I think it was a planned outage for antenna work or something along those lines. WGN is the kind of station which would NEVER be off the air for more than 30 seconds. Jim Carollo is that meticulous of a guy.
I know the four stations in the area have a pact which they all honor when antenna work needs to be done. Not just tower lights, but real antenna or antenna tuning work. Two 50's so close to each other would cause a real personnel hazard. The mutual coupling is SO high that at least 5 amps of RF current comes back when one station is not on the air driving the antenna.
GR
> > Yesterday Morning, Sunday at 4:10am, WBBM-AM and WGN were
> > off air.
> >
> > Then, WBBM signal went on dead, then programming came
> back,
> > then went off, then came back on dead, then programming
> > again.
> >
> > Anyone know why? I didn't check the progression of WGN.
> >
>
> Hmm... Wonder if there were power problems in the area. The
> sticks for both of them are right down the street from each
> other. How log was 'BBM off for? Based on my experience at
> the station I work for if you lose shore power it takes
> about 2 minutes for the genreator power to get stable enough
> to run the transmitter.
>
> I tried doing a google search, but unfortunately I couldn't
> find anything and the 2 stations don't have anything on
> their websites (of course!).
>
> -A
>