The Best and Worst sounding FM stations in your area

[24pulsar]

Hello all,

I just recently signed up here, and this seems to be a great forum. My apologies if a thread like this has been created any time recently -- from a quick search it would appear nobody's done this sort of thing in a while.

I'd be (and I'm sure others would be, as well) interested in hearing people's opinions on the best and worst sounding (in terms of audio quality, but if the programming sucks, I'd love to hear about that too) FM stations in their area. AM counts too, I suppose, but I don't listen to it very much, because locally, there's nothing on. I feel this is probably the case for many cities nationwide, unfortunately.

But anyway, I figure I would start first, for my own radio market (Bryan-College Station, Texas).

-
BEST:
107.7 KPWJ: Loud, but not overly harsh, and still dynamic. Low noise, too. I figure being loud probably isn't important for a religious station like this. It sounds decent.

99.5 KNFX: Being an iHeart station, I'm surprised how good it sounds. It's fairly loud, and does have a sort of low-bitrate thing going on, but it isn't bad. I can actually stand to listen to it.

I should probably note that in terms of audio quality, my own Part 15 LPFM surpasses both of those by quite a bit. It probably helps I'm not relying on an STL, which can degrade the quality especially if it's older or a less expensive digital system.

Unfortunately, besides our public radio stations which sound excellent, that's about it. Get ready...

WORST:
104.7 KKYS: Horrible. Over-processed to the moon and back, with a trip to Mars shortly thereafter. It's bad enough that the signal actually distorts, quite harshly. I'm amazed at how the same studios that pump out KNFX are doing this.

107.3 KAPN: Generic over-processed Optimod squash-O-matic preset sound. The fidelity of the signal is bad, too. It's dull and slightly distorted, which may be the fault of the STL or transmitter. Who knows.

93.1 K226AE (Ngen Radio translator): Transmits in mono and with seemingly no pre-emphasis. Enough said.
-

Well, that's about it for my own market. Again, I apologize if anything like this has been done recently -- but barring that, I'd love to see your responses!

-b.v.

 

[gr8oldies]

Worst in East Tennessee and maybe all of Tennessee: WSEV (AM) and translator in Sevierville TN. It was the recurring loop tourist info station, but it was shut down (though still ran dead ear for a month) then bought by Bristol Broadcasting, moved in with their Newport TN cluster, then save wildfire and COVID information, was promptly forgotten about. They run a bizarre mix of music which sounds like a cassette left on a car seat in the hot summer sun. Very likely a super-low bitrate internet feed, or maybe AOL dial-up

 

[R.D.P.]

In my area, we have a few that tend to overmodulate their signal and they sounds like crap. (WYVC Camden is one such station)

To those who keep a great sound quality, I applaud you. (Myself, Chris Johnson of Clanton and Troy area fame, The CCM stations, WLBF, Terry Barber and Rick Peters of Montgomery and Alexander Broadcasting Company/Scott Communications of Selma) 👍

When one overmodulates their signal, the volume level is way too loud and you can't even enjoy them. Now when they do, it makes me wonder if they're violating any of the other FCC rules. 🙄

Dan <><

P.S. In closing, I do remember surfing by WYVC Camden a few weeks ago and my own father said turn the volume down son, it's way too loud. I told him it wasn't our radio but the owner breaking the rules.

And...When a radio station is breaking the law, I avoid them like the plague. I have no need for them. ​

 

[davideduardo]

In my area, we have a few that tend to overmodulate their signal and they sounds like crap. (WYVC Camden is one such station)


When one overmodulates their signal, the volume level is way too loud and you can't even enjoy them. Now when they do, it makes me wonder if they're violating any of the other FCC rules. 🙄
​

There is a difference between "overmodulating" an FM and overprocessing one.

What you describe sounds like bad processing.

In theory, there is no such thing as overmodulating an FM. With AM, you get carrier supression over 100% negative peaks. With FM, the standard for 100% modulation is arbitrary and set by the FCC to allow proper station allocation and to prevent interference.

