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AMP can't keep both 1490 & 1620 forever. As part of the condition of getting an X band license, they would have to surrender one of the licenses after a certain period of time. It looks like they're gonna give up 1490, because 1620 covers more area during the daytime at 10kw, but about the same at night at 1kw. Some of the X Band licenses were issued to ease some of the overcrowding of certain frequencies in some markets. South Bend was one of those markets given an X band license.
Same thing took place in Chicago when CC moved Johnston /Johnson? City WDDD North. Withers is still operating WDDD while the new Expanded Band frequency is on in Chicago. Withers even tried to keep both frequencies but the Commission didn't allow it. It appears though operation can continue until License renewal next year.
AMP can't keep both 1490 & 1620 forever. As part of the condition of getting an X band license, they would have to surrender one of the licenses after a certain period of time. It looks like they're gonna give up 1490, because 1620 covers more area during the daytime at 10kw, but about the same at night at 1kw. Some of the X Band licenses were issued to ease some of the overcrowding of certain frequencies in some markets. South Bend was one of those markets given an X band license.
AMP can't keep both 1490 & 1620 forever. As part of the condition of getting an X band license, they would have to surrender one of the licenses after a certain period of time. It looks like they're gonna give up 1490, because 1620 covers more area during the daytime at 10kw, but about the same at night at 1kw. Some of the X Band licenses were issued to ease some of the overcrowding of certain frequencies in some markets. South Bend was one of those markets given an X band license.
IIRC, 1490 lost its xmtr site a couple of years ago when ND built its new hockey arena. AMP apparently doesn't see a way to put it back on the air and make it profitable.
Well they still have to by technicality even turning 1490 off. they still have to either turn in the License to 1580 or 1620 next year as well. 1490 isnt allowed to substitute for 1580 or 1620
1620 is an ugly mess of EPSN radio from Omaha and 1620 South Bend, also with sports talk.
I should be able to hear South Bend in the day, but they don't make it to the north side
of Chicago. At night, I'd be able to hear South Bend, but at night Omaha takes over.
So most of the time, it's not possible to hear either clearly.
If only one of them were on the air I would have another choice on the dial.
What's the point of expanding the AM band only to make the same mistakes of allocating
stations too close to each other on the same frequency?
A useful X band policy would have provided even more distance protection than practiced
in the regular MW band.
For those 10 new frequencies, there should be only 30 or licenses max issued in the nation.
We already have enough graveyard mish-mish frequencies. What is needed is some huge regional
stations based in the deepest rural locations that can serve wide areas night or day,
without having to fight multiple heterodynes.
Same thing took place in Chicago when CC moved Johnston /Johnson? City WDDD North. Withers is still operating WDDD while the new Expanded Band frequency is on in Chicago. Withers even tried to keep both frequencies but the Commission didn't allow it. It appears though operation can continue until License renewal next year.
The FCC screwed this one up. I don't know if Withers can sue CC for moving 1690 to the Chicago market, then selling their southern Illinois stations to Withers, knowing full well that Withers would lose their AM station. The FCC should not have let 1690 move to the Chicago market, when there are already too many AM stations. That move will cause southern Illinois to lose an AM station. 1690 WVON is still owned by CC, but Midway Broadcasting operates it under an LMA, with the option to buy the station after the 5 year LMA is up. If the LMA is up next year & Midway buys the station, it's possible Midway Broadcasting could indirectly be involved in any possible lawsuit caused by CC moving 1690 to the Chicago market, & selling the Southern Illinois stations (810 being attached to the 1690 license), knowing that the station would be forced off the air.
As for the 1620 license, I thought it was attached to 1490. After further investigation on the FCC site, it is indeed attached to 1580. Does AMP even own 1580? If not, then how did AMP get the 1620 license, if they don't own 1580. The AMP website doesn't even list 1580 as one of their stations. At least 1620 was assigned to the South Bend market, & not moved into the market, like CC did with 1690, which originally had the call letters for Johnston City, IL, becomes WRLL Berwyn, IL (Chicago market), & is now WVON under LMA. I just wonder how many other X band licenses CC got that they decided should be in a major market,instead of the market those licensees were issued. I know this isn't the only one.
Same thing took place in Chicago when CC moved Johnston /Johnson? City WDDD North. Withers is still operating WDDD while the new Expanded Band frequency is on in Chicago. Withers even tried to keep both frequencies but the Commission didn't allow it. It appears though operation can continue until License renewal next year.
