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1-5 kW AM Coverage Area Improved By Processing?

S

syvjeff

The owner of the stations I work for loves his stations to be loud, legal and covering our area the best way we can. We ended up having a discussion about two of our News-Talk stations, one a 5 kW and the other a 500 W station. We have a 3 year old BE 5E on one and planning on replacing the Bauer on the 500 W with either a BE 500/1-A or Nautel J-1. The owner asked me to get a hold of the big guys and ask about processing, etc. I told him that would be a waste of time since they are 50 kW and run HD.

For those of you that have the same goals as ours, I have a few questions......We want to maximize our local coverage area with the newest equipment.

1. What processing has worked best for your goals?

2. Have any of you switched from a 9200 to another Orban 9300 or 9400? Omnia 1 or 5? Vorsis?

3. Has just having a 9100 refurbished been the best thing you've done?

4. Transmitter thoughts for a 500 W-1 kW station?

Thanks for taking the time to think about this.

Jeff
 
The 9200 or better would be great. I think you'll be happier with something more modern like that. Keep your current as a backup. I personally am partial to Nautel. They are awsome boxes with awsome support. Others are good including BE. Big H's equipment is decent however the company that you have to deal with after the sale is riddled with issues.
 
Thank you for the pints. I'm already done with the big "H" for personal reasons, but here's the thought to ponder......I have a 9200 on the BE 5E and it just doesn't sound competitive compared to the 9100's I left behind 3 years ago when I jumped ship. These other stations were 1 kW stations that seem to sound louder than me and I personally think that it's the distortion is perceived loudness than real loudness.
 
Another thing you might want to check is the RF bandwidth of your antenna systems. Flat (or at least equal) response in the lower and upper sidebands will allow you to more aggressively process your audio before objectionable distortion sets in.
 
I'm running a 9100B on my 5kw standards/oldies---BUT---it has help. I'm running an Aphex Compellor/Aural Exciter into a six-band Behringer 9024 with the low and high end outputs jacked way up, plus it also has aural excitation, then the Optimod gets THAT and I have it set to stun. We are untouchable on the dial here. And many non-radio folks have asked me "did you increase the power? I don't remember it being that strong.". Does it sound highly processed? Well duh. But people can;t listent o what they can't hear. I'm convinced the only thing that could beat this is a set of vintage CRL's, circa 1979. What I've essentially done is make this sound like that, as much as possible

As for xmtrs, Nautel is the best followed by BE. Difference is Nautel's tech support is legendary, and I had spotty luck w/BE's although in fairness that was nearly 20 years ago. Stay away from the oddball brands---Omnitronix, LPB, and QEI all went down in the past few years.
 
All of you are doing a great job in giving me some ideas to work on. Please continue on. I'm an Ops guy that loves good AM.

Step One is to hire an engineer to scope out audio of our 5 kW station.

Step Two is to try out other processors for potential. We are currently running a 9200 with version 3 software and to be honest, for news-talk it's just not as loud as my competitors running 9100s. But of course the owner and I debate how distortion is perceived loudness all the time.

Step Three is to buy a new transmitter for 500 W station and either A move our existing 9200 from the 5 kW station to the 500 W station or buy a new processor.
 
syvjeff said:
All of you are doing a great job in giving me some ideas to work on. Please continue on. I'm an Ops guy that loves good AM.

Step One is to hire an engineer to scope out audio of our 5 kW station.

Step Two is to try out other processors for potential. We are currently running a 9200 with version 3 software and to be honest, for news-talk it's just not as loud as my competitors running 9100s. But of course the owner and I debate how distortion is perceived loudness all the time.

Step Three is to buy a new transmitter for 500 W station and either A move our existing 9200 from the 5 kW station to the 500 W station or buy a new processor.
Click to expand...

Have you considered that maybe the competitors are running high positive modulation? Many stations exceed 125% to the order of 150 to 200%. Also, many blowtorch talkers use some type of phase chaser or flipper to ensure peaks on male voices always swing to the positive. Absolute phase is almost impossible to achieve with today's various audio sources. Some talk stations also decrease their response from NRSC to 6 or 7k to increase modulation power within the midrange area. IIRC, the 9200 had early DSP technology with the equalizers and adjustable LPF's. The analog 9100 sounded better, but not necessarily louder. The 9200 can still be found at many stations, (have a few myself) but it was never as popular as the 9100. I too have been waiting for someone to report any improvements going from a 9200 to 9300 or 9400. Good luck,
 
As Frank said, I'd check to make sure you're antenna system/phasor/ATUs are broadbanded enough to pass your sidbands flatly. Find a good AM PE or tech that has the right stuff and can really go through the system for you. If you have a bigger budget, call Ron Rackley. Just expect it not to be cheap. If you know of anyone with a network analyzer in the market you could possibly see your problem if they'd take a look at your system with it. With all of that being said, the transmitter could be a prob too, but it's less likely.

Running positive peaks will add a bit of distortion, however, it has a lot to do with you getting much louder. Get yourself a old scope if you don't have a good mod meter (I prefer the scope anyway) and see if you are pintching off the envolope down to near 100 percent on the negitives. You shouldn't see too much flat-topping out on the troughs or the peaks.

The chain my former employer uses is a Aphex Compellor 320 into a Harris MSP 90 3 banded FM processor then into the STL sytems (dual hop) then into the Orban 9200 then into the Nautel Ampfet 50. The audio is pretty stunning IMHO. It's loud, clean and punches almost like an FM (partially, admittedly, because it's a 50kw).

