From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters
Date: 20 Nov 92 00:00:00 GMT
Reply-To: TELECOM Moderator <telecom@eecs.nwu.edu>
Organization: TELECOM Digest
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[Moderator's Note: This article first appeared in TELECOM Digest on
Thursday, June 22, 1989. (Volume 9, Issue 208). I thought newer
readers would enjoy seeing it and older readers might enjoy a repeat
as part of the thread on Broadcasting Towers.  Since this was written,
most of the problems have been corrected.  PAT]

                         -----------

Indiana Bell service in the northeast section of Hammond, IN has gone
to hell, but the telco says its not their fault, and they are trying
to work with the people involved to correct the problem.

For instance, consider the case of Steve Gescheidler, a resident of
north Hammond, living just a few blocks from the Illinois/Indiana
state line: he shares a party line with Jesus. When he picks up his
telephone, a voice will often be on the wire reading from Ephesians,
or bellowing at him to repent before he Burns In Hell forever.
Sometimes the voice is trying to sell him spiritually enlightening
audio tapes -- Visa and MasterCard accepted, of course.

His neighbor around the corner, Judy Maruszczak, has a heavenly
instrument also: When she tries to make a phone call, it will often
times be drowned out by hand-clapping gospel music. Her VCR also likes
to preach to her.

The Hammond legal firm of Efron and Efron owns a pious dictaphone
machine.  When the secretary is in the midst of transcribing legalese,
threats of fire and brimstone suddenly are heard on the tape. In
addition, their phone system is electronic, and when they put calls on
hold, as often as not a few seconds later the hold is broken and the
call is lost. Several times per day the phone will ring, and no one is
on the line at all.

Linda Reynolds, another resident in the area said her television, her
VCR and her cordless phone all began urging her down the righteous
path last fall. She said sometimes at night the cordless phone begins
ringing by itself, and going off hook for no reason, tying up their
wire-line.

Nine year old Tommy Kotul learned how to find salvation while he was
trying to play 'Sports Baseball', an Atari game cartridge. He also
said that one day in school, a choir started singing hymns over the
school's public address system, which is in the form of speakerphones
connected to the intercom phone on each teacher's desk.

Although the sanctified interference shows up in the damndedest ways,
on all sorts of electronic gizmos, it invariably is on the phone lines
of the good (and presumably by now, God-fearing) residents of North
Hammond, an Indiana community which straddles the Illinois state line
with the communities of Burnham and Calumet City, Illinois to the
south and west, and Chicago at it's northwest tip on the state line.

So people began asking Indiana Bell, "what the heck is this, anyway?"...

WYCA-FM Christian Broadcasters, Inc. ... that's what it is ... this
religious station, operating at 92.3 on the dial, licensed in Hammond,
IN, with transmitter facilities in Burnham, IL is the culprit.
Operating with an antenna height of 500 feet, and 50,000 watts of
radiated power, the folks at WYCA-FM Christian Broadcasters, Inc. are
literally *saturating* a two mile area around the northern end of the
Indiana/Illinois state line, 24 hours per day, seven days per week.

Gescheidler lives about four blocks from WYCA's transmitter. He first
began noticing the sanctified interference last fall, and it became
louder and louder as the months went on, always on his end. "It seems
like when I am in the middle of an important conversation, some
preacher always comes on and tells me I'm going to Hell," he said,
adding that the phone lines had already gone to hell, and no one
seemed to give a damn about it.

After complaining several times to Indiana Bell, Gescheidler and his
neighbors complained to the Federal Communications Commission, the
Indiana Utilities Regulatory Commission, and finally to the radio
station itself.  No one, he realized, least of all the radio station,
was willing to take any responsibility for the problem.

WYCA isn't breaking any broadcasting rules according to Paul Gomell,
an FCC Chicago office technician whose duties include periodic
examination of WYCA's equipment. "The home equipment is probably not
adequately filtered," he said.

"The problem has nothing to do with Indiana Bell's equipment," said
Delores Steur-Wagner, Indiana Bell's community affairs manager for
Hammond. "If there are complaints, they should go to the FCC."

Chris Alexander, Dallas-based Vice President-Engineering for WYCA-FM
Christian Broadcasters' parent corporation said, "The signal is so
strong, you expect this kind of interference in devices that are not
well-shielded. We try to advise people as best we can, and we have
worked closely with Indiana Bell and Illinois Bell to resolve
complaints."

In November, 1986, the station raised its antenna to 500 feet from 400
feet, and increased its power from 30,000 to 50,000 watts, Alexander
said. "We made these changes only after receiving permission to do so
from the Federal Communications Commission."  Alexander said that this
change in power and antenna height created a so-called 'blanketing
area' -- an area of about 1.7 miles in any direction of the
transmitter and antenna -- where the signal is so strong and so
permeating, it is literally everywhere, in everything.

