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WSCR and WBBM to move to the WYLL site.

I'm sure that the Big Owners will try to stand in the way of any move, unless it's further away. Then, I think it would be closer to WVCY, and need a deeper null.

I just checked the spacing toward WVCY. It's just 71 miles to WVCY. 105 miles is the 73.207 required separation. 90 miles is the required 73.215 required separation. The FCC ERP in that direction is just 1791 watts. The measured pattern would probably be substantially less, but the Manufacturers proof won't load. It probably would be similar to the WLAV pattern, with other shallow nulls in other directions in the measured proof.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
This is another sad day for AM Radio and Radio in general. This will indeed create worse signals in outlying areas, and a lot more fading.

Good for radio hobbyists who still have crystal radios in the NWC/ORD area. You'll likely pick the signals up on the wire that clips to the antenna. Hard to not hear two signals at the same time though, without some tuned RF filters.

WLEY 107.9 will have to move too. And with the newer Section 73.213 rules, that could be problematic. It's already DA, and would likely have to downgrade, and the Boosters might be affected.

WLS 890 should move to diplex with WGN. THAT would be an improvement. The Northern Chicago city and suburbs get a very weak signal by today's standards, and it has to hurt the ratings. WDLS 900 Wisconsin Dells would be the only station that would be problematic. WSNQ and WFRO are gone from 900. Dave Magnum is a good committed radio owner, and there's a translator, so I don't know if he would want to sell it or downgrade it. WLS tried to move to Addison in the 1970s, and that was a problem, according to the late great Glen Clark. The 900s are Class D, and CHML doesn't have to be protected at Night like a US Class B station would.

BTW, WIND only moved a quarter mile or so in 1975. They have an AUX at the Des Plaines site, which would meet all the main facility rules, but it's only 1000 watts Day, 580 watts Night, nondirectional.
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If WLS moves 30 miles further north, I believe they would lose their 50kW status as their signal contour would not fit the established contours of adjacent stations. The WGN relocation with a new tower on the far north end of their transmitter site looks like it still has not gotten off the ground. Probably a couple of years off yet.

I know you don't like the WCPT night site for WMVP but WLS can diplex there as well and use one of the remaining 2 towers that WMVP is not using. Frequency separation may be too close for it to work. Why not use the remaining two towers there that WMVP is not using and be slightly directional to the North - North East like WMVP.

All these sites are all basically compromises now for the sake of real estate sales / profit and saving money in operational cost.
 
WLS skywave contours would mainly be pushed into Canada. They would be further away from nearly all or nearly all the US cochannel stations. Moving pretty much straight North wouldn't change the East West distance that much. There is an 890 in the "real" Dawson's Creek, BC. I suppose they could triplex at the WJJD/WYLL 1160 site. The reduced height efficiency might take care of all of that. They might be able to use tower 3 and 4 for a DA to protect Class D WDLS 900 Days if no other solution can be found. I'm confident that WLS could stay Class A, one way or another. Triplexes are used in Hawaii and other places. It seems like Cynthia Jacobson designed a triplex or possibly a tetraplex for their family stations in Minnesota. Triplexing was once approved for WNBC/WABC/WCBS, but the newer WJZ/WABC backed out as I recall.

The WCPT site is even further away.

FCCInfo Results

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fccinfo.com

So the WGN tower hasn't been built yet?
 
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JeremyAndrews said:
They don't even mention 780 on the air anymore. It's "Newsradio 105-9"

It might improve the signal to the north. It doesn't get out as well as it did since they had to drop power. 670's tower is taller than the old 780 tower, thus the power drop. It's not terrible, but the audio also has taken a hit. The power increase will make up for the shorter tower.

On a side note, WLEY will need a new site. It has several boosters, but it's kind of in a tough spot. I could see them downgrading a tad and going to the 93.5, 94.3 site on the roof in Oakbrook Terrace. It would at least allow them to keep their coverage over most of the immediate Chicago area as well as their boosters. They could also potentially use the WERV tower.

Not sure if 1000 is testing from the WCPT night site yet, but it's pretty bad up here right now compared to usual
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WMVP is still using the Downers Grove site as of 7/30/2024. The Special Temporary Auth.-engineering application is still pending. Maybe using an auxiliary transmitter if the moved the Nautel NX50's to Joliet.
 
At the Ballard Rd. site is Des Plaines, tower 3 and 4 are along a 135/315 degree azimuth. The distance between those towers is about 69 degrees at 890 kHz, and the towers are about 72 degrees high. A phase of -111 degrees in the SE tower in reference to the NE tower would produce a null at 315 degrees. WDLS 900 is 145 miles away at an azimuth of 320 degrees. With a phase of slightly lower than -111 degrees, it would put a null directly toward WDLS, and the field ratio could be reduced from 1.000 to whatever level required to not increase overlap between WLS and WDLS, which as I recall is about 0.5 mV/m to 0.5 mV/m, as required by rules at the time WDLS came on the air.

The spacing and phase combination would increase radiation efficiency, and the maximum at 135 degrees would be substantially greater, blasting a much greater signal over the Northern portions of Chicago and Northern parts of the Metropolitan Area than the licensed site near the border of Tinley Park and Mokena. The downstate "farm market" intended to be served at the time that site was built, is no longer that important.
 
