"clifto" wrote in message
...

Years back, they used to have a MUCH more powerful signal. It was pretty
disappointing the few times I visited a friend near O'Hare and found
WLS was weaker than stations from Milwaukee, Rockford, St. Louis and
South Bend... during the *daytime*. At night, most stations on the dial
were stronger.

Yep. I live within a few miles of the airport, and the WLS signal is weak.
It's weak almost everywhere in the Chicago area! My guess is their antenna
isn't generating much of a ground wave anymore.



This is, what, 30 miles from their antenna?

Then I visit my nephew out southwest of the city, maybe ten miles from
WLS' antenna, and I can listen to 880 at night about half the time.
Ten miles from fifty kilowatts, one shouldn't be able to listen to a
station 10 KHz away without a very, very good radio, at least one
better than my nephew's $6 Radio Shack AM portable.


At least the situation is better than it was about five years ago, when
their transmitter would cut off from time to time, presumably because their
antenna then looked electrically like a rusty coat hanger.

Considering their signal, however, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think they
turned down power to save on fuses.

Frank Dresser