This is still shown as the old WCRW tower in an old geographical database. Zoom way in on the map, and you'll see one tower labelled WCRW. It's on an old DWEDC record.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
WMVP New CP
- Thread starter JJSPC
- Start date
Did WCRW use the 5475 N. Milwaukee site? I thought they used the 2796 N. Pine Grove Avenue site on top of a hotel building before being absorbed by WSBC.
WCPT and WSBC Diplex off of the same tower (former WEDC site) at Milwaukee Ave & Catalpa during daytime hours. WCPT, WYPA, WSCR, post Elmhurst, did use the former WXRT tower at Belmont and Cicero. WCPT's switch to the former WEDC site (studio location) was around 2016, diplexing with WSBC with a slight power increase from 5000 to 5900 watts.
The WCPT night site in Joliet was constructed around 2008 or 2009. This six tower array actually does a fairly decent job at night with a 1.5kW signal as long as WBAP doesn't roll over it. The older WAIT Elmhurst site pretty much nulled the SW suburbs and only provided a decent signal to Chicago's North Side and close in North Suburbs. The Joliet night site is over-all a better solution for 820 with what is still a compromised signal.
For WMVP's use of the WCPT night site, the towers are way shorter around 290FT each vs the Downers Grove site with the main center tower at 490 Ft, the east and west towers at 460Ft. In my opinion, the WCPT night site tower hight, configuration is more of a concern for WMVP's use than the night time power deduction to 37kW.
The WCPT night site in Joliet was constructed around 2008 or 2009. This six tower array actually does a fairly decent job at night with a 1.5kW signal as long as WBAP doesn't roll over it. The older WAIT Elmhurst site pretty much nulled the SW suburbs and only provided a decent signal to Chicago's North Side and close in North Suburbs. The Joliet night site is over-all a better solution for 820 with what is still a compromised signal.
For WMVP's use of the WCPT night site, the towers are way shorter around 290FT each vs the Downers Grove site with the main center tower at 490 Ft, the east and west towers at 460Ft. In my opinion, the WCPT night site tower hight, configuration is more of a concern for WMVP's use than the night time power deduction to 37kW.
Looks like they moved to Belmont, then to Milwaukee Ave. Some AUXs for Audacy AMs and FMs are on Belmont. All the records taken together are confusing.
Looks like they consolidated two of them at the Milwaukee Ave. site when WCRW went from 250 watts to 1000 watts Day, possibly due to overlap with WJOB 1230 near the Lake. That may have been when the first 1240 site consolidation occurred.
If they used measured contours to establish WCRW 1240 WJOB 1230 overlap with the power upgrades to 1000 watts, it may have showed even more overlap due to the fact that newer maps show Lake Michigan has a much higher real conductivity than the 8 mS/m M-3 value. Also explains why WIND 560 has such a great signal over the water path part of their signal.
Last edited:
According to JoeU the site was constructed in 2008 or 2009. The ground system should be in good shape. After 40 or more years in the Georgia clay if you dig into a radial sometimes all you see is "green dirt line" where the copper "rusted". To paraphrase Martha Stewart: A good ground system is a good thing for AM daytime signals.
Remember, the usual insulated tower is one-half of a dipole. The other half is the ground. So if you have a half-wave tower, you should have half wave radials ("should" and not "must"). That means huge real estate for the guy wires of the tower, and huge land for a half-wave out every direction around the base. Expensive.
If installed property: the 820 radials should be log enough for the higher frequency "1000 khz" shorter wavelength.
Long not log! Autocorrect strikes again.
I did some research some time back when digitizing some of the airchecks I made in Chicago. I lived in Chicago when WSBC bought WEDC and then began using the transmitter site. I was at 5600 North halfway between Clark and Broadway which turned out to be the perfect location for catching the handoffs - especially when WEDC jumped the gun and both stations had carrier at the same time. Conversely, if there was a gap between the two stations, WJOB could be easily detected.
Anyway, these were my notes (to avoid confusion about dates, I moved from Kansas City to Chicago late in 1996):
You don't happen to have access to more complete details about the WAIT 4 tower 1 kW DA-N array in Elmhurst, than the bits and pieces we found and posted earlier in the thread, do you? If the picture is looking directly from a line perpendicular to the towers, since the towers are 153 degrees high, the spacing looks to be less, perhaps 120 degrees. A vectorially added 1:3:3:1 expansion could produce several nulls toward the WBAP 0.5 mV/m 50% skywave with varied phases around 60 degrees between each tower.
I do not have anything on the old 820 Elmhurst site.
Back in the WPNT simulcast days 1990ish, the night signal from Elmhurst was pretty weak traveling east from Downers Grove thru Hinsdale, Lagrange and into the south side of Chicago. WBAP was always on top. Traveling north past downtown Chicago, the 820 Elmhurst night signal was much better past Chicago Ave and through out much of Chicago's north side and probably into to close in north suburbs.
If I remember correctly, Century Broadcasting owned WAIT, WXEZ and WPNT 820 AM as well as FM 100. Strange that they spent money on putting up the additional 3 towers for the night signal at the Elmhurst site around 1985 only to sell it off in 1991.
Back in the WPNT simulcast days 1990ish, the night signal from Elmhurst was pretty weak traveling east from Downers Grove thru Hinsdale, Lagrange and into the south side of Chicago. WBAP was always on top. Traveling north past downtown Chicago, the 820 Elmhurst night signal was much better past Chicago Ave and through out much of Chicago's north side and probably into to close in north suburbs.
If I remember correctly, Century Broadcasting owned WAIT, WXEZ and WPNT 820 AM as well as FM 100. Strange that they spent money on putting up the additional 3 towers for the night signal at the Elmhurst site around 1985 only to sell it off in 1991.
l see that happening more and more. From the ones I have heard about recently, "they made them an offer they couldn't refuse".
Tower, land, and station owners today tend to put big bucks over the nostalgia of radio. I have also heard of some of the most hard headed, unemotional owners crying when the tower(s) fell though.
Last edited:
At night in the WAIT days, you could drive by the towers on I-290 (they were next to the expressway on the north side) and still hear WBAP underneath.
The sale came about with, as our friend the Cat said, "an offer they couldn't refuse." The towers came down, a warehouse-factory went up on the site and an adjacent one, and in a couple of years, that company, which manufactured golf clubs, went bankrupt.
Albert David's objection was denied and the CP was granted. The grant was actually on March 5 but the denial of the objection popped up today.
- Status