WPPN 106.7 and WPWX 92.3 in Chicago

[e-dawg]

With the full power marketwide signal. Both stations have crappy coverage around the Chicago area. Tried to listen to WPPN and WPWX around the loop, it's very static and hard to hear around Chicago. 92.3 is better in the downtown area vs 106.7. Is there a possible way for both stations move to Willis or John Hancock Tower?

 

[davideduardo]

With the full power marketwide signal. Both stations have crappy coverage around the Chicago area. Tried to listen to WPPN and WPWX around the loop, it's very static and hard to hear around Chicago. 92.3 is better in the downtown area vs 106.7. Is there a possible way for both stations move to Willis or John Hancock Tower?

This is a "could have, would have" situation.

If anything doable could have been done, it would have been done years ago.

 

[[email protected]]

David Eduarda is exactly right....years ago I was the Chief Engineer of 106.7FM and we exhausted all possibilities of moving the station onto one of the tall buildings in the city. Unless 106.3FM in Lansing, IL goes away or the FCC changes it's protection rules the 106.7FM antenna will always be outside the city.

 

[e-dawg]

I wonder if the FCC can make a waiver for 106.7 since 105.9 was able to move to Willis Tower with 106.3 in Lansing IL

 

[dave73]

David Eduarda is exactly right....years ago I was the Chief Engineer of 106.7FM and we exhausted all possibilities of moving the station onto one of the tall buildings in the city. Unless 106.3FM in Lansing, IL goes away or the FCC changes it's protection rules the 106.7FM antenna will always be outside the city.

That's the same reason that 106.3 Lansing, IL could not send all their signal north & northwest when they upgraded from 2kw non-directional to 4.1kw directional a few years ago. 106.7 signed on under the current rules, & as a result, 106.3 Lansing must null their signal to the north & northwest, & 106.7 is forced to be a full power suburban signal. What makes 106.7 a challenge to listen to in the city, is that they're on a shorter tower, due to being near what used to be called Palwaukee Airport, along with O'Hare Airport. 92.3 is on a 500' tower in Burnham, & despite being directional, it gets out rather well. Even with 92.7 already being short-spaced, & I believe both stations are pre-1964 stations, I'm not sure what has kept 92.3 from locating in downtown Chicago. The only way I could see 106.7 being able to locate in Chicago under the current rules, is if Crawford were willing to sell 106.3 to Univision, & Univision would accept interference from each station. As it stands now, Crawford won't accept interference from 106.7.

I wonder if the FCC can make a waiver for 106.7 since 105.9 was able to move to Willis Tower with 106.3 in Lansing IL

As I stated above, the FCC won't grant a waiver for 106.7, since it signed on under the current rules, while 105.9 & 106.3 are pre-1964 short-spaced stations, & 105.9 was allowed to move from the suburbs to downtown Chicago years ago. Under the current rules, 105.9 would be lucky if they could be a 6kw Class A station today.

 

[fybush]

I wonder if the FCC can make a waiver for 106.7 since 105.9 was able to move to Willis Tower with 106.3 in Lansing IL

Nope. As Dave explains in his answer just above, there are two sets of rules at play here. For stations that existed and were already short-spaced before 1964, the FCC has essentially "made a waiver" - there's a whole set of fairly loose grandfathered rules at play. In particular, there's no second-adjacent spacing requirement, which is why 105.9 didn't have to concern itself with 106.3 in Lansing or with 105.5 in Valpo. For stations like 106.7 that signed on after 1964, the rules are the rules.

(That lack of second-adjacent restriction is why K-Love has been able to move 94.3 in from Elgin and why Univision has been able to move 93.5 in from Joliet.)

Even pre-1964 grandfathered stations (like 92.3, but not 106.7) still have some rules they must follow, though. They have to fully protect any station that signed on after 1964, or that was fully spaced in 1964. And they can't increase overall interference to or from other pre-1964 stations on the same or first-adjacent channels. That's the hitch with moving 92.3: it's locked into place by its existing grandfathered overlap with 92.5 in De Kalb. I'd have to look more closely to be certain, but it's very possible that 92.3 and 92.7 Arlington Heights are locked into place against each other as well - they may have been fully spaced against each other in 1964, which means they have to continue to respect the current second-adjacent rules.

(Back to those 93.5 and 94.3 moves: if the only considerations for those moves had been spacing to WXRT, WLIT and WLS-FM, 93.5 and 94.3 could have moved all the way in to Sears and Willis. But there's also the IF-spacing rule that keeps 93.5 a certain distance away from 104.3, and 94.3 from 105.1, and those rules don't have any grandfathering exception. And there's spacing to other stations that aren't pre-1964 grandfathered, which requires a certain minimum distance between, for instance, WJKL and WZOC in Plymouth, Indiana.)

