Something brewing in Chicago?

[Deleted User 15835]

https://radioinsight.com/headlines/netg ... this-week/

Hmmm?

[ftballfan]

If this happens in Chicago, could we see a three-way call sign change?
96.3 (currently WBBM-FM) becomes WBMX-FM (while keeping the B96 name with a format shift)
104.3 (currently WBMX-FM) becomes WSCR-FM (new simulcast of 670)
105.9 (currently WCFS-FM) becomes WBBM-FM (keeps simulcast of 780)

[CurlyHoward]

The Score sucks and has sucked for almost 10 years, but even if some rumors are true and they're going to wind up going mostly CBS Sports Radio outside of drive time and Cubs games, they eventually HAD to put it on a FM signal finally.

[Deleted User 15835]

Wow... I totally overlooked that one, yeah Chicago doesn't have an FM sports station. A hypothetical move to the FM would make sense. Just for me as a radio nerd , the call sign shuffle makes total sense.

[Ben Zonia]

The difference with Detroit is that the Tigers demanded that the stations bidding for the Tigers had to be 50000 watts. In order to do that, they had to move WXYT from a 5000 watt station nondirectional Day and directional with two towers and one null to the West at Night, in the geographic center of the market, to a 50000 watt 9 tower directional antenna, far from the center of the market with many nulls day and night. In order to comply with ever changing and convoluted FCC rules, they built a "giraffe" of a facility that faded and isn't that strong in much of the market. In Sudbury and Scandinavia, the signal is often stronger than in much of the Detroit Market at Night. In order to get a decent signal in the market, they had to go to 97.1 FM, from a tower near the geographic center of the market, years before Chicago. WSCR has a good 50000 watt nondirectional signal over the Chicago Market, and only recently has it been necessary to have an FM signal. That's why this has happened so late in Chicago. 50000 watt WXYT 1270 is but a small shadow of itself when it was 5000 watts from Southfield.

[billmich88888]

1270 being much higher in the dial also plays a part into the story

[Marcus]

I wonder if 1270 will diplex with the 950 WWJ transmitter site at some point. (taller towers = less fading)

[billmich88888]

the Chicago towers diplex easily in part because they are non-directional, both day and night

950 and 1270 are both directionalized all the time

[Ben Zonia]

I wonder if 1270 will diplex with the 950 WWJ transmitter site at some point. (taller towers = less fading)

The towers also have to be in the right place, spacing and orientation, to create the needed pattern. Height is just one consideration. It's too bad the FCC doesn't have a "Mulligan" policy, so you could just move back to the previous facility in Southfield, as closely as possible. If they did conductivity studies, they might find that they could have more than 5000 watts nondirectional, from the geographic center of the market, close to equidistant from Downriver and the Lake St. Clair suburbs. The Ratchet Clause caused WXYT to reduce IDF 10% toward stations they already interfered with greatly, which were numerous. There was only one null in the old two tower Night pattern to the West toward WHBF/WKBF Rock Island, which is now deleted. But Elkhart and Gary, IN stations later slipped in between in the same general direction and are still Class B.