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Why does WIIL not do better?

Kramer

Kramer

I'm in Dallas and have never lived in Chicago.

Question though, I just looked at WIIL's playlist and it's perfect. It's doing exactly what it should be doing.

Can someone give me the scoop on why it's underperforming? A .5? Jesus.
 
Kramer said:
Can someone give me the scoop on why it's underperforming? A .5? Jesus.
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First, the station is "home" to the Milwaukee radio market. Second, its 60 dbu signal only reaches about 1,4 million total people in two separate markets, and the Milwaukee & Chicago markets are a total of 1.8 million and 9.6 million combined. This is a station on the border of two markets that does not cover either one very well.
 
DavidEduardo said:
First, the station is "home" to the Milwaukee radio market. Second, its 60 dbu signal only reaches about 1,4 million total people in two separate markets, and the Milwaukee & Chicago markets are a total of 1.8 million and 9.6 million combined. This is a station on the border of two markets that does not cover either one very well.
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AHHH! Thanks David. You da bestest!
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Not a good enough signal to cover much of the Chicago Market. Tower is in Wisconsin, four miles North of the State Line.
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However, Kenosha County, WI, is in the Chicago radio market. But you are correct that the station hardly covers any of the Chicago market well.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Considering all of the above, they actually do pretty good in Chicago. They focus on the WI-IL border areas, hence the call letters.
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From what I remember of them, and I used to listen on occasion when I lived in NW Cook County, they put a decent signal in there (Schaumburg/Palatine/Arlington Heights area), but it didn't go much further south. They were a piece of cake in Lake County IL, and most of the way to Milwaukee.

I don't remember hearing them in the car south of O'Hare or anywhere in the city. But it's been almost 30 years since I left the Chicago area. Maybe they've improved their signal since then.
 
Keith, thats about right. My dad lives in Wauconda and its golden there. You get to even Mount Prospect and it's fading. I would assume by Itasca it's toast and I wouldn't expect to hear it in Franklin Park.
 
sox fan matt said:
Keith, thats about right. My dad lives in Wauconda and its golden there. You get to even Mount Prospect and it's fading. I would assume by Itasca it's toast and I wouldn't expect to hear it in Franklin Park.
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I bought my first house in Wauconda in 1983, so I know the area well (although my house has since been torn down and a larger one built). I lived in Franklin Park in 1975-76, and don't remember receiving it there.
 
I wonder if the Streetz 95.1 translators have made reception more difficult than before in northern Cook County?
 
Their target audience is Lake and McHenry County, Illinois. Most of their advertisers and promotions are in those areas. It's no different from sister stations, it just has a larger coverage area

The station was originally licensed to and programmed locally to Kenosha. It was changed to Union Grove to avoid the ownership cap.
 
MarkW said:
I wonder if the Streetz 95.1 translators have made reception more difficult than before in northern Cook County?
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My guess is it makes it difficult to impossible to hear in many areas without an outdoor directional antenna, and even then, depending on location, that may not help. That is certainly the situation around Detroit, where translators (and recent Canadian drop ins) have made reception from neighboring markets difficult to impossible. You have to wonder whether it's just the high HAAT of the translators not conforming to 1960 era FCC propagation models, or whether they are not operating with their licensed power.
 
In my experience (on a car radio) WIIL is spotty in neighborhoods on the north side of Chicago. Once you get north of the city proper, it becomes more listenable. The Streetz translator definitely runs over it in most of Chicago, but I don't think so in the northern suburbs.
 
KeithE4 said:
I bought my first house in Wauconda in 1983, so I know the area well (although my house has since been torn down and a larger one built). I lived in Franklin Park in 1975-76, and don't remember receiving it there.
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Thats a great area to live. Back in the 90's we lived in Ivanhoe. Enjoyed Sylvan Lake. Good times.
 
WIIL will only get south of Mount Prospect with a decent signal in tropo conditions. Plus, a 60-watt translator (W236CF, relaying WOJO-FM HD2) is planted atop Sears Tower and gets out quite well to the south (and has a permit for extending its reach west and southeast).
 
Kramer said:
I'm in Dallas and have never lived in Chicago.

Question though, I just looked at WIIL's playlist and it's perfect. It's doing exactly what it should be doing.

Can someone give me the scoop on why it's underperforming? A .5? Jesus.
Click to expand...
They aren't owned by iHurt, Clueless, Idiocy, etc??? 😂
 
tvnut said:
WIIL will only get south of Mount Prospect with a decent signal in tropo conditions. Plus, a 60-watt translator (W236CF, relaying WOJO-FM HD2) is planted atop Sears Tower and gets out quite well to the south (and has a permit for extending its reach west and southeast).
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I think if they had to do Proofs of Performance on their DAs, we'd find that those nulls to the North aren't as deep as they are supposed to be. Just a general comment on the whole translator situation, not specifics.
 
Before the proliferation of HD sidebands and the stuffing of translators in every tiny hole in the spectrum, WIIL (and previous calls WJZQ) used to be listenable until it got rough nearing the core of Chicago. Then "miraculously" it would clear up again as you approached the Indiana state line, and actually was not bad around the bottom of the lake. These days it is essentially a Lake County IL station.

Don't get me started on the COL change from Kenosha to Union Grove...
 
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