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Schroedingers Cat said:
At the Ballard Rd. site is Des Plaines, tower 3 and 4 are along a 135/315 degree azimuth. The distance between those towers is about 69 degrees at 890 kHz, and the towers are about 72 degrees high. A phase of -111 degrees in the SE tower in reference to the NE tower would produce a null at 315 degrees. WDLS 900 is 145 miles away at an azimuth of 320 degrees. With a phase of slightly lower than -111 degrees, it would put a null directly toward WDLS, and the field ratio could be reduced from 1.000 to whatever level required to not increase overlap between WLS and WDLS, which as I recall is about 0.5 mV/m to 0.5 mV/m, as required by rules at the time WDLS came on the air.

The spacing and phase combination would increase radiation efficiency, and the maximum at 135 degrees would be substantially greater, blasting a much greater signal over the Northern portions of Chicago and Northern parts of the Metropolitan Area than the licensed site near the border of Tinley Park and Mokena. The downstate "farm market" intended to be served at the time that site was built, is no longer that important.
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One could make the case that WLS's current choice in programing in more popular south of I 80 than in the City of Chicago proper. WIND covers that same audience well over much of the Chicago area. Salem and WIND exists much for the same reason Heartland signal and WCPT exist with the mission of getting their owner's political message out. If WLS were to program the station more like WBBM towards strait news or WGN with straight news and down the middle talk, moving further north might be beneficial but Cumulus typically shows no interest in doing so.
 
Someone might "know", if the rumored Cumulus - Aduacy deal ever becomes a reality, (I personally doubt they could get financing), wouldn't there be ownership cap issues too?
 
secondchoice said:
Someone might "know", if the rumored Cumulus - Aduacy deal ever becomes a reality, (I personally doubt they could get financing), wouldn't there be ownership cap issues too?
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Not to collocate the facilities. There are plenty of different owners diplexing. Seems like one of the big owners was trying to lift limits for AMs, but I don't remember the details.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Not to collocate the facilities. There are plenty of different owners diplexing. Seems like one of the big owners was trying to lift limits for AMs, but I don't remember the details.
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Why spend money on an AM (890?), when you are might have to get rid of it unless the land is really valuable. Of course the land might make the the station bring a better price. This is why smart companies hire smart tax accountants and real estate folks.
 
secondchoice said:
Why spend money on an AM (890?), when you are might have to get rid of it unless the land is really valuable. Of course the land might make the the station bring a better price. This is why smart companies hire smart tax accountants and real estate folks.
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Most if not all broadcasters believe that streaming is the future. In the case of AM broadcasters, selling land off seems to be a thing right now.

In Auducy's case with WSCR/WBBM, they own the site they want to sell for profit. In Good Karma's case with WMVP the transmitter site was not part of the deal when they bought the station from Disney. With WLS and Cumulus, the sight was sold off to Vertical Bridge a few years back. Either Vertical Bridge would have to outright sell the land or Cumulus would look elsewhere for a better leasing deal maybe moving north as suggested by diplexing at the 1160 site or staying south and maybe diplexing with WIND in Griffith IN since Salem seems to be agreeable to diplexing deals. The WIND tower height is probably more suitable for WLS than the 1160 site in Desplanes but the same could be said for WSCR and WBBM as well.
 
Drove by the WYLL site in Des Plaines over the weekend and noticed that work was being done on the NW tower. Looks like the WSCR/WBBM move to this site is moving along.
 
CADXER said:
Drove by the WYLL site in Des Plaines over the weekend and noticed that work was being done on the NW tower. Looks like the WSCR/WBBM move to this site is moving along.
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WYLL has been transmitting from their night site 24/7 last three weeks or so.
 
We should mention that this would be WBBM's second AM transmitter move in six years. In 2019, it moved from its long-time tower in Itasca when that land was sold to a developer for $46 million. It relocated to WSCR's tower in Bloomington, but that came with a slight power decrease, no longer 50,000 watts day and night as most former Class I-A clear channel stations are, such as WGN, WLS and the aforementioned WSCR.

Interesting to note that Chicago is the only city with four of the former Class I-A stations. NYC (660, 770, 880) and Mexico City (730, 900, 1220) each has three.
 
Gregg. said:
It relocated to WSCR's tower in Bloomington, but that came with a slight power decrease, no longer 50,000 watts day and night as most former Class I-A clear channel stations are, such as WGN, WLS and the aforementioned WSCR.
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Bloomingdale, not Bloomington. The former is in DuPage County, while the latter is over 150 miles southwest on I-55.
 
MarkW said:
Thanks for the info.

The puny wavelength of the proposed site due to short tower height does worry me, assuming I'm reading the data correctly. Looks like 780's signal strength in western lower MI might be a wash compared to the current site / specs, whereas 670 might be worse than its current site.
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I looked up FCC data on WSCR and it shows the existing tower with an RMS of roughly 390 mv/m VS the CP tower producing approx 290 mv/m. That theoretically would translate to a loss of about 2.2db.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
The downstate "farm market" intended to be served at the time that site was built, is no longer that important.
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You mean "The Prairie Farmer Station" is dead?
 


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