In one market I was in outside the US, every station on FM was doing well over 100% modulation to sound loud. We had the newest Orban Optimod at the time so we focused on going moderately over 100% but improving the processing. However, in experimenting we found that the practical limit for FM modulation is between 130% and 135%. Above (or at) that point, many radios don't have enough bandwidth to pass +/- 100 kHz without dropping off and causing apparent distortion... it is a function of the selectivity of the radio, not the over-modulation itself.

We settled for about 125% modulation, as with the Optimod we had going any higher impaired the insertion of the stereo subcarrier. With better audio processing tailored to our format, we sounded as loud as anyone and much better in quality. But it took over a week to find the best processing and modulation levels and included borrowing a bunch of radios from a local electronics store that was kind enough to let us borrow them at night.

 

[Kelly A]

There is a difference between "overmodulating" an FM and overprocessing one.

What you describe sounds like bad processing.

Anymore one needs to consider the use of AGC software baked into modern SDR tuner chips. Excessive processing or frequent modulation peaks above 115% cause limiting in the receiver demod itself. The tuner will only allow the audio level to be a predetermined loudness. Anything more and it starts to hard-limit (aka distortion).

 

[davideduardo]

Anymore one needs to consider the use of AGC software baked into modern SDR tuner chips. Excessive processing or frequent modulation peaks above 115% cause limiting in the receiver demod itself. The tuner will only allow the audio level to be a predetermined loudness. Anything more and it starts to hard-limit (aka distortion).

That's a valid point with newer devices. My experience was prior to those newer SDR chips, but illustrates the need to test settings on a variety of consumer radios (same goes for steaming processing). I always believed in having an assortment of all kinds of radios, including car receivers with power supplies, to listen to when doing any processor adjustment or when changing processors or any audio gear.

 

[192khz]

There is a difference between "overmodulating" an FM and overprocessing one.

What you describe sounds like bad processing.

In theory, there is no such thing as overmodulating an FM. With AM, you get carrier supression over 100% negative peaks. With FM, the standard for 100% modulation is arbitrary and set by the FCC to allow proper station allocation and to prevent interference.

In one market I was in outside the US, every station on FM was doing well over 100% modulation to sound loud. We had the newest Orban Optimod at the time so we focused on going moderately over 100% but improving the processing. However, in experimenting we found that the practical limit for FM modulation is between 130% and 135%. Above (or at) that point, many radios don't have enough bandwidth to pass +/- 100 kHz without dropping off and causing apparent distortion... it is a function of the selectivity of the radio, not the over-modulation itself.

We settled for about 125% modulation, as with the Optimod we had going any higher impaired the insertion of the stereo subcarrier. With better audio processing tailored to our format, we sounded as loud as anyone and much better in quality. But it took over a week to find the best processing and modulation levels and included borrowing a bunch of radios from a local electronics store that was kind enough to let us borrow them at night.

Have you ever used mpx tool?

 

[RomanPort]

This is a really interesting topic, and I actually opened up this forum today to mention a terrible sounding station I heard while camping this week. Good timing I guess, haha.

While it's not a local station, I listened to WIMI-FM for about four days and the sound quality was absolutely abysmal. The entire time I was listening, there was this awful high pitched tone played at about 13 kHz throughout every track that was played. If I booted up my SDR and looked at the FM MPX, I could see it was just as loud as the stereo pilot.



Great music, but unfortunately destroyed signal because of this tone. I'm guessing nobody at the station has young enough ears to hear the tone. It's probably barely within my own range of hearing, haha. There weren't many other options up in the rural northlands of Minnesota though.

Here's a sample for your listening "enjoyment" (with a legal ID):

 

[Kelly A]

This is a really interesting topic, and I actually opened up this forum today to mention a terrible sounding station I heard while camping this week. Good timing I guess, haha.

While it's not a local station, I listened to WIMI-FM for about four days and the sound quality was absolutely abysmal. The entire time I was listening, there was this awful high pitched tone played at about 13 kHz throughout every track that was played. If I booted up my SDR and looked at the FM MPX, I could see it was just as loud as the stereo pilot.

View attachment 2050

Great music, but unfortunately destroyed signal because of this tone. I'm guessing nobody at the station has young enough ears to hear the tone. It's probably barely within my own range of hearing, haha. There weren't many other options up in the rural northlands of Minnesota though.