The FCC screwed this one up. I don't know if Withers can sue CC for moving 1690 to the Chicago market, then selling their southern Illinois stations to Withers, knowing full well that Withers would lose their AM station. The FCC should not have let 1690 move to the Chicago market, when there are already too many AM stations. That move will cause southern Illinois to lose an AM station. 1690 WVON is still owned by CC, but Midway Broadcasting operates it under an LMA, with the option to buy the station after the 5 year LMA is up. If the LMA is up next year & Midway buys the station, it's possible Midway Broadcasting could indirectly be involved in any possible lawsuit caused by CC moving 1690 to the Chicago market, & selling the Southern Illinois stations (810 being attached to the 1690 license), knowing that the station would be forced off the air.
As for the 1620 license, I thought it was attached to 1490. After further investigation on the FCC site, it is indeed attached to 1580. Does AMP even own 1580? If not, then how did AMP get the 1620 license, if they don't own 1580. The AMP website doesn't even list 1580 as one of their stations. At least 1620 was assigned to the South Bend market, & not moved into the market, like CC did with 1690, which originally had the call letters for Johnston City, IL, becomes WRLL Berwyn, IL (Chicago market), & is now WVON under LMA. I just wonder how many other X band licenses CC got that they decided should be in a major market,instead of the market those licensees were issued. I know this isn't the only one.
Im still trying to figure this out. because the Wikipedia Page for 1580 says AMP LMA'ed from Times Communications. thats strange because i thought AMP was the one who eventually sold off 1580 to its current owner. maybe Times owned it at one point. But AMP im sure bought it when the Douplys began.
Regarding the "Tumbleweed Triad" a.k.a. 1490, 1580, and 1620—3 chronically-anemic AM frequencies with a history of having a lower collective Arbitron share than their sum in number of positions on the AM radio dial: First, 1490 and 1620 have NO regulatory relationship with each other [originally, separate licensees with separate circumstances]. 1490 has passed to "the other side" due to the loss of its technically-unadvised parcel of property that was home to its "tower" on the south border of the Notre Dame campus – NOT because 1580 hit the lucky number in the AM X-band lottery.
The former WNDU AM was little-more than "dropped-and-bruised fruit" off the bountiful WNDU-FM [U93] tree when Artistic Media acquired those radio properties from ND-owned Michiana Telecasting back in the 1990s. Previous to that sad day, the only post-ancient signs of terrestrial life on the 1490 frequency were during its days as "15 Country" in the early-mid 1980s – followed ever-so-briefly by the short-lived Bob & Tom debacle later in that decade. Make no mistake about it; AMP knew VERY WELL the Terms of Endearment regarding the 1490 tower site lease and Notre Dame's ambitions to ultimately convert the use of that property from a small radio "stick" to a new home for Hockey sticks. The simplest analogy is: AMP "dropped the ball" after the Fighting Irish dropped the puck! They had over a decade of warning, yet did little with 1490 [and its later-added sister—1620] but play a mind-boggling game of musical chairs with formats and call signs. AMP "dropping the ball" should come as no small surprise, although I suspect some recognition of rational financial reality preceded their decision not to rebuild 1490.
Back to our refresher on the history of unviable AM radio in South Bend: About the same time 1490's 1970s pop revival was flaming out [just like Disco did a decade earlier], the ownership of stand-alone 1580 transferred to the publisher of a local weekly free print publication known as the Penny Saver – we'll call him "Bill D", as I won't even attempt to assail the correct spelling of his somewhat unappealing last name. He had no prior radio experience; yet was able to breathe substantial life into that frequency for the first time since WJVA occupied it with Top-40 in the 1960s as a Booth Broadcasting station, and later, uncontested Country during the last half of the 1970s under owner—Charles Hayes.
Bill D. established Times Communications to acquire the distressed News-Talk "second fiddle"—1580 WIWO [formerly WAMJ], snapped-up the WHLY calls, and launched an Adult Standards format as "Radio Hollywood" to fill the void left when longtime Beautiful Music FM—100.7 WYEZ flipped to Country. Under Times operation, 1580 was able to convert enough older Baby Boomers left behind by WYEZ's format flip to make the new WHLY reasonably viable in the market. I heard this station often during this era, and it was an appealing and respectable effort limited only by its demure signal and very-poor night coverage. Times confronted that handicap with the assertion that its new 10kw AM X-band award on 1620 would end all those concerns—especially in the long hours of winter darkness that effectively neutered them during BOTH drive-time periods from November thru February.