"Indeed this is the case," said one neighbor five blocks from the
site.  "I have gone for early morning walks in the open field where
the antenna is constructed. In the crisp, early morning air, you can
almost feel the signal; smell that ozone; sense the corona."

Alexander said, "We operate completely within the law. We observe all
FCC regulations at all times." He noted that one condition for the
change in antenna height and power output being granted by the
Commission was that WYCA was ordered to assume responsibility for
correcting certain types of radio interference in an area 1.7 miles in
any direction of the station for a period of *one year* afterward.
Alexander said during that time they worked closely with the telcos
involved and "....anyone who complained about interference was given
free of charge the filtering devices they needed ... some of our
people helped install them ... just what the FCC said we had to do, we
did it, in the geographic area required, for the length of time
required...."

Alexander noted one of the first complaints about the increased power
came when prosecutors in a federal drug trial in Hammond tried to play
wiretap evidence for the jury: instead, the tape recorder offered up
hymns and homilies.

Paul Gomell of the FCC noted that they have received complaints about
the station relating to answering machines, speed-dialing equipment,
cordless phones, cheapie phones, hold buttons, Touch-Tone service, and
VCR's. These appurtenances and others -- like the preaching Atari game 
 -- lend to the appearance that God is everywhere, at least in Hammond.

One Indiana Bell service representative spoke, on the condition that
she could remain nameless, saying that the telco had handled over 130
WYCA-related problems in the past year, but Bell spokeswoman
Steur-Wagner said the company does not keep track of such things and
she had no way of confirming this report.

The next step to reduce the interference -- with no guarentees that it
will completely end -- is to have all the interior phone wire shielded
in steel casings, said Tim Timmons, Indiana Bell's regional
maintainence manager for northern Indiana, "...plus of course have
good filtering where the phone lines come into the building..."

"What a deal!", said Gescheidler. He recently priced the job at $300
per phone from an independent contractor. "Indiana Bell said *maybe*
they could do it a little cheaper for us ... but they say it is not
their obligation to resolve the problem any further."  He mentioned
that, "...one day some guy from WYCA came here with a phone man; they
had some cheapie looking filter they plugged in ... it didn't seem to
do any good."

Although the parent corporation of WYCA in Dallas may have good public
relations, the neighborhood says local staff at WYCA-FM Christian
Broadcasters, Inc. isn't at all concerned any longer. "They have heard
so many complaints I guess they quit listening to them any longer,"
said a neighbor. "When I called one day -- one day when it seemed like
they were much louder than usual -- and asked them in a nice way
couldn't they modulate their signal a little better, a lady there told
me I was being blasphemous. She told me it was anti-religious to
complain. She said I should be thankful that I was able to hear the
Word of God, and she hoped I would someday realize I would Burn In
Hell without accepting Jesus as my Savior. That's the last time I
bothered calling *them* to complain. Now the FCC and Indiana Bell say
*they* can't do any more either?"

No madame, they cannot. As Chris Alexander, VP-Engineering has
explained time and again when asked, the Corporation follows all FCC
rules at all times. "We ALWAYS do exactly what the government tells us
to do," he said.
  
And Indiana Bell brings the wire to the drop by your house. They say
the line is as clean as it can be at that point. You do the rest.

An old folk-prayer says, "My Lord ... nothing is going to happen that
You and I can't handle together. Amen." But one can have too much
togetherness, as the residents of North Hammond will attest.

Said Steve Gescheidler, "On the radio, they are praying for me.
Meanwhile, I am praying for a phone line I can talk on without being
disrupted by the choir and the organist."


Radio Station WYCA-FM
Studios and Executive Offices
6336 Calumet Avenue
Hammond, IN 46301
92.3 on FM dial throughout northern Illinois and northern Indiana.


[Moderator's Note, appended 1/1/91: Shortly after this article
appeared, tbe FCC instructed WYCA to intensify their efforts to
resolve the problems of the Hammond residents. 'Better' RF filters
were devised and technical help was given in their installation. For
about a month, WYCA was required to announce over the air at intervals
that assistance would be provided freely on request to anyone within a
1.7 mile radius of the transmitter experiencing problems. There have
been no recent complaints, so I assume things are better now.  PAT]


[Moderator's Note: Several people requested this reprint in recent
days. When WYCA first went on the air in the late 1950's, not that
many people in Hammond had FM radios. WYCA's solution was to announce
that you could also hear them 'quite well' on your television set by
setting the dial to channel 6 and running the fine tuning upward a
distance ... of course, channel 6 comes in around what? 80 megs or so;
the old television sets of the era could be warped up enough to reach
92.3 ... that's how eager they were to be heard, praise the Lord! :)  PAT]