I was tooling around in the western suburbs today and I took a listen for my favorite small town station, WSPY 1480 AM. But today their usual faint signal was missing from the dial entirely. A check of FCC records shows that the STA to use 150 watts to a longwire antenna is still in effect. Does anyone know if they are about to move to Millbrook or if they are throwing in the towel? That would be a shame, because there is no other adult standards station in the entire metro.
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WSPY 1480 OFF THE AIR TODAY
- Thread starter audioguy
- Start date
Interesting, maybe that temp. installation just pooped out. That's been up for some years now has it not?
Another thing that instantly struck a chord with me was the flooding. Perhaps a power outage or flooded equipment? Being a longwire and probably not the best setup, it is possible that it is a victim of the water.
I tried following the flooding situation, I just arrived back in the city this morning, Des Plaines, Wheaton and those areas saw a lot of damage.
The longwire if I recall was not that far west of the Fox River in Batavia.
I'd be interested to know if they come back online. I am surprised they kept the standards format when the Sycamore station added an FM and made a switch to classic hits.
I thought for now they were the "redheaded stepchild" of the group.
The Feds should really look to allowing stations like this set up shop on longwire or TIS stations at a power of 100 watts or less. That could keep some small stations on the air. The cost for a transmitter and stick to broadcast from is pretty cheap compared to the price of rebuilding or rehabbing a big four or six tower array. Not to mention the cost of caring for and upkeep of the site.
It would also allow some people who would love to run a small station and tailor it to a small town to get in the game and bring something besides sports yackers or 10th tier talkers.
It will never happen, I'm sure the big boys could lose to a very area specific station like this. I hope they get back running. Please let us knoewif they get back on
Another thing that instantly struck a chord with me was the flooding. Perhaps a power outage or flooded equipment? Being a longwire and probably not the best setup, it is possible that it is a victim of the water.
I tried following the flooding situation, I just arrived back in the city this morning, Des Plaines, Wheaton and those areas saw a lot of damage.
The longwire if I recall was not that far west of the Fox River in Batavia.
I'd be interested to know if they come back online. I am surprised they kept the standards format when the Sycamore station added an FM and made a switch to classic hits.
I thought for now they were the "redheaded stepchild" of the group.
The Feds should really look to allowing stations like this set up shop on longwire or TIS stations at a power of 100 watts or less. That could keep some small stations on the air. The cost for a transmitter and stick to broadcast from is pretty cheap compared to the price of rebuilding or rehabbing a big four or six tower array. Not to mention the cost of caring for and upkeep of the site.
It would also allow some people who would love to run a small station and tailor it to a small town to get in the game and bring something besides sports yackers or 10th tier talkers.
It will never happen, I'm sure the big boys could lose to a very area specific station like this. I hope they get back running. Please let us knoewif they get back on
I think there are two reasons why you probably won't see longwires approved for routine use:
1. Skywave, for nighttime operation. The tower-and-ground-system arrangement concentrates the available power along the horizon. Not only does that improve local groundwave coverage, but it reduces the amount of power that gets radiated above the horizon, to "bounce" back down to earth a few hundred miles away & interfere with something else on the same frequency. A 100-watt station feeding a longwire is more likely to cause interference than a 100-watt station on the same frequency feeding a tower.
2. Wasted allocation space. The efficiency of a tower is fairly predictable and so it its directional characteristics. A longwire, not so much so. Especially when near the ground. (at the top of the AM dial, 150 feet is "near the ground"; at lower dial positions, it's even higher)
The FCC would rather not protect a station from interference in a place where that station doesn't provide service. They can predict that with towers. They can't predict it with longwires.
1. Skywave, for nighttime operation. The tower-and-ground-system arrangement concentrates the available power along the horizon. Not only does that improve local groundwave coverage, but it reduces the amount of power that gets radiated above the horizon, to "bounce" back down to earth a few hundred miles away & interfere with something else on the same frequency. A 100-watt station feeding a longwire is more likely to cause interference than a 100-watt station on the same frequency feeding a tower.