Out of technical naivety, the WORST possible antenna location, and severely compromised facility construction; the new 1620 signal fell substantially-short of the coverage expectations that WHLY had fostered with listeners and advertisers. 1620's appearance revealed a technical near-disaster—barely bettering the 1580 daytime coverage, and serving the least-desirable quarter of the market at night; yet WHLY proclaimed on-air that they "NOW SERVED FOUR STATES" and inferred TWICE the coverage of WSBT the very day they turned-on the disappointing 1620 signal! It was a downhill slide from that point, and within a year, AMP was knocking at the Penny Saver office door waiving an LMA offer in Bill D's face. What followed would make for GREAT MATERIAL at a niche comedy club for radio types! Despite the call letter hopping, short-lived formatic experiments [remember "Love Songs"?] intertwined with periods of ESPN Radio programming, and even a SIMULCAST of teen-oriented Top-40 from U93-FM; AMP finally purchased the 1620 facility from Times after their chronic neglect had effectively trashed it. An FCC construction permit to move 1620 to the 1490 tower and diplex the two AM signals was never built, likely because Notre Dame had served AMP with the eviction notice that ultimately took 1490 off the air for eternity.
The only question that remains is one I can't reliably answer: What is to become of 1580—now back to the WHLY calls as "Holy Radio" and the new home of non-stop Catholic sophistry for greater South Bend? The migration of 1620 into the AMP stable was to statutorily seal the fate of 1580 [required as a surrender in lieu of the 1620 grant and continued operation], but headlines in 2006 reported that Time had "sold WHLY to the Thomas More Foundation of Elkhart" to facilitate the area's first outlet for Catholic programming. The assumption was that the Foundation and its station's non-profit status would serve as a basis for a waiver of the requirement that 1580 cease operation and turn in its license. Here's where the area gets really gray: According to current FCC information, the More Foundation DOES NOT hold the license for 1580 WHLY – It is STILL in the legal hands of TIME COMMUNICATIONS! What's up and what's next?
I thought the "reason" for the expanded AM band was to "clear" up some of the unpredicted (some times the radio waves do not stay in the circles that engineers draw up and the FCC approved) interference on the AM band. IIRC the old local channels 1230, 1240, 1340, 1400, 1450, and 1490, and daytimers were excluded. I thought some of the old 24 hour regional and clear channel stations that were shoehorned* or were impacted by a shoehorn got these. I remember when the first round of these were issued there were a few broadcasters with multiple tower complicated directional patterns were p*ssed off (I can not blame them, who wants to maintain an antenna farm with a bunch of directional equipment when one tower can do the job). Of course that was before the ownership caps became a joke. Hipporadio's posted helped but now I am wondering why the FCC is letting this happen.
I thought the "reason" for the expanded AM band was to "clear" up some of the unpredicted (some times the radio waves do not stay in the circles that engineers draw up and the FCC approved) interference on the AM band. IIRC the old local channels 1230, 1240, 1340, 1400, 1450, and 1490, and daytimers were excluded. I thought some of the old 24 hour regional and clear channel stations that were shoehorned* or were impacted by a shoehorn got these. I remember when the first round of these were issued there were a few broadcasters with multiple tower complicated directional patterns were p*ssed off (I can not blame them, who wants to maintain an antenna farm with a bunch of directional equipment when one tower can do the job). Of course that was before the ownership caps became a joke. Hipporadio's posted helped but now I am wondering why the FCC is letting this happen.
After ITU approval of the AM "X-Band" [1610-1700 KHz] for use in the WESTERN HEMISPHERE, the FCC decided on a policy to pursue a very limited band migration of EXISTING STATIONS deemed to be the very-worst generators of interference into the new "Expanded Band". NO *new* stations [formerly non-existent on the AM band] were to be considered eligible for a channel there. 'Neither were existing Class C stations—the former Class 4 "locals" including South Bend's 1490 [WNDV or whatever call letters they were using that week], so any inference that 1490's demise and license surrender was related to the construction and continued operation of 1620 in South Bend is patently INCORRECT.
