will exactly double the population that lives within that contour.

 

[dave73]

Certainly, some of what you speak of is because WLS's transmitter is South of the city in Tinley Park, 'GN and 'BBM's transmitters are West of the City near Roselle, and 'ind's transmitter is SE of Chicago in
Hammond.

WIND's transmitter & tower array are in Griffith Indiana, along Colfax Street, the Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks, & the Little Calumet River. I know because I used to live near those towers many years ago, about 6 blocks. I still live in the area, but I'm now about 2 miles from the WIND towers.

 

[Prais]

You are correct. The last time I was at the site was about 1985. It all looked the same to me.