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KMIC's on the chopping block

P

purpledevil

Guest
It was only a matter of time before this announcement came down.

http://radioinsight.com/blog/headlines/89717/radio-disney-to-sell-all-but-one-station/

So...who's taking bets on who ends up with our 1590?

Does KCOH make a play, returning Urban Oldies to 1590?

Darrell Martin snags it to return Gospel 1590 KYOK back home?

Radio Aleluya finally gets a licensed Houston station?

I'm going to put my money on Salem. Already, they have shown interest in picking up another AM, when they kicked the tires on 1090 KULF a couple of years back, and just picked up KRDY as their 3rd AM in San Antonio. Maybe a move of "The Word" to 1590, and a KLTY clone launch on 100-7?

Hey, anything is possible. Your thoughts?
 
CBS buys it for a full time CBS Sports outlet instead of 650???


Depends on what Disney wants for it....they are selling 23 of their 24 RD stations....the Dallas one was looking for a Chief Engineer a few months back...bet whoever took the job is kicking themselves now ;)
 
Not a surprise, after the earlier selloff of RD stations. Note that the remaining stations will go silent around September 26.

I agree that Salem would make sense, and they probably have the money to spend. KTEK is a daytimer, so perhaps some of the programming moves to 1590.

KCOH on 1590 would be a historic irony, but an improvement over 1230. Wonder if the contract with Liberman can be easily broken? Of course, KCOH could easily be outbid. If KCOH leaves 1230 Liberman might finally put 1230 on the block...they apparently need the $$$.

Otherwise we are looking at more brokered ethnic/religion. Such is the current state of AM.

Disney finally accepts the reality that kids have no idea what AM radio is...and their parents don't know, either.

Will be interesting to see what happens. At least it spurs more activity on these forums...
 
I see Disney stations are going up for sale. Most if not all are AM stations. Was anyone listening to them? I just can't imagine any tween/preteen listening to an AM station.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Disney finally accepts the reality that kids have no idea what AM radio is...and their parents don't know, either.

Will be interesting to see what happens. At least it spurs more activity on these forums...
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No, its been over a 15 yr run for RD on AM....times change and now RD is on SXM as well as other sources...and Disney wants to trim expenses......they were running IBOC on most of the stations...that was not cheap.....and neither are AMs...kids, when RD signed on in 96, loved it on AM......and so did the parents...(I met many listeners who really enjoyed it)....but the run is over it seems...just like Top40 of the 70s to 80s......now its Classic Rock or Hits (depending on the music played)....but its no longer on AM and a lot of FMs dont play the right music either...
 
Unless it's my reception in Kingwood. I hadn't seen KMIC lock onto HD for over a year at least in my car. Even when driving in Houston come to think of it
 
From my MoCity compound, I've never had any Houston AM station lock on in HD. If anyone has ever run it on AM in this town, I couldn't pick it up.
 
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I've received KMIC in HD a few times, and it was mostly at night. I haven't HD radio in the car for 2 years as it wasn't available in my current make/model (that'll change soon). When I was able to receive in HD, it sounded decent, but dropped out.

I believe AM HD is only viable on high power stations. I tested 1200 WOAI once on my way home from San Antonio and I had a solid lock until at least Flatonia (pretty much the red inner circle on radio-locator). The only other AM I ever tested was KPRC 950. HD on KPRC was pretty reliable as far out as Cinco Ranch, except for under an an overpass. 790 supposedly had HD but I was never able to receive it.
 
I'm up pretty close to KMIC. I can assure you that 1590 used to run IBOC up until a little more than 18 months ago. It originally ran day and night, but several months before it went off for good, Disney would run it during the daylight, but not after the switch to night. 1590 was the worst offender of killing the adjacents, even killing off WTAW for me, 3 positions up the dial. It also made the audio bassy (is that even a proper audio description?!?). Try tuning it in on a radio with a dial? Forget about it! I could never get the buzz to go away on either my old RCA in the house, or the factory in dash AM dial tuners in either the Fury or the Demon, no matter where I positioned the dial.

I was sure glad to see Disney dump it, and hope it got thrown in the trash, so the new steward of 1590 doesn't get any bright ideas of resurrection for that mess.
 
stevenNOLA said:
I've received KMIC in HD a few times, and it was mostly at night. I haven't HD radio in the car for 2 years as it wasn't available in my current make/model (that'll change soon). When I was able to receive in HD, it sounded decent, but dropped out.

I believe AM HD is only viable on high power stations. I tested 1200 WOAI once on my way home from San Antonio and I had a solid lock until at least Flatonia (pretty much the red inner circle on radio-locator). The only other AM I ever tested was KPRC 950. HD on KPRC was pretty reliable as far out as Cinco Ranch, except for under an an overpass. 790 supposedly had HD but I was never able to receive it.
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KMIC HD would drop as little as 7 or 8 miles from the tower so it was basically useless over most of the metro area. However, along Fry road and Tuckerton which used to be power line free, it decoded HD perfectly well. The moment you got near power lines, HD dropped. KMIC's nighttime pattern is severely oriented South, anything outside the beltway 8 loop suffers severe interference from other 1590's if you are North, West, or East. By the time you get to the 6 / 1960 "loop" - it is gone for all intents and purposes unless you are at home and happen to be able to null something. Radio Disney fans probably have better luck with KMKI 620. South of town, the situation is dramatically different. I could get KMIC practically interference free on Galveston island. Very interesting pattern - I am not sure who would find such a pattern useful. I do know that they have a problem with ground radial theft which doesn't help. A couple of guard dogs at the tower site might help that situation.

