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WMVP New CP
- Thread starter JJSPC
- Start date
Actually, WMVP 1000 had billboards in Detroit quite recently, advertising Night PBP broadcasts that weren't available on local stations. In Ishpeming, Michigan, where Kris Erik Stevens began his career, he listened to WCFL at Night. No less than Bob Seger and John Landecker said in interviews that it was one of their favorite stations. Hopefully, the signal will still be good at Night in Michigan. It looks like it should be. For information at Night, skywave from Class As and the new powerful Class Bs on Regional Channels are still the only reliable source in many rural areas.
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In an age when there's a need for housing, which is the best use of land - towers for an AM station that could be co-located with another station with minimal impact on local coverage, or a residential development? This appears to me to be a simple efficient market-based allocation of resources. The land was worth more than the station. The seller unlocked the value.
The article also mentioned a listener who opined that the downgraded signal would no longer meet the requirements for Class A status. Nevertheless, as with WBBM, WMVP will retain its classification.Here's an article on the subject. It's a bad day for fans of AM radio
FCC Allows Good Karma To Cut WMVP Chicago’s Nighttime Power By A Quarter.
Good Karma Brands has overcome an objection to an engineering proposal for its clear channel station “ESPN Chicago 1000 AM” WMVP Chicago, which will allow the station to remain atwww.insideradio.com
Correct. There's a quote from the FCC audio bureau chief who explains that decision.
That article ignores the fact that the FCC has "new" night signal requirements that provide greater protection to co-channel and adjacent channel stations. Any relocation of any station requires it to conform to the new standards.
A 25% reduction in power is only a 12.5% reduction in coverage. It will lose a little signal strength in Milwaukee, for example. They make no money in that market.
The power bill savings is insignificant on a station that bills somewhere around $800,000 a month. Maybe a few hundred dollars. Whoever wrote that article is not aware of both the changed FCC protection requirements nor the costs of power.
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I forget the source, but David always quotes that 15 mV/m is necessary today to overcome noise. WCFL/WMVP currently licensed is/was the ONLY STATION that puts an M-3 predicted 25 mV/m over the ENTIRE CITY OF CHICAGO. The late Glen Clark had an article about how good the signal was compared to WLS, and he was a staff engineer who investigated moving WLS to Addison for this very reason in the 1970s. It's on the History Card. I think you will be surprised when the new WMVP signal is much less North of the Loop. I think the application preparer is a GREAT engineering consultant, but the WCPT site and towers are not ideal by any stretch of the imagination for WMVP, but it was all she had to work with. The ground wave in the Northern half of the market is what they should be concerned about. The skywave, especially in areas where I listen in Michigan, won't be affected much.
I wish their was a detailed 25 mV/m comparison of the LIC vs. APP/CP. Figure 23 is the closest in the Engineering Packet on the Application. The 5 mV/m contour reduction change doesn't mean much, if what you need is 15 mV/m or more to not be impacted much by electrical noise.
enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov
Read what Glen Clark said about the WCFL/WMVP signals vs. WLS, which is barely 15 mV M-3 predicted at the North parts of Chicago, and measured in the Loop by Glen Clark, and in my opinion is hurting WLS because of their signal today, with current noise levels.
www.thebdr.net
I wish their was a detailed 25 mV/m comparison of the LIC vs. APP/CP. Figure 23 is the closest in the Engineering Packet on the Application. The 5 mV/m contour reduction change doesn't mean much, if what you need is 15 mV/m or more to not be impacted much by electrical noise.
Draft Copy « Licensing and Management System « FCC
Licensing and Management System
Read what Glen Clark said about the WCFL/WMVP signals vs. WLS, which is barely 15 mV M-3 predicted at the North parts of Chicago, and measured in the Loop by Glen Clark, and in my opinion is hurting WLS because of their signal today, with current noise levels.
The Audio Prism Story
[June 2011] In the history of audio processing, the TEXAR Audio Prism holds its own place as one of the key tools in the arsenals of stations fighting to produce their “signature” sound and stand
www.thebdr.net
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The site change from the geographically Central Downers Grove TL to the Joliet TL is much more significant than the power decrease, etc.
The FCC reduced the efficiency requirements for Class A to 275 mV/m @ 1 kW @ 1 km, from roughly a circa 1/2 wave to circa 1/4 wave monopole requirement, which allows it to continue to be Class A.
