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K-Zep (93-3) having audio problems

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purpledevil

Guest
First, let me say Fiesta week was a blast. Second, what's going on at K227BH? Have no way to check KZEP HD-2, but the translator sounds like lightning fried something in one of the storms this last week. Very distorted sounding, and extremely tough on the ears to listen to it. Has anyone else noticed? Apparently not iHeart, because it has been like this since Wednesday when I got here. Ugh...

I guess now 106-7 truly is San Antonio's only classic rock, because who wants to suffer through what's coming out of channel 227 these days?
 
I noticed it acting up and sounding like a broken banjo yesterday, however after reading your message I just checked and it's mostly fine, with some digital artifacts. It's probably an audio quality setting that needs adjusting.
Another translator that needs work is K289BN, but that one's sounded horrendous for as long as I can remember. They're using an extremely low quality digital feed on 105.7, apparently. What's up with all these translators sounding so mediocre?

KZEP HD2 is also fine, however KTFM's Hd has been off for a few days and 103.3 keeps going as normal... It's not like anybody cares though. ;)

As for Fiesta, I should probably get around to doing something for it next year (no I'm not a bore, I just am so used to it coming around this time of year). Guess that's because I'm a local.
 
Yeah, I see what you mean. It's not as bad tonight, but it still isn't right. Listen to 93-3 for a few seconds, and something sounds like it pops and the music briefly gets this real nasty noise in it. Kind of like hitting a cymbal that's cracked.

I checked 105-7 on your tip. It doesn't sound anywhere near as good audio wise, as it did during the "Wild" run. My niece really liked that station and it sounded pretty good then, at least on par with the full powers. It now sounds like the equalizer has the treble setting and volume levels turned too low.

I DO see KEDA is now available on 102-3, and someone found the volume knob over there! Much better than the last time I checked out 102-3. Kind of renders 1540 useless though...
 
1540 does get better coverage than the FM translator does it not? As for the FM volume levels, they fixed them a couple months back. Progress has been made over there engineering wise.

Maybe the reason 105.7 has their trebble so low is because it would sound bad if it were high with the feed they use. It used to have loud trebble, but with the trebble up digital artifacts are a lot more noticable to me anyway.


As for Friday night, yes, lots of stations were having problems then and into Saturday morning. At one point, about half the FM stations anyway were dead air or off the air. The worst I picked up was KSTX, as more than once I heard it doing this. http://sndup.net/9tzn/d
Warning: The above audio may blast your ear drums if too loud. ;)
 
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t does in Pleasanton or Seguin, but inside the 1604 loop, 102-3 is just as strong. I was just listening to it last night as I gassed up at 7-11 and got my #9 from Bill Miller's on W.W. White. I misspoke, Mouse. 1540 is stronger, but covers places that have little to nothing in populace, 102-3 allows Radio Jalapeno to cover the City center in FM. At night though, with KEDA's nasty directional signal, I bet there are parts of San Antonio itself that never heard KEDA at night, yet now get an acceptable signal from the translator.

And speaking of translators...K268CR, licensed to San Antonio, but the tower is in Smiley?

Smiley? Really? For those not familiar with these little podunk Gonzales county towns, that'd be the intersection of Highway 87 and FM 108. Smiley has a cafe, maybe even two, but don't run out of gas on an adventure through here. There's no convenience store and no gas. Oh yeah, and traffic control consisting of one blinking light at the aforementioned intersection. I doubt 500 people call Smiley home and probably 1/3 of them wouldn't actually admit it to anyone, lol. I haven't veered down the back roads of Gonzales county in a good while. That's got to be one of those phantom translators. There's just no way that 101-5 is actually on the air translating KEDA.
 
I've sure never heard 101.5 on the air. LOL I'm smiling now just reading the name of that town.
 
Then this should have you grinning from ear to ear.

http://www.smileytx.com/

Note the blinking light prominently displayed on the homepage. Apparently, they now have TWO side by side! I wasn't kidding, just didn't know they had a webpage or that the blinking traffic light is so notable to the town, that it's displayed on the net!

Enjoy, Mouse...
 
I'm surprised KZEP 93.3 is still on the air. I figured iHeart will soon throw in the towel with that station.

And I had fun at Fiesta! I was in the Flambeau Parade with a marching band. It went really well except I was exhausted after carrying a tuba halfway through the parade lol.
 
Nice one, Purple. ;)


102-3 is off the air today for some reason, and I'm able to faintly pick up KSAQ with classic country out of Charlotte, TX. It's not as powerful here as KEMA 94.5 is. I talked about that one in the Texas forum.

