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Site of the Week 1/22/2016: Chicago and Milwaukee

Scott Fybush by Scott Fybush
January 22, 2016
in Free Content, Illinois, Tower Site of the Week, Wisconsin
1

Text and photos by SCOTT FYBUSH

Sometime soon, Site of the Week really needs to spend some serious time catching up on Chicago, one of our favorite radio markets (and cities, period). But in the meantime, we offer some snapshots from a Chicago visit in the summer of 2015 that wasn’t really meant to be a radio trip at all, just a fun road trip with 7-year-old Eli in a car almost twice as old as he was, and with no air conditioning to boot.

Chicago's Hancock Center
Chicago’s Hancock Center

Looking up at (ahem) Sears
Looking up at (ahem) Sears
Sears
Sears

When you have a kid who loves building things, though, no trip to Chicago is complete without a ride up to the top of at least one of the city’s several awesome skyscrapers – and when you’re a dad who knows a whole bunch of engineers, it’s easy to arrange a ride like that.

And so we found ourselves on the way up to the (wow, Dad!) 99th floor of the building we will insist on calling the Sears Tower, regardless of whatever name may have been on the door when we walked in.

This is a busy floor, home to several TV and radio transmitter rooms including Cumulus’ WLS-FM (94.7) – but our destination is the suite occupied by most of iHeart’s FM cluster. WLIT (93.9), WKSC (103.5) and WGCI-FM (107.5) all have their main transmitters here, in a neat row stretching back from a window with an amazing view out to the lake. Sister stations WEBG (95.5) and WVAZ (102.7) are a few miles north at the Hancock Center, though WEBG has an aux up here. It’s in a small room opposite the HD transmitters for WKSC and WGCI, adjacent to the combiners that send those signals up to one of the radomed antenna masts up on the roof.

iHeart Chicago
iHeart Chicago

HD transmitters and processing
HD transmitters and processing

After prying the young man away from the window view (it wasn’t easy!), we headed back down to ground level to do all sorts of non-radio things – there are many, many ways to keep a curious little guy amused in a great city like Chicago, after all.

WEBG 95.5
WLIT and WEBG 95.5’s aux

iHeart combiners
iHeart combiners
WTMJ-TV/WKTI
WTMJ-TV/WKTI
Candelabras
Candelabras

A few days later, we pulled into Milwaukee just ahead of a summer storm, bound for a Brewers game and a DX get-together…and, yes, some radio visits, too.

We’d visited “Milwaukee Radio City,” the home of WTMJ radio and TV, almost exactly a decade earlier on one of our midwest Big Trips, but we had a few good reasons to go back.

First off, our good friend Tom Langmyer had made the move to Milwaukee after a long run as general manager in Chicago at WGN, and so we had to stop  by and check out his new corner office, from which he now oversees the news-talk radio properties of what’s now the Scripps radio group.

Second, we wanted to check out the renovations in the radio studios since that 2005 visit – and they were quite impressive indeed!

Before we go inside, a note about the views outside: the WTMJ plant sits in the middle of a big tower farm just north of downtown Milwaukee. In addition to the 1000-foot guyed tower right out back for WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) and WKTI (94.5), there are two big candelabras just to the north that are home to Milwaukee’s PBS stations, WMVS/WMVT, and to several FMs as well. Just to the east (and in the background below) is the thousand-foot self-supporter that’s home to Fox affiliate WITI (Channel 6) and several more FMs. And there’s something missing – the original WTMJ-TV tower that was still out back here in 2005 was gone a decade later.

Milwaukee Radio City
Milwaukee Radio City

WTMJ 620
WTMJ 620

Inside, the radio studios fill the space that was once WTMJ’s big auditorium studio, right down the middle of the original Radio City building. They’re all decked out with new furniture and Axia consoles now, a nice upgrade from the old gear that still filled these rooms a decade earlier.

WKTI 94.5
WKTI 94.5

...and its new morning man?
…and its new morning man?

WKTI, in particular, had been through lots of changes: it went from AC as WKTI in 2005 to adult hits as WLWK, “The Lake,” not long after – and then went back to the WKTI calls with a country format right before we pulled into town. It hadn’t yet hired an airstaff at that point, but for all his skills with a coffee mug, we didn’t think Eli was going to get the morning gig there…and he doesn’t stay awake late enough to do nights, alas.

WSSP 1250
WSSP 1250

Entercom's renovated building
Entercom’s renovated building

Our final morning in Milwaukee brought us together with one of our very favorite engineer friends, Entercom’s Chris Tarr, who had his own renovated studios to show off.

Since our 2005 visit here, Entercom added on a new wing to its studio building in suburban Hales Corner, putting new studio space, a new lobby and some new offices across what had been the front of the building.

Entercom lobby
Entercom lobby

Cool on-air lights
Cool on-air lights

It wasn’t obvious at first glance, but the walk into the lobby took us right past the windows of the new studios for top-40 WXSS (103.7 Kiss FM) and sports WSSP (1250), which open up into a new hallway that runs along what had been the old front of the building.

WSSP's studio
WSSP’s studio

WXSS 103.7
WXSS 103.7

Look carefully in the WSSP studio (you can always click on any photo here on Site of the Week to enlarge it!) and you’ll see that the signage now says “105.7 the Fan.” That’s the new FM translator that carries WSSP’s programming from the WXSS site at the candelabra we showed you up above.

Kiss is next door, in a narrow light-filled room that has a nice view of its own out to the parking lot.

WMYX 99.1
WMYX 99.1

The old WEMP building
The old WEMP building
Transmitter room
Transmitter room

The WMYX studio has been rearranged, too, with new windows and a new doorway.

(The old WSSP studio is now an office, and the old WXSS space is now a production room, if memory serves.)

This is an unusual facility, you might recall, because there are two buildings here: across the parking lot from the studio/office building is the 1940s-era gem that’s housed the 1250 transmitters ever since that signal signed on.

We’d seen this facility again on a 2009 visit, and not much had changed this time around, but it’s still neat to look at.

Backup transmitters
Backup transmitters

WSSP and WMYX
WSSP and WMYX

There’s gear here from every single one of the last six decades, as far back as the RCA BTA-5T that’s still the aux for 1250 (above at left) and as new as the Nautels (above right) that power 1250 and 99.1 today.

Thanks to iHeart’s John Boehm, WTMJ’s Tom Langmyer and Entercom’s Chris Tarr for the tours!

CALENDARS ON CLEARANCE

If you don’t have your 2023 Tower Site Calendar yet, now is the perfect time to get it. Because we have lowered the price to just $14.

The calendar has great photos of broadcast sites near and far (everywhere from Navajo Nation on the cover to Boston to Toronto to Texas, and beyond), plus a lovely “centerfold” you can keep on your wall for 2024.

It’s still shipping regularly, and you can have yours in just a couple of days!

Order your copy and you’ll see what we mean.

If you have already ordered your calendar, make sure you check out the other items in the store, too!


And don’t miss a big batch of Great Lakes IDs next Wednesday, over at our sister site, TopHour.com!

Next week: Terre Haute, Indiana

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Tags: WEBGWGCIWKSCWKTIWLITWMYXWSSPWTMJWTMJ-TVWVAZWXSS
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Scott Fybush

Scott Fybush

Editor/Publisher, NorthEast Radio Watch and Tower Site of the Week

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