Monday’s demolition of the nearly century-old three-tower AM array in Downers Grove, Ill., is the latest example of a trend that has become all too familiar.
From Maryland to Minneapolis to Chicago — the value of real estate increasingly appears to outweigh the importance of preserving a clear-channel AM skywave pattern.
[Related: “In a Challenging Era, AM Stations Still Have Options”]
We wondered whether long-range AM signal coverage still matters to today’s media companies.
The Chicagoland veteran Scott Clifton, currently senior engineer at Good Karma Broadcasting, owner of the 50 kW 1000 WMVP(AM), says it still does.
“My goal was to preserve as much as possible over the previous coverage area while also increasing our much-needed western suburbs coverage,” Clifton said of the station’s transmitter move to Joliet.
Clifton acknowledged that seeing the three Downers Grove towers — in service since 1932 — come down was sad from a historical perspective. He was on hand to observe the demolition Monday. This is the third of the three Downers Grove towers — the nighttime-only tower — coming down, as captured by Clifton.
And naturally, suburban real estate is in high demand. The Walt Disney Company sold the Downers Grove site to real estate builder M/I Homes, which will be constructing 35 new single-family homes there. M/I homes purchased the land for $8.75 million, according to DuPage County tax records.
Good Karma originally purchased the license of WMVP with the understanding that Disney would relocate its signal.
Clifton was chief engineer at Cumulus’ WLS(AM/FM) from 2012—2015. While he was there, he found a copy of wire transfer confirmation from the 1930s for the land where its tower currently stands. “It showed $5,000 paid, with another $5,000 due upon FCC and other regulatory approvals,” he explained. “You can imagine, with the declining value of AM licenses, how the land itself can eventually outweigh the license in business decisions.”
But Clifton believes the move of WMVP to Joliet has resulted in a better signal for “ESPN 1000” than before. It is now diplexing from a site used by 820 WCPT(AM), licensed to Willow Springs, Ill., for its nighttime signal.
A look at the reworked Joliet site
“Those who rely solely on computer-generated coverage maps need to stop and apply real-world context to those computations,” Clifton told Radio World.
WMVP’s nighttime power decreased to 38 kW from its new site in Joliet. But with assistance from the Carl T. Jones Corporation, he said the WCPT site in Joliet is exceptionally well-engineered. He credited its construction from Tim Wright, senior engineer with WLS and the late Mike McCarthy. The WCPT site was originally designed by the late consulting engineer Ron Rackley.
The project to renovate the site suitable for WMVP started the second week in April of 2024 and culminated in early October.
The site has six towers and is detuned with a skirt, Clifton said. WMVP diplexes on towers one, two, three and six. “Towers one and two represent nearly the same pattern the Downers Grove day towers did,” he explained. All four towers are used for the night pattern for WMVP. WCPT utilizes all six of their towers strictly for night operations.
Clifton said the Joliet site is riddled with ground radials. All of the cables for WMVP were bored underground, and in areas near the towers where radials had to be disturbed, they were carefully exposed by hand, cut and peeled back to avoid damage from digging machinery, then soldered back into place after the ATU bases were constructed.
“Each night, we used battery jumper cables to reconnect the cut radials,” he said. “We bonded them together, wrapped them with bright green Gaff tape, and jumpered them back to a strap at the base of the tower to prevent any deviation in WCPT’s nighttime operations.”
Clifton said WMVP began broadcasting completely from Joliet after a July 2024 tune-up completed by himself and Tom Jones of Carl T. Jones Corp.
He added that Kintronic provided a turnkey installation for the WMVP antenna system and WCPT filter installations. “I handled the transmitter, audio and remote-control installations. We relocated the two Nautel NX50 transmitters and all the audio and remote-control systems from Downers Grove,” Clifton said.
Clifton said that the Downers Grove site had noticeable nighttime nulls in western areas that have since experienced substantial population growth. Since the move to Joliet, Clifton indicated WMVP can now be heard after sunset in places like DeKalb and even as far as northwestern Wisconsin.
He acknowledged online discussions that the station’s downtown Chicago coverage has weakened.
“The reality is that none of the AM stations have much usable signal in the Loop or areas shadowed by skyscrapers,” he said.
He added that the alleged signal degradation in southeastern Wisconsin does not match on-the-ground reception reports. That area — including around Kenosha — is not as affected by obstructive structures or man-made RF interference as downtown Chicago.
Clifton also assisted with the relocation of Good Karma’s 710 KSPN(AM) to Irwindale, Calif. He said that despite more limitations there, daytime coverage into Orange County has improved from its previous Burbank site. Its nighttime power was reduced significantly, but he said that was a tradeoff that had to be accepted.
“AM radio is not cheap to operate, and for some relocations, greed may have played a role,” Clifton told us. “But I can assure you that a great deal of evaluation, care and expertise went into the WMVP and KSPN relocations.”
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