The article in Inside Radio doesn't begin to address the real concerns about the CP signal. Citing losing listeners in Montana, the Western US and Canada, and Mexico is technically ludicrous in my opinion. 25 uV/m 10% skywave is not a listenable signal to anyone but DXers with very good receivers and huge Beverage or sophisticated Phased Double Loop Antennas. A 15 mV/m and 25 mV/m ground wave comparison on a detailed map of the useful ground wave service area would tell the story in a much more useful form. I just noticed that Figure 23C may have been added to the APP, but more map detail, with city limits and county lines, would show it much better.
FCC Allows Good Karma To Cut WMVP Chicago’s Nighttime Power By A Quarter.
Good Karma Brands has overcome an objection to an engineering proposal for its clear channel station “ESPN Chicago 1000 AM” WMVP Chicago, which will allow the station to remain at
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The problem for all AMs, even with Chicago's reasonably good plains area conductivity, is that "Chicago" in Nielsen ratings is a market of 9 counties, including two in Indiana and one in Wisconsin.
When ratings were dong by Pulse and Hooper, the survey areas were pretty much confined do the area that interviewers could call toll free from a downtown or central location. Only when Arbitron became dominant, several years into the 70's, did survey areas expand, leaving stations with smaller signals to die: KLIF, KYA, WMCA, WQXI.
I'm glad someone finally mentioned that, so the wailing and moaning can stop now. 🙄
Considering all the constraints, this is a better result than yet another downgrade to class-D with low nighttime power, or a longwire antenna on an STA. Sure, it's not as good as building out an entirely new site, but it's 2024 and the ROI on that kind of project would go deep into the negative numbers.
Yes, Toll Free Call Zones did influence listeners. Toll calls for exchanges just outside the major city were ridiculously expensive. Cross country call rates were often much cheaper than call rates just beyond the local calling area. Even WLS had a Chicago Local Phone number, 312-591-3045, later 312-591-3089. You would think they could have sprung for an 800 number. Cell phones with large calling areas, later the whole country, changed all that. Not that cell phone rates are cheap. Remember when people waited until the rates went down at 11:00 PM? Some people still do, much to the annoyance of many people. I guess answering machines fixed some of that.
That said, much of the Inside Radio article is technologically unsound, and conclusions questionable, in my opinion.
I will be doing some skywave field strength measurements, at places in Michigan, before the testing at the new site begins, so an accurate evaluation of the difference can be done. I suspect the Straits Area will be about the same, and in Southeast Michigan, somewhat less. WCFL/WMVP does/did peak, around the 94th percentile of the field strength range with the two Downers Grove arrays, at around 10 mV/m in Southeast MI.
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Yeah, and, nonetheless, the complaints kept on coming, heedless of reality.
Is it safe to assume the"new" towers are physically a height for a lower frequency? If so wouldn't there be a "signal gain" for WMVP like WBBM got.
You have to look at the actual electrical heights of the towers at 1000 kHz. The present WMVP towers are 179 and 150 degrees. The proposed site towers are 106.1 degrees. There is a loss of efficiency for tower height, not a gain.
As competitive as Chicago is I assumed they would have at least around a half wave tower for the main tower for 820 with shorter towers for redirecting when directional.
When the WAIT 820 towers were in Elmhurst, they were quite a bit taller, could have been close to 1/2 wave. Wonderful facility. I could get it in Genesee County, MI Days on a Sony TRF Stage SuperSensitive Portable just by nulling out WOSU 820. Stronger than WMAQ 670 when on 10 kW AUX and antenna. When they sold off the land and moved to Milwaukee Ave., the tower was only around 215 feet, 63 degrees at 820. It was one of the old WSBC/WCRW/WEDC 1240 tower sites I believe.
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The tower at 4949 W. Belmont was (still is?) for WSBC. It worked well for WSCR when they first signed on as a daytimer in 1992. I was able to get a good signal on 820 south of Springfield one late afternoon in 1994, when we moved from Chicago to Phoenix. It faded out before we got to St. Louis.
Old tower in Elmhurst. Record from FCCdata.org. There were four towers there when it first went 1 kW DA Night. They were the same height, and probably close to 1/2 wave spacing. It was a broadside array along a 38 degree axis as I recall, phased to put deep nulls toward WBAP 820, and a shallow null on the other side of the towers, and one major lobe toward Chicago.
| L2C SMOV-19920102AC | Granted | 01/01/1978 |
| REC Application ID: 5202596 (LMS) Legacy CDBS Application ID: 418961 Record Type: Full Service AM Application Purpose: License to Cover FRN: NO FRN Community of license: CHICAGO, IL, US NAD83 Coordinates: 41 56' 18.1" N / 87 45' 5.2" W Frequency: 820 kHz FCC Station Class: D
Power: 5.000 kW Directional Antenna: N RMS Standard: 292 mV/m at 1km
FCC Application |
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