Most of the migrants into the X-Band were those pesky Class Ds [the non-standard-for-class fulltime "odd-balls" like 810 WDDD Johnston City, IL—earlier cited in Replies #3 and #9 of this thread, plus technical daytimers operating on Clear and Regional channels who cause interference to their co and adjacent frequencies]. At the time the FCC finally established the criteria for X-Band occupants, 1580 WIWO [later WHLY after acquisition by Times Communications] was officially a Class D daytime-only station operating on a Canadian Clear channel. Granted, WIWO later built-out a Construction Permit pursued earlier by Miramar Broadcasting on behalf of then-WAMJ for FULLTIME operation with a nighttime directional antenna and reduced power [500-watts], but it still qualified as a "pest" that deserved a new and improved shot in the 10kw X-Band at 1620.
This was an AWESOME BLESSING for 1580 at that time, and might have served as motivation for Time Communications to buy the cash, ratings, and revenue-strapped WIWO from local South Bend businessman Dick Van Mele. It's a shame that Time built the new 1620 facility so poorly! By pursuing this opportunity, whatever entity remaining on 1580 would have to discontinue operation after five years [November 2004]. IIRC, the FCC later granted an extension to that deadline, but not one that would have justified 1580's continued operation AT THIS TIME without some form of mitigation—likely a waiver of the "shut-off and surrender one-or-the-other" rule.
I'm surprised to find-out that Times Communications is STILL in business only to "hold" the 1580 WHLY license for the Thomas More Foundation. I distinctly recall that initial transaction described as "a sale" in a South Bend Tribune story in early December 2006. Furthermore, I can't imagine that the More Foundation would invest effort and financial resources to establish a Catholic radio service in a community with a prominent Catholic population, knowing that they had a limited lease on its life on 1580. As Ricky used to say: "Lucy... You have some 'splainin to do!"
The FCC screwed this one up. I don't know if Withers can sue CC for moving 1690 to the Chicago market, then selling their southern Illinois stations to Withers, knowing full well that Withers would lose their AM station.
Withers can't sue. They don't legally own WDDD 810; Clear Channel is still the owner. Withers has been operating it in an LMA since Clear Channel sold the other stations in the market to them, and Withers has the right to first refusal if Clear Channel gets the authority to put it up for sale. Clear Channel is still trying to request the station be split from 1690 so they can sell it.
On a completely different subject. I remember when 1620/WHLY did play standards...in AM STEREO!! It actually sounded pretty damn good on my GM/AC/Delco C-Quam Stereo Factory radio, I believe it was the mid to late 1990's... Oh, those were the days. Whoever was running it at that time really knew how to make AM Stereo audio sound extremely acceptable to my ears.
The FCC screwed this one up. I don't know if Withers can sue CC for moving 1690 to the Chicago market, then selling their southern Illinois stations to Withers, knowing full well that Withers would lose their AM station.
Withers can't sue. They don't legally own WDDD 810; Clear Channel is still the owner. Withers has been operating it in an LMA since Clear Channel sold the other stations in the market to them, and Withers has the right to first refusal if Clear Channel gets the authority to put it up for sale. Clear Channel is still trying to request the station be split from 1690 so they can sell it.
Odd thing. Withers has already purchased all the assets other than the license. CC is supposed to be staffing with a GM and Engineer and hasn't. No one other than Withers could operate it because Withers controls the site (owns it) and if Withers doesn't get it the station is dead. I would think the Commission might see this as an unauthorized transfer anyway.
Actually you are not correct, CC has 2 employee's as required by the LMA rules. The market engineer is a CC employee, and the second employee does not have to be the GM and is not. So CC is operating WDDD-AM legally. CC has filed for an STA to continue to operate WDDD-AM and if granted can continue past the sunset date which I believe is at the end of this month. If not one of the 2 will have to go dark and I am sure you know which one will.
When I spoke with Staff on 3 different occasions they referred all CC communications out of town, indicating "there were no Clear Channel employees."
CC doesn't own the land, tower, or transmitter for WDDD. Already sold to Withers with the FM. Since CC doesn't own any equipment how can it claim it is operating it? Withers isn't LMA ing the tower or transmitter to CC, he is operating it. Commission hasn't quite grasped that there are no Clear Channel facilities. Spelled out clearly in the WDDD FM sale.
So, whom is the continuation of WDDD benefiting?
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