2. Wasted allocation space. The efficiency of a tower is fairly predictable and so it its directional characteristics. A longwire, not so much so. Especially when near the ground. (at the top of the AM dial, 150 feet is "near the ground"; at lower dial positions, it's even higher)
The FCC would rather not protect a station from interference in a place where that station doesn't provide service. They can predict that with towers. They can't predict it with longwires.
The outage could have been caused by flooding-- that's very possible. I believe I found that the temporary transmitter site is near Batavia. Concerning the longwire antenna, I have noticed that it causes some unusual anomalies. With this one station, I frequently observe signal fade-UPS rather than fade-outs when I drive under bridges and overpasses. I think these horizontal structures re-radiate the signal from a longwire antenna much more than from a vertically polarized tower.
I think the Commission could be a lot more flexible for AM than it is under the current rules. I would not advocate the use of longwire antennas, but why not allow shortened vertical antennas with lower efficiency and just let the station adjust its power output accordingly? I seem to recall that a while back, there was a station in PA someplace running a short vertical fiberglass whip antenna on a golf course. Why not? Same thing concerning DA operation. If a station can't find a location that is suitable for a 6-tower array, let them go on the air Non-D at reduced power and cover their community as best they can. A couple hundred watts is more than sufficient for a small town. Other things come to mind as well, such as reduced/restricted ground plane systems. They should also alleviate the required signal level requirement for the city of license for these lower powered stations. If they can't provide X mV/m across the entire city, so be it. They will be motivated to provide the best signal they can under the conditions.
I will be out in the western burbs again in a week or so and I will check on WSPY AM then. Their web site gave no clue when I checked. It just re-directs to the WSPY-FM web site. I think Nelson does treat this property as a bit of a step-child; they don't promote it very effectively. This is happening to more and more AM stations; sometimes you'll be listening to an AM and hear the ID as Country 97 or some such thing. They promote the FM frequency and don't even mention the AM except at TOH.
I think the Commission could be a lot more flexible for AM than it is under the current rules. I would not advocate the use of longwire antennas, but why not allow shortened vertical antennas with lower efficiency and just let the station adjust its power output accordingly? I seem to recall that a while back, there was a station in PA someplace running a short vertical fiberglass whip antenna on a golf course. Why not? Same thing concerning DA operation. If a station can't find a location that is suitable for a 6-tower array, let them go on the air Non-D at reduced power and cover their community as best they can. A couple hundred watts is more than sufficient for a small town. Other things come to mind as well, such as reduced/restricted ground plane systems. They should also alleviate the required signal level requirement for the city of license for these lower powered stations. If they can't provide X mV/m across the entire city, so be it. They will be motivated to provide the best signal they can under the conditions.
I will be out in the western burbs again in a week or so and I will check on WSPY AM then. Their web site gave no clue when I checked. It just re-directs to the WSPY-FM web site. I think Nelson does treat this property as a bit of a step-child; they don't promote it very effectively. This is happening to more and more AM stations; sometimes you'll be listening to an AM and hear the ID as Country 97 or some such thing. They promote the FM frequency and don't even mention the AM except at TOH.
audioguy said:
That would probably be WFYL 1180 in King of Prussia PA (~15 miles west pf Philadelphia). There may, however, be another station in PA that also runs a Valcom Fibreglass whip. (I think its on 1470 but I can't remember the location or the calls. The manufacturer, Valcom, is somewhere in Canada, but I don't recall the city.) The antenna is helically wound around the Fibreglass core. There are also lumped center and top loads. The combination of the two lumped loads plus the inductance of the helically wound antenna and the antenna's capacitance to ground via the Fibreglass, which has a fairly high dielectric constant, results in the whip's electrical length being greater than its physical length. The 94' model supposedly meets the FCC's minimum radiation efficiency for Class B and D AMs at 1200 kHz and above. In WFYL's case, the efficiency is still adequate at 1180. BTW, the whip can be disassembled into several sections, making it possible to transport it on a large flatbed trailer.