The spacings around Chicago and the midwest aren't as bad as in the northeast corridor, where just about everything's locked into place by mutual short-spacing - but it's a pretty solid bet at this point that anything in Chicagoland that could have been moved by now has been moved. Some of those moves have been pretty impressive, too - 107.9, for instance.

 

[dave73]

I wonder if the FCC can make a waiver for 106.7 since 105.9 was able to move to Willis Tower with 106.3 in Lansing IL

Nope. As Dave explains in his answer just above, there are two sets of rules at play here. For stations that existed and were already short-spaced before 1964, the FCC has essentially "made a waiver" - there's a whole set of fairly loose grandfathered rules at play. In particular, there's no second-adjacent spacing requirement, which is why 105.9 didn't have to concern itself with 106.3 in Lansing or with 105.5 in Valpo. For stations like 106.7 that signed on after 1964, the rules are the rules.

(That lack of second-adjacent restriction is why K-Love has been able to move 94.3 in from Elgin and why Univision has been able to move 93.5 in from Joliet.)

Even pre-1964 grandfathered stations (like 92.3, but not 106.7) still have some rules they must follow, though. They have to fully protect any station that signed on after 1964, or that was fully spaced in 1964. And they can't increase overall interference to or from other pre-1964 stations on the same or first-adjacent channels. That's the hitch with moving 92.3: it's locked into place by its existing grandfathered overlap with 92.5 in De Kalb. I'd have to look more closely to be certain, but it's very possible that 92.3 and 92.7 Arlington Heights are locked into place against each other as well - they may have been fully spaced against each other in 1964, which means they have to continue to respect the current second-adjacent rules.

(Back to those 93.5 and 94.3 moves: if the only considerations for those moves had been spacing to WXRT, WLIT and WLS-FM, 93.5 and 94.3 could have moved all the way in to Sears and Willis. But there's also the IF-spacing rule that keeps 93.5 a certain distance away from 104.3, and 94.3 from 105.1, and those rules don't have any grandfathering exception. And there's spacing to other stations that aren't pre-1964 grandfathered, which requires a certain minimum distance between, for instance, WJKL and WZOC in Plymouth, Indiana.)

The spacings around Chicago and the midwest aren't as bad as in the northeast corridor, where just about everything's locked into place by mutual short-spacing - but it's a pretty solid bet at this point that anything in Chicagoland that could have been moved by now has been moved. Some of those moves have been pretty impressive, too - 107.9, for instance.

93.5 would not have been able to move into Chicago, since the station was licensed to Joliet at the time, & would not have provided Grade A coverage over Joliet (not sure if that would be true now that it's licensed to LeMont). While Nextmedia owned the station, they did build a new tower (only because Univision offered to buy the station & wanted a new tower), & got the power increased to 6kw. They tried to get the power increased to be equivalent to 25kw & make it a B1, but that was denied. I forgot which station it was that prevented that, but it wasn't any Chicago station. It was another station in a nearby market that prevented the move on 93.5.

96.7, which is still owned by Nextmedia, also did a power increase, along with having a new tower built. They're at 6kw equivalent, & they moved a bit further north (forgot where I read it at),so they could get Grade A coverage over Naperville, & cross sell ads with 95.9 WERV Aurora. I believe they could have done the full 6kw from their original location non-directional, or not have as sharp of a null toward Indiana & Wisconsin. Despite being a pre-1964 station, they were forced to protect 96.7 WCOE LaPorte, IN, & 96.9 WWDV Zion, IL.

 

[fybush]

93.5 would not have been able to move into Chicago, since the station was licensed to Joliet at the time

City of license is very, very rarely the biggest impediment to an FM move-in, as 93.5 demonstrated. You can almost always find an "unserved" community to which a station can be moved, as 93.5 did with Lemont. Had other factors allowed for a full-on move into Chicago, it would have been relatively trivial to find a COL that would have worked for the move. The typical way that it's done is to find a community such as Lemont that receives 70 dBu coverage from both the current site and the desired new site, then apply first for the COL change and only later for the site change.

(The FCC recently tightened the rules a little bit to prevent stations from moving into an "urbanized area" from outside an urbanized area; that wouldn't have been a factor where Joliet and Lemont are concerned.)

They tried to get the power increased to be equivalent to 25kw & make it a B1, but that was denied. I forgot which station it was that prevented that, but it wasn't any Chicago station. It was another station in a nearby market that prevented the move on 93.5.

Chicago would have been a factor here, too. The pre-1964 grandfathering among WXRT, 93.5 and WLIT only applies so long as 93.5 remains a class A. An upgrade to B1 wouldn't have been covered by the grandfathering.

96.7, which is still owned by Nextmedia [ ... ] Despite being a pre-1964 station, they were forced to protect 96.7 WCOE LaPorte, IN, & 96.9 WWDV Zion, IL.