Here's a sample for your listening "enjoyment" (with a legal ID):

That's the classic sound (whistle) of a Harris Digit Exciter in the transmitter with dried-out capacitors.

 

[Greg Strickland]

R.D.P.

Overmodulation is a word often used to describe distortion. In FM radio overmodulation means exceeding a reference frequency deviation on peaks of frequent reoccurrence.

In FM radio 100 percent modulation is 75 KHz deviation. Note that up to 110 percent modulation is permitted if the station is broadcasting subsidiary communications service subcarrier.

Frequency modulation technique does not have a built in audio peak level (modulation) above which distortion will result. This can be distinguished from digital audio, where full scale digital zero is normally a hard limit. However as a practical matter the FM broadcast audio path has other limitations that kick in at some point above 100 percent modulation, as David described.

200 percent modulation is about 6 dB greater than 100 percent modulation. Instead of hearing something approaching this, you might be hearing differences in user adjustment and era of the processor. Recent processors are louder than older models, at the same final peak level.

My view is most broadcasters seek to achieve their desired audio sound in compliance with FCC rules. Observed peak deviation from a receiver in the field may not accurately represent what the station is broadcasting, because of effects of propagation and incoming interference.

When discussing subjective audio sound I suggest making a distinction between markets using a ratings watermark and markets that do not use a ratings watermark.

Keep listening and caring about audio.

 

[MVB13]

WRFY FM in Reading is one of the worst stations I unfortunately have ever heard. They once played AC/DC and went into playing Gavin DeGraw.
One of the best stations I heard was WSPK K 104 in Poughkeepsie it's all live and local.

 

[davideduardo]

When discussing subjective audio sound I suggest making a distinction between markets using a ratings watermark and markets that do not use a ratings watermark.

And, of course, many of us think we can hear the processing some stations use in PPM markets to enhance detection by the portable monitoring meter.

 

[192khz]

There is a difference between "overmodulating" an FM and overprocessing one.

What you describe sounds like bad processing.

In theory, there is no such thing as overmodulating an FM. With AM, you get carrier supression over 100% negative peaks. With FM, the standard for 100% modulation is arbitrary and set by the FCC to allow proper station allocation and to prevent interference.

In one market I was in outside the US, every station on FM was doing well over 100% modulation to sound loud. We had the newest Orban Optimod at the time so we focused on going moderately over 100% but improving the processing. However, in experimenting we found that the practical limit for FM modulation is between 130% and 135%. Above (or at) that point, many radios don't have enough bandwidth to pass +/- 100 kHz without dropping off and causing apparent distortion... it is a function of the selectivity of the radio, not the over-modulation itself.

We settled for about 125% modulation, as with the Optimod we had going any higher impaired the insertion of the stereo subcarrier. With better audio processing tailored to our format, we sounded as loud as anyone and much better in quality. But it took over a week to find the best processing and modulation levels and included borrowing a bunch of radios from a local electronics store that was kind enough to let us borrow them at night.

I found that if I get to let's say 125% modulation my pocket radio will make a clicking distortion sound. What's the cause good this?

 

[crainbebo]

My local LifeTalk affiliate, KCSH-88.9, has distorted audio. It sounds choppy like the modulation was turned up too high. Meanwhile, our local college station, KCWU-88.1, sounds just fine. The CSN translator has decent audio, as does KNWR, the NWPB News translator, and the K-LOVE translator (relayed from KYKV-103.1 Selah/Yakima).

KXLE 95.3 has good audio quality but you can hear wobbling in the audio when the music fades, as well as a faint feed of co-owned KXLE-1240 underneath that.

 

[24pulsar]

My local LifeTalk affiliate, KCSH-88.9, has distorted audio. It sounds choppy like the modulation was turned up too high. Meanwhile, our local college station, KCWU-88.1, sounds just fine. The CSN translator has decent audio, as does KNWR, the NWPB News translator, and the K-LOVE translator (relayed from KYKV-103.1 Selah/Yakima).

KXLE 95.3 has good audio quality but you can hear wobbling in the audio when the music fades, as well as a faint feed of co-owned KXLE-1240 underneath that.