I don't think it is flooding. The signal went bad b4 the big rain. I think it could be a technical or antenna problem. Recently the station has gotten stronger, but not as good as it was in the best years. I love that station but I would not call it a small town station. It has no local content except some commercials.
audioguy said:
Speaking to the shortened verticals... it would be helpful for someone with more experience with AM engineering than myself to chime in but... the height of the tower affects the vertical radiation pattern, causing the same potential increased skywave issue as a longwire. It's my understanding the loaded whips don't exhibit that issue but a straight tower would.
As for the rest, basically what you're suggesting is eliminating the principal community coverage regulations. It's an idea that has a lot of merit if the goal is to preserve small AM stations.
I'm not sure that's the right goal though. I know I sound like a broken record on this but, IMHO allowing these stations to die would be best both for the AM broadcasting industry and for its audience. Each station that exists, regardless of its coverage, adds to the overall total of interference on the AM band. Allowing marginal stations to die would reduce interference to the more successful operations and potentially allow them to increase power/let out their patterns. Which would in turn improve their ability to override interference from things that aren't broadcast stations. (noisy power lines, computers, plasma TVs, etc.)
Maybe, you allow some of these small AM operations to shut down the AM transmitter & operate only on a FM translator under certain circumstances? (maybe, allow translator-only operation if the AM station meets all requirements for LPFM operation except the non-commercial nature of the service?)
DanStrassberg said:
The other station in PA is WEEO 1480 in Shippensburg.
I like the idea of the shortened verticals for low power AMs. I also like the idea of letting stations with translators sign off their AM signals and only operate the translator. Many stations that have translators are only promoting their FM frequencies and probably most of their listeners are on FM, so what is the purpose for keeping the AM on the air when nobody is listening to it and it's just cluttering up the band?
On the other hand, there is a definite need for small signal AMs where there are no FM frequencies available. At lower power levels (e.g., 100W or less), these stations would not pose that much of a threat of skywave interference at night. The amount of additional high-angle radiation from a shortened monopole is not that much greater than from a 1/4-wave monopole. Radiation patterns can be found in antenna textbooks. Some (limited) information is available in the ARRL Antenna Handbook. The ARRL Antenna Compendium series has a lot of good information, and I particularly like the Low-Band DXing handbook by John DeVoldere.
I don't necessarily buy the idea that it's a good idea to shut down all of the low power AM stations and just have a few higher powered stations left. This leaves very little opportunity for programming diversity and many small communities that could have a radio voice are denied that voice. Consider the example of Kovas Communications which bought out three small town stations and shut them down so they could increase the power of their Evanston station on 1590. Those three communities lost their local radio service, which was replaced by a foreign language time-brokered station that provides only a very weak signal in those outlying areas (Harvard, East Chicago, and Aurora) and that more than likely is of no interest to listeners there anyway. In my opinion, it is a travesty that FCC rules permit things like this to happen.
On the other hand, there is a definite need for small signal AMs where there are no FM frequencies available. At lower power levels (e.g., 100W or less), these stations would not pose that much of a threat of skywave interference at night. The amount of additional high-angle radiation from a shortened monopole is not that much greater than from a 1/4-wave monopole. Radiation patterns can be found in antenna textbooks. Some (limited) information is available in the ARRL Antenna Handbook. The ARRL Antenna Compendium series has a lot of good information, and I particularly like the Low-Band DXing handbook by John DeVoldere.
I don't necessarily buy the idea that it's a good idea to shut down all of the low power AM stations and just have a few higher powered stations left. This leaves very little opportunity for programming diversity and many small communities that could have a radio voice are denied that voice. Consider the example of Kovas Communications which bought out three small town stations and shut them down so they could increase the power of their Evanston station on 1590. Those three communities lost their local radio service, which was replaced by a foreign language time-brokered station that provides only a very weak signal in those outlying areas (Harvard, East Chicago, and Aurora) and that more than likely is of no interest to listeners there anyway. In my opinion, it is a travesty that FCC rules permit things like this to happen.
