  We study the phase structure and chiral limit of $4d$ compact lattice QED
with Wilson fermions (both dynamical and quenched). We use the standard Wilson
action (WA) and also the modified action (MA) with some lattice artifacts
suppressed. We show that lattice artifacts influence the distributions of
eigenvalues $~\lambda_i~$ of the fermionic matrix especially for small values
of $~\lambda_i~$. Our main conclusion is that the chiral limit of compact QED
can be efficiently located using different techniques. Sorry, figures are not
included and can be sent by ordinary mail or Fax.