WOAI dropped their HD within days of when I equipped my Sony HD tuner with a single turn of wire around two yardsticks - but it decoded HD perfectly well from my Fry road location before they shut it down. WTAW is the only station in the area still running HD AM - and it decodes perfectly on stretches of road that don't have power lines like Fry and Tuckerton used to be. Now, only the Grand Parkway is far enough away, but only a few stretches of it. WTAW decodes well anywhere there are no power lines.

I have never had reliable HD decode on any AM station at night.
 
David Eduardo speculates on the Los Angeles board that Immaculate Heart Catholic Radio is in an expansion mode, so throw that in as another possibility for 1590. Of course, we already have EWTN's Catholic programming on KSHJ 1430.
 
johndavis said:
From my MoCity compound, I've never had any Houston AM station lock on in HD. If anyone has ever run it on AM in this town, I couldn't pick it up.
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If KTRH is not running IBOC, they are still running the importer/exporter with the 8 sec analog delay...punch to KLVI and then count to 6 then go to KTRH....tada!!! (all they did was turn off the IBOC exciter).....IBOC on AM is a dead horse....now if the FCC would enforce (and I know they wont because of budget and manpower issues) the noise limits on PCs and electrical lines, AM could be cleaned up.....and with saying bye bye to the incandescent bulbs and only CFLs (cough cough) or LEDs being available, here comes more noise! and its not just MW that suffers....
 
So tell me who can receive an AM HD signal, if they even exist. Since I have a VW that came with a HD radio built in, I assumed it was only for FM. I've never seen it tell me there was a HD1 or HD2 on an AM station.
 
As far as I know, if your VW can receive FM HD, it can also receive AM HD. There are no stations locally. If you drive to College Station, WTAW should be in HD. But the radio will probably only display HD - as there are no HD-2's on AM.
 
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Sounds like the issue with BMW has more to do with the fact that their engineers didn't have the skill set necessary to design an AM radio that works in the presence of motor noise, something that engineers at other companies have solved. Analog and RF design are dying arts - and I am NOT impressed by the crop of engineering students coming out of school. They can write C code, program FPGA's, but they can't even design with a single op-amp or transistor - let alone design a low noise RF signal chain. I just had to explain snubber circuits and op amp stability to a very senior engineer a week ago. He expressed a lot of frustration about how complicated analog design is, and how he prefers firmware. Strange attitude from a professional with 25 years of experience --- this was nothing but a freakin' low frequency inverting power op amp stage! Analog and RF engineers are too old to fit in with an energetic youth obsessed workplace, and engineers with those skills don't come cheap! BMW needs to get out there and hire some RF and analog engineers who have some experience. They are going to PO a lot of folks - because some of the top rated stations in major markets are still AM stations. People in a BMW go looking for Rush or the football game that is on AM, they are going to be upset with BMW for leaving AM out.
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
Sounds like the issue with BMW has more to do with the fact that their engineers didn't have the skill set necessary to design an AM radio that works in the presence of motor noise, something that engineers at other companies have solved.
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The issue is that the noise exists, and any AM radio will receive it. Other manufacturers of electric cars have managed to suppress the motor and system noise enough to allow AM reception. Apparently the BMW all-electric car system design does not contemplate noise suppressing additions as they believe doing so will compromise efficiency and / or add to the complexity of the design.

The issue is not whether they can do it but whether they want to do it. I think they looked at the demographic characteristics of the buyer of an electric car and the assumption that nearly all AM listening nationally is quite old... 45+ and 50+... and decided that not being able to accommodate AM was not going to be noticed by potential buyers.
 
stan said:
So tell me who can receive an AM HD signal, if they even exist. Since I have a VW that came with a HD radio built in, I assumed it was only for FM. I've never seen it tell me there was a HD1 or HD2 on an AM station.
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AM HD stations have only one digital channel. There is no HD multicasting.

I believe the current national count of AM stations using HD has dropped to about 100. Of those, a large percentage do not use HD at night.
 
ContinuousWave said:
If KTRH is not running IBOC, they are still running the importer/exporter with the 8 sec analog delay...punch to KLVI and then count to 6 then go to KTRH....tada!!! (all they did was turn off the IBOC exciter).....IBOC on AM is a dead horse....now if the FCC would enforce (and I know they wont because of budget and manpower issues) the noise limits on PCs and electrical lines, AM could be cleaned up.....and with saying bye bye to the incandescent bulbs and only CFLs (cough cough) or LEDs being available, here comes more noise! and its not just MW that suffers....
Click to expand...

I put LED lights in every socket and fixture indoors and CFLs in the outdoor ones, and have not been able to listen to AM for the last 2 years... the exception is 50 kw KRLA which is just about 2 miles away. But on it's night facility, they are way under the noise.
 
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