I essentially agree with audioguy. The situation with Kovas is especially irksome. I doubt if taking three small local stations off the air significantly increased listenership or revenue. In the case of the 1600 in Harvard, IL, its listenership was in a sort of "no man's land" of Illinois and Wisconsin in the far fringes of four markets (Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and Rockford). For most of its history, the station, WMCW, made a sincere effort to give some measure of local media voice to a community being ignored by the outlets from afar.
Ironically, the longtime owner, Esther Blodgett, used to sign off the station at sunset with a hymn, "Let the Lower Lights be Burning"
.....So much for that!
Ironically, the longtime owner, Esther Blodgett, used to sign off the station at sunset with a hymn, "Let the Lower Lights be Burning"
.....So much for that!
I mostly agree with audioguy too, and basically mentioned a similar idea in a recent letter to FCC Commissioner Pai.
Where I live in North Florida, any relevant content has vanished from the AM dial and so have the listeners. Here its preachers or sports talk. No oldies, no standards, no classic country, no soft AC
or anything resembling full service.
We have no 50kw AMs. The strongest station is a 10kw daytimer running a Christian format.
Where I live in North Florida, any relevant content has vanished from the AM dial and so have the listeners. Here its preachers or sports talk. No oldies, no standards, no classic country, no soft AC
or anything resembling full service.
We have no 50kw AMs. The strongest station is a 10kw daytimer running a Christian format.
I enjoyed working at this station, my God it's 33 years ago now, when it was WFXW and run by Howard Milller. I did some part time airshifts, mostly weekends, for a couple of years, but left the area long ago, and presume Uncle Howard has passed away long ago in Florida? No? Can't be the howardm on this board, can it?
It didn't have to be elaborate to be a local station. WFXW had live DJs 18 hrs/day, a news director, and we were not allowed to segue music, in true Chicago personality fashion. Couldn't use the copier machine after hours. The studio monitor was a crappy school PA, with the theory that we should listen to how it sounds on a crappy kitchen radio. Can't say that was a good strategy, apart from letting Uncle Howard being a tight wad. He paid us in cash, under the table, so no taxes would be reported. Not sure how he got away with that, but the hourly rate wasn't much, so I'd guess any delinquent liability the IRS might have found wouldn't bankrupt him.
He did teach me to be a better radio personality, and he listened to us now and then, even on my Sunday night shift, and would phone in when he liked something you did. He reminded me that it only takes one little goof up, or sloppy moment, to lose a listener. And it might take months to woo them back. Simple advice, but how true. We played mostly 45s and LPs, which sounded like breakfast was cooking, day or night, given all the scratches on some of them, from our second floor perch over the silent main street of Geneva. But it was the kind of experience that made some of us sacrifice to work in radio, until we needed to make a real living eventually.
I liked to stretch out the sign off at Midnight with a little wistful instrumental music from the "On Golden Pond" soundtrack, loons and all.
One night, I hung around the studio to listen to some LPs after the Midnight sign off. While listening to a National Lampoon album, I was suprised to get a phone call from a police department in Kauai, trying to find someone who might know the whereabouts of a guy who once apparently worked at the station. Never did find out what that was about.
Can't imagine there are many studios like that anymore, with live hosts, playing mostly what they select, and having to show a little personality and make listeners feel good about where they lived in the suburbs. But it was the kind of radio station that created at least a few good memories.
It didn't have to be elaborate to be a local station. WFXW had live DJs 18 hrs/day, a news director, and we were not allowed to segue music, in true Chicago personality fashion. Couldn't use the copier machine after hours. The studio monitor was a crappy school PA, with the theory that we should listen to how it sounds on a crappy kitchen radio. Can't say that was a good strategy, apart from letting Uncle Howard being a tight wad. He paid us in cash, under the table, so no taxes would be reported. Not sure how he got away with that, but the hourly rate wasn't much, so I'd guess any delinquent liability the IRS might have found wouldn't bankrupt him.
