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Mount Wilson Broadcasters Relaunches K-Mozart In Los Angeles
- Thread starter Y2kTheNewOldies
- Start date
Isn't audio quality pretty rough once you get to a fourth HD stream? The HD-3s and 4s up this way are all spoken-word or ethnic, which serve audiences that ownership apparently believes don't care about the audio.
I've never dealt with an HD-4, but the other HD's from 1 to 3 can each be assigned bandwidth. So, in theory, the HD-1 that carries the digital version of the analog content can have less quality than the HD-3.
But as to HD-4, that is a very good question.
I love the passion he still has for the business of radio AND the listening joy of radio. Generally with broadcasters, it is one or the other. Strike that, it is just one.
Saul could have cashed out and spent his years in VERY comfortable retirement a long time ago, but at his age he is still at it, doing what he loves and making money at it. He is not just a model for broadcasting, but a model for the very concept of "man vs. corporate America" entrepreneurialism. Rock on, err, Classical On Saul!
It was... but up in Monterrey.
The AM has been old oldies since Spring of 2017... three years and a bit more now.
David, as always, with Saul, it's a bit more complicated than that. Saul put the K-Mozart format on 97.9 FM in Monterey in August of 2013. In January of 2014, he took 1240 AM, which he'd bought the month before, and put a jazz format on the air. Then, four months later, he did a brief simulcast of the Classical format before flipping the FM to Country and leaving K-Mozart on 1240.
That lasted ten months and Saul then took the AM to "Unforgettables" until about two years ago, when he flipped the AM to a simulcast of K-SURF in L.A. with only the legal IDs changed for Monterey (and those weren't recorded to cover the entire L.A. ID, so they aired twice in a row).
Saul has since sold off or donated both stations to non-profits.
So it's been five years since Saul's aired K-Mozart up in Monterey.
I'm in Houston, where we've had a few FMs with HD-4 signals, and I've also heard HD-4s in a couple of other markets. Best example here is Public Radio KUHF, which runs Classical24 on the HD-2, XPoNential Radio on the HD-3, and a reading service for the visually impaired on the HD-4. Music audio quality on the HD-2 and 3 is fine; a sharp ear can hear some digital artifacts at times, but the overall result is is a good listening experience. And the spoken word on the HD-4 sounds better than, say, a talk format on one of the SiriusXM channels.
I think FM HD is like the TV digital subchannels as the overall fixed bandwidth can be allocated according to program needs. I have however wondered if there is some technical limit to IBOC-HD that only allows four program streams. I have never heard of anyone with an HD-5 or HD-6...would it be possible to have more program steams if you were willing to further crunch the bandwidth of each, such as spoken word programming on all the streams? And would current HD receivers be able to decode those extra subchannels?
Apparently if the entire station signal was digital using the current HD system you could have as many as ten subchannels on one transmitter.
There may be another way to increase HD bandwidth. A while back on the Houston board there was a discussion of one of the local FMs (KTBZ) that had added an HD-4, but HD radios were having trouble decoding it, even though the station's other HD signals were fine (the HD-4 was feeding a translator.) One poster explained that there is a technical variant known as "Extended HD." If I understand it correctly, the HD-4 was being transmitted on a digital IBOC datastream that was closer to the main analog signal than the standard HD sidebands, which allowed for more overall bandwidth. I have not done any further investigation on this, though.
"Subcarriers" is a term for the old SCA analog system originally used for subscription services like Muzak and the like.
HD is a "space" which, like an office rental in a commercial building, can be subdivided. It can be one big room, two equal rooms or several divided into bigger and smaller. But it is one space; if used entirely for the HD-1 analog simulcast, it sounds really good.
Think of HD-1, two and three as slices of a pie. I prefer not sharing...
The relaunch amounts to now airing the Classical 24 live satellite service from Minnesota Public Radio which has live announcers 24 hours a day. I wonder if anyone who has posted listened to notice this. Many classical music public broadcasting stations air this. Before it was automated music with no announcers. Classical music has been on 105.1 HD4 for for a few years.
The sale of KIDD-AM and KNRY-AM in Monterey is not happening at this time. They filed a notice of non-consummation of the sale.
Hmm. That'll be messy. Saul handed operations off to them several months ago under an LMA, I believe.
R
Rick Rose 2.0
Guest
HD4 Experience
Here in Atlanta Power 96.1 launched an HD4 to feed a translator for a new modern gospel station. This station is owned by someone else paying iheart money to use one of their hd stations. The hd 3 sound rough but its for black news BIN 640 so it dont need a lot of bad with. the HD2 simulcasts sister urban 105.3 the beat which covers Atlanta from the southwest. I listen to the hd4 a lot along with the HD3 of another station and it sounds good to me. Now down in Florida i remember the hd 3 or hd 4 signal being un listenable. i was trying to listen to the other station that has an HD 4 and could not even get the HD for 97.1fm which is very odd. Some of those HDs are hard to listen to but i dont like the formats except the WSB simulcast which is talk.
Here in Atlanta Power 96.1 launched an HD4 to feed a translator for a new modern gospel station. This station is owned by someone else paying iheart money to use one of their hd stations. The hd 3 sound rough but its for black news BIN 640 so it dont need a lot of bad with. the HD2 simulcasts sister urban 105.3 the beat which covers Atlanta from the southwest. I listen to the hd4 a lot along with the HD3 of another station and it sounds good to me. Now down in Florida i remember the hd 3 or hd 4 signal being un listenable. i was trying to listen to the other station that has an HD 4 and could not even get the HD for 97.1fm which is very odd. Some of those HDs are hard to listen to but i dont like the formats except the WSB simulcast which is talk.
KIDD/KNRY-AM are silent and has FCC authorization to be until 11/02/2020.
Exhibit 1
Description: EXPLANATION
THE STATION IS NOT SUSTAINABLE FINANCIALLY BECAUSE OF GREATLY DIMINISHED ADVERTISING DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC.
Exhibit 1
Description: EXPLANATION
THE STATION IS NOT SUSTAINABLE FINANCIALLY BECAUSE OF GREATLY DIMINISHED ADVERTISING DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC.
Wow, and the FCC accepted that?
I'd imagine they will accept anything of that nature right now. However, in this case the licensee had sold the stations with an LMA and the buyer could not go through with the deal. So the owner was left "high and dry" with no staff and a non-billing station.
If this goes on much longer, I expect we will see lots of similar situations where owners present inability to operate due to the virus.
Similarly, there are stations in Puerto Rico that are going on three years off the air or on temporary facilities due to the hurricane in 2017. The FCC routinely grants extensions and STA's.
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Saul might not even have had a physical site there anymore, apart from the sticks and the STLs....if it weren't for the fact that 1240 is pretty much hard-wired. The tower is across the street from the office and studios on Cannery Row. Studios (apart from maybe production) hadn't been used in several years. If you remember the 1960s and 1970s, that station was Top 40 KMBY, and it's the same place---upstairs, in the Bear Flag Building at 651 Cannery Row.
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