I just find it interesting that now we have two translators in town on the same tower at 1010 W. Laurel St interfeering with two country stations south of town. Those translators should think about moving frequencies, but are all the other channels in town taken? Maybe after the Guel LPFM apps are dismissed they won't be.
 
93-3 and 105-7 are both dead air as of now, and have been for an hour at least. I did hear 93-3 a few minutes ago with the audio coming back in and out and stuttering.

Either they're doing work on them now as I speak, or having more signal problems. 102-3 still is totally down.


[edit] Just now at 08:00 I tuned in by 93-3 and heard them messing with the levels and plugging and unplugging the audio line-in cable (that's what it sounded like).

Anyway 93-3 and 105-7 are on now and sound the same as earlier before they went silent.
 
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They seem to be using an Internet feed now, as both stations keep buffering.
Those tower sites should have better Internet installed. Somebody call Time Warner LOL
 
K227BH is now hot?

K227BH is now rebroadcasting the audio of Hot 104.5.

Is that station planning a move to 93.3 just like KZEP did last year, with something new to start on 104 soon?
Either that or iHeartMedia is in deep technical trouble.
 
I certainly won't question you, Mouse. After all, it was you that heard K-Zep testing on 93-3 in the first place. I bet my cousin is having a fit right about now. He's already miffed about the dismissal of John Lisle from K-Zep, and now this?

I'd put money on technical snafu, but wouldn't that be something if "Hot" gets relegated to the translator and K-Zep returns to...well, KZEP? Keep me in the know, Mouse. I'm texting my cousin now, to see how upset he is...lol.

Edit to add: online, K-Zep is still there. Currently playing The Rolling Stones. I don't know, Mouse. Maybe iHeart is playing musical chairs with the format on 93-3, like the did before with 92-5. No word from the home base in SA, yet.

Further edit: just heard back from SA. He took his son to school this morning, all was fine. Classic rock going strong on 93-3. Dropped off his son, started heading back home, and out of nowhere 93-3 flipped to rap. Then it went quiet, then a few seconds of K-Zep again, then quiet again, then Hot. It's been Hot since. He heard the whole thing happen. Said it was a little before 8 this morning when it happened. He said he reached over and turned off the radio and said the heck with it. I think we can chalk this up to a snafu, but we'll see. Makes no sense to run 104-5's programming over 93-3, so I'm positive that it's not permanent.
 
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You're right, it was Hot first time I heard it this morning and all through around 11:30 or so, that's the last time I picked it up and it was still Hot.
but when I got back to a radio around 03:45 this afternoon, it had flipped back to KZEP. Technical Internet issues, I imagine that just can't get worked out. The audio in the transmission still appears to be mono and buffering a little. I expect this translator's either about to see a change, or they're just having leftover troubles from the storms last week. I have no idea what's going on, but if anyone familiar with the situation's reading this, I encourage you to give us a clue. LOL you can be anonymous if you wish.
 
Well, there went all the listeners for 93-3. I'm pretty sure anyone that followed K-Zep down the dial last year, and then heard Hot's format on it for the majority of this morning, did just what my cousin did...or worse. There may be a few extra receivers in the weekly trash pickup tomorrow!

But seriously, it really shows what iHeart thinks K-Zep is worth...
 
Either that or a not-so-good engineer intern, I would guess. I'd test that Internet connection out before I use it on a city-wide station... Turning the transmitter off so as not to cause embarrassment in this situation would help.
Well, iHeart, that's it for radio class for today. LOL


And 102-3 is back, with KEDA.
 
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SA, perhaps you're right in thinking 92-5 has something to do with it, 92-5 and 93-3 could be paired up again and flipped to a new format.
And Hot isn't doing too well on 104, or so I've heard.
Only time will tell what all comes out of this stuff. And has anyone noticed 103-1's audio levels? They're way too high and appear to clip the transmitter, possibly even worse than KJMA 89-7. But KJMA has clipped a lot for as long as I can remember.
 
I can't imagine anything placed on KRPT would do better than the current K-Buc. 92-5's signal is tailored for country music given where the signal actually covers. It's not like it's ever going to print money for iHeart, and it has no chance of ever moving closer to San Antonio...or even the outskirts for that matter. 92-5 has much the same problem 103-1 has. Location, location, location. The best thing that could happen to KRPT is for iH to take a bath and sell it to someone interested in programming directly to Devine, Pearsall, Pleasanton, and the places where the signal actually covers well. Problem with that is an operator would have to do it for the love for the area and a passionate desire to directly program the station to it, because there is no serious money to be made out of a facility down there. At least not enough to keep a corporation's stock holders happy.
 
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