He did teach me to be a better radio personality, and he listened to us now and then, even on my Sunday night shift, and would phone in when he liked something you did. He reminded me that it only takes one little goof up, or sloppy moment, to lose a listener. And it might take months to woo them back. Simple advice, but how true. We played mostly 45s and LPs, which sounded like breakfast was cooking, day or night, given all the scratches on some of them, from our second floor perch over the silent main street of Geneva. But it was the kind of experience that made some of us sacrifice to work in radio, until we needed to make a real living eventually.
I liked to stretch out the sign off at Midnight with a little wistful instrumental music from the "On Golden Pond" soundtrack, loons and all.
One night, I hung around the studio to listen to some LPs after the Midnight sign off. While listening to a National Lampoon album, I was suprised to get a phone call from a police department in Kauai, trying to find someone who might know the whereabouts of a guy who once apparently worked at the station. Never did find out what that was about.
Can't imagine there are many studios like that anymore, with live hosts, playing mostly what they select, and having to show a little personality and make listeners feel good about where they lived in the suburbs. But it was the kind of radio station that created at least a few good memories.
No, I'm not Howard Miller. I'm just a fan of radio and miss the AM personalities of especially top 40 radio of the 50's & 60's. Such great stations with fast talking dj's, like CKLW, WNOE, WMCA, WLS, WCFL and others, when dj's were allowed to have personality and could hype songs; they made radio exciting.
Tough economy for suburban and other AM stations, many go time brokered, ethnic, or religious. That fits a niche of course.
Never heard FM WJKL out of Elgin mentioned, they survived for a time with big band music. WRLL in Chicago for 3 yrs was it did a great job with vintage 50's and early 60's music. What about WVVX, Highland Park, they made a great effort in the late 70's to play 50's music. Unfortunately those formats are not very revenue producing.
Tough economy for suburban and other AM stations, many go time brokered, ethnic, or religious. That fits a niche of course.
Never heard FM WJKL out of Elgin mentioned, they survived for a time with big band music. WRLL in Chicago for 3 yrs was it did a great job with vintage 50's and early 60's music. What about WVVX, Highland Park, they made a great effort in the late 70's to play 50's music. Unfortunately those formats are not very revenue producing.
If there was a "like" button, I would press it for the post from Goldilocks!
Note, there is still an old time rock and roll show on 1430 on Saturday mornings, I belive. But the rest of the time it is time-brokered programming.
I remember when 1480 was WFXW and before that, WGSB. It was a great station back then. I hope they survive as a music station. I always tune in when I'm out that way.
Note, there is still an old time rock and roll show on 1430 on Saturday mornings, I belive. But the rest of the time it is time-brokered programming.
I remember when 1480 was WFXW and before that, WGSB. It was a great station back then. I hope they survive as a music station. I always tune in when I'm out that way.
audioguy said:
Same here! And the comments are right in line with just about everything I've read and heard about Howard Miller. Some of it first hand during the year in the '70s when I worked for Mal Bellairs. He told quite a few on "Uncle Moo-moo"....whom Mal essentially liked and respected. Even though most of the time their relationship was that of competitors.
Unfortunately, Howard Miller is no longer with us. I believe he passed away in or around 1994. He would have been in his mid-70s.
audioguy said:
I agree to an extent. If a station is on a clear channel, operating on limited power and is causing a great deal of interference to a 'Class-I' or 'Class A' station, then yeah, shut down the transmitter at night! In the Washington DC area, WTNT could afford to shut off its AM nighttime transmitter as its FM signal gets out as far, if not farther than its FM translator. The same should happen with WRNR-AM Martinsburg WV as well as several others.
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