Our K-LOVE affiliate (previously a local classic rock station - screw EMF) has surprisingly good audio, like your translator does. For being such a dubious organization, EMF at least knows how to hire decent engineering firms from the looks of things.

Interesting you're hearing crosstalk on KXLE. Must be a very tight/not well shielded installation. I've heard of instances where two pieces of equipment (in this case, things like STLs and audio processors) can interfere with each other when placed directly on top of each other in the rack.

 

[fmradioguy]

This is a really interesting topic, and I actually opened up this forum today to mention a terrible sounding station I heard while camping this week. Good timing I guess, haha.

While it's not a local station, I listened to WIMI-FM for about four days and the sound quality was absolutely abysmal. The entire time I was listening, there was this awful high pitched tone played at about 13 kHz throughout every track that was played. If I booted up my SDR and looked at the FM MPX, I could see it was just as loud as the stereo pilot.

View attachment 2050

Great music, but unfortunately destroyed signal because of this tone. I'm guessing nobody at the station has young enough ears to hear the tone. It's probably barely within my own range of hearing, haha. There weren't many other options up in the rural northlands of Minnesota though.

Here's a sample for your listening "enjoyment" (with a legal ID):

I was there in Two Harbors around this time. I heard that and I messaged them about it. I'm guessing it still hasn't been fixed.

 

[fmradioguy]

R.D.P.

Overmodulation is a word often used to describe distortion. In FM radio overmodulation means exceeding a reference frequency deviation on peaks of frequent reoccurrence.

In FM radio 100 percent modulation is 75 KHz deviation. Note that up to 110 percent modulation is permitted if the station is broadcasting subsidiary communications service subcarrier.

Frequency modulation technique does not have a built in audio peak level (modulation) above which distortion will result. This can be distinguished from digital audio, where full scale digital zero is normally a hard limit. However as a practical matter the FM broadcast audio path has other limitations that kick in at some point above 100 percent modulation, as David described.

200 percent modulation is about 6 dB greater than 100 percent modulation. Instead of hearing something approaching this, you might be hearing differences in user adjustment and era of the processor. Recent processors are louder than older models, at the same final peak level.

My view is most broadcasters seek to achieve their desired audio sound in compliance with FCC rules. Observed peak deviation from a receiver in the field may not accurately represent what the station is broadcasting, because of effects of propagation and incoming interference.

When discussing subjective audio sound I suggest making a distinction between markets using a ratings watermark and markets that do not use a ratings watermark.

Keep listening and caring about audio.

I know of a few stations almost at 130% modulation just to be loud.... *eyeroll*

 

[frankberry]

I know of a few stations almost at 130% modulation just to be loud.... *eyeroll*

This is not the 1980s. The loudness wars are (or should be) over.
Back in the '80s, one station in the Tampa Bay market did everything possible to be the loudest thing on the dial.
They compressed the hell out of their audio and even boosted the audio around 3kHz to make it sound louder.
I told the PD and GM that the station was fatiguing to listen to for more than a few minutes. They didn't listen to me.
Down the road a couple of years, the format failed and the station was sold.

 

[indystorm]

Not sure about the best these days, I don't listen to FM much on my HI-FI at home, but the worse I've heard of all time is 106.5 FM WBMW- a Fuller broadcasting station in Connecticut. They run the levels at 120% and think it's suitable! Ridiculous! As for best, like I said I'm not sure about now, but back in the 90's before it was bought out by Clear Channel- 96.1 WSRS in Worcester, MA always sounded the best to me. I'm in NC now, so I should scan the band and see- I've got a decent set up as well- NAD C375BEE amplifier, NAD 427 tuner, and Wharfedale Denton speakers. Old Rat-shack FM yagi to receive. 102.9 FM, WKIX sounds OK to me, but it's mostly all I listen to, since it's the only music I can stand these days! (I'm OLD!)

 

[crainbebo]

Nearby KYSN 97.7 Wenatchee WA (country, Kissin' 97.7) uses overmodulated audio. I think they do it so it sounds 'louder' and more 'full' than their competitor on 104.7...