No "despite" there at all - the pre-1964 grandfathering rules still include protection to co-channel stations such as WCOE and first-adjacents such as Zion and 96.5 Milwaukee. If 96.7 Joliet was already short to WCOE or Zion in 1964, it can remain short, but the amount of interference to and from the pairs of stations involved cannot be increased. In practice, that could have been done by moving both 96.7 and 96.9 north, which would effectively have made 96.9 a Milwaukee-market station once again. (96.9 is, I believe, grandfathered against 96.5 and 97.3 in Milwaukee.)

However, there'd also have been the issue of 96.7 in Loves Park/Rockford to consider. It's a complicated game...

 

[dave73]

93.5 would not have been able to move into Chicago, since the station was licensed to Joliet at the time

City of license is very, very rarely the biggest impediment to an FM move-in, as 93.5 demonstrated. You can almost always find an "unserved" community to which a station can be moved, as 93.5 did with Lemont. Had other factors allowed for a full-on move into Chicago, it would have been relatively trivial to find a COL that would have worked for the move. The typical way that it's done is to find a community such as Lemont that receives 70 dBu coverage from both the current site and the desired new site, then apply first for the COL change and only later for the site change.

(The FCC recently tightened the rules a little bit to prevent stations from moving into an "urbanized area" from outside an urbanized area; that wouldn't have been a factor where Joliet and Lemont are concerned.)

They tried to get the power increased to be equivalent to 25kw & make it a B1, but that was denied. I forgot which station it was that prevented that, but it wasn't any Chicago station. It was another station in a nearby market that prevented the move on 93.5.

Chicago would have been a factor here, too. The pre-1964 grandfathering among WXRT, 93.5 and WLIT only applies so long as 93.5 remains a class A. An upgrade to B1 wouldn't have been covered by the grandfathering.

96.7, which is still owned by Nextmedia [ ... ] Despite being a pre-1964 station, they were forced to protect 96.7 WCOE LaPorte, IN, & 96.9 WWDV Zion, IL.

No "despite" there at all - the pre-1964 grandfathering rules still include protection to co-channel stations such as WCOE and first-adjacents such as Zion and 96.5 Milwaukee. If 96.7 Joliet was already short to WCOE or Zion in 1964, it can remain short, but the amount of interference to and from the pairs of stations involved cannot be increased. In practice, that could have been done by moving both 96.7 and 96.9 north, which would effectively have made 96.9 a Milwaukee-market station once again. (96.9 is, I believe, grandfathered against 96.5 and 97.3 in Milwaukee.)

However, there'd also have been the issue of 96.7 in Loves Park/Rockford to consider. It's a complicated game...

WCOE LaPorte, IN was the reason that WSSR Joliet had to null their signal to the east. I don't know who the engineer was that did the upgrade on 96.7, but that engineer may have posted on this board (or another board), & 96.7 LaPorte & 96.9 Zion were the reasons they had to go directional, or they would have been allowed to go non-directional from the new site. 96.7 LaPorte I just found out signed on under the current spacing rules. As for 96.9, they are grandfathered in against Milwaukee's 96.5 & 97.3, along with Chicago's 97.1 (even though both are owned by Hubbard Broadcasting). I only wish I knew how to get a hold of Chris Tarr. He's not on this board anymore, but he was the engineer for Nextmedia when 93.5 was upgraded. He knows the reason why 93.5 could not go to a B1, but I believe it was because of another 93.5 that prevented the upgrade, & not because of 93.1 & 93.9, which are also pre-1964 stations. There's a 93.5 down in the Champaign/Urbana market, along with a 93.5 in the Lafayette, IN market.

 

[[email protected]]

Another signal coverage issue for 106.7FM that was uncovered while I worked there was a little thing called front-end overload. This mainly applies to coverage in the downtown Chicago area. Anyway, the strength of the downtown signals are so high that it desensitized (weakens) a receiver tuned to 106.7.

This was verified (during the 90's) when the stations on the Hancock building went off air overnight for maintenance. During those hours the 106.7FM signal was clear and clean while driving in the downtown area...and returned to being noisy and unlistenable when the Hancock stations came back on.

Though I didn't check...I'm confident that this applies to the 92.3FM signal as well.

 

[ftballfan]

There is a lot of short spacing in the Great Lakes area.
A newish example is 106.9 in the Milwaukee area being short-spaced to 106.9 in Muskegon. The Milwaukee 106.9 (Class A) signed on well after 1964 yet is still allowed to be short-spaced to Muskegon (a 50kW Class B). Normal spacing between a Class A and Class B co-channel is 111 miles, while these two are only 97 miles apart.
94.5 in Holland (Class B) is short-spaced to two 94.5s, Milwaukee (Class B) and Mt. Pleasant/Tri-Cities (Class C1). All three of these signed on before 1964.