Good luck!
 
If you're on more of a budget (like I usually am) there is a great guy in the Texas are that is very good and more affordable. I think he has a network analyzer too, but I'm not 100 percent sure. PM me if you need more info. What part of the country are you in?
 
If it's talk you can run the multiband drive to 18 , 20 or more! I like the Gregg preset with this box, I think you mentioned it had the version 3 software. I would also use Medium Fast with a high multiband drive, Fast will give you a wall of sound...

just MHO
 
The addition of Breakaway Broadcast Processor, along with an ART Pro VLA optical/tube compressor (2 passes of mono in the separate channels, uncoupled) gave me about twice the effective coverage area on my part 15 AM, still keeping it at 100mw.
This about the only useful loophole for a pt 15 AM, as the input power at 100mw is with no modulation. For me, that's 60mw, peaks at about
110 mw.

I agree that a tiny amount of distortion will be perceived as loudness, but this is a razor-thin line.
As long as the distortion is "harmonic" distortion, not intermodulation distortion, the ears accept it pretty well, and it sounds a bit louder.
Even order distortion sounds far more natural than odd-order (3rd, 5th,...) as most natural vibrations and reasonances favor
even-order harmonics. Odd order harmonics just sound like a cheap transistor stereo from 1972.

Can these transmitters deliver positive mod peaks above 100%? That won't neccessarily make you loud, but if you can run near
90% all the time, with your peaks rising up to 150%, you almost can't help but be loud.
Some radios will sound better than others receiving this. Those with poorly designed AGC will sound worse.
 
To answer some questions:

OKC - I'm on the Central Coast of CA.

Greenie - I too like the sound of the Gregg preset and just a couple of days ago I flipped to it and it was better than some of the other presets (factory and my own). I've yet to push it harder since starting this discussion.

I have a couple more questions:

1. I'm using an Aphex Compellor prior to our Moseley STL: Should the level compression mix be more compression or 50/50 leveler?

2. Should I kill AGC on 9200 at TX ?

3. Is it better to pull negative mod down a bit to allow more positive peaks?

Thanks for the input.

Jeff
 
You will NOT get any better than an Ariane with a recapped 9100 into a Harris/Nautel/BE transmitter into a flat antenna.

If you cant afford an Ariane, a CRL APP or AGC 400 works well.

Buy a 9100. Send it to Bill Sacks to have him go over it. Then sell the 9200 and buy an Ariane. I'm serious. The 9100 will always give you the best tradeoff with the least amount of futzing and the Ariane will help feed it a steady diet.
 
The asymmetry adjustment on the 9200 is capable of driving a properly balanced modulator far in excess of 125% on positives while the negatives are well below 99%. If you have a solid state TX, you don't even need to worry about balancing the modulator (theoretically, at least).

I recently did some work on a 1kW BE AM1A on 1080kHz into a single, tall and broadband tower. Previous owners connected the audio to the TX out of phase, and we were getting nothing but grinding audio and no modulation depth. It literally sounded like a 250 watter on a melting final.

I fixed it, tweaked up the 9200 for +125%/-95% and now it is listenable for at least 80-100 miles in all directions. It outperforms several 5kW stations. Considering the backup proc is an Innovonics 222, I'll take the 9200 any day. It's hands down the best sounding AM in several markets.
 
I have spent 20+ years working on AM, and my favorite processing combination by far has been using an old DAP (Dorrough) in front of a newly-capped 9100. It is thick, rich, loud and it makes a huge difference in coverage. If you have some extra money, consider investing in a Kahn Powerside.
 
OK.. I have a question about the Kahn Powerside. I have a client that, when the Kahn is used, has a final or two fail him in his Nautel Amphet 1kw TX every so often. Without it in use, all is OK. I don't know enough about the beast and I don't have a OIB to check things out for myself as far as reactance of the system. Is it likely that I have something like too much reactance that the transmitter is seeing and therefore when the Kahn is on it's popping things occationally?
 
Alright, throw my hat into the Nautel ring. I have installed three J1000s in the past four years and they are a great transmitter. I have also noticed that nobody has mentioned Omnia procs. The 5EX is worth a look/see.

Also, if you think you are having coverage issues, or if you think you are, get someone to look at the antenna and make sure the transmitter is seeing a good load. One of the J1000s replaced a Bauer 707. The Nautel would not load into the antenna. Come to find out, there was a major mismatch on the antenna. Once it was tuned properly, coverage increased substantially. The station owner explained he didn't think the Bauer should be going through a set of tubes a year. It was doing that because of the bad load.
 
Here's an update for those who want to me in the know:

Remember we are going to stay as a Mono non HD station

1. I have scheduled an engineer to come on out to the 5 kW TX site. We're going to spend the night inspecting everything from the output of the STL all the way to the sky. There's a start.

2. Today I swung by the site and decided to experiment with the 9200 v.3 and use the Prescence preset, narrow it down to 70hZ and 7.5 k bandwidth, boosting (per manual) mid range boost up 6 dB and change the Compellor to 100% compression on the Leveler-Compression mix. In my basic Ford car radio didn't sound too bad for News-Talk. The owner of the stations drives a vehicle with very narrow bandwidth, so I'll be curious to hear what his thoughts are.

3. I received a great PM about purchasing an Arianne and using a 9100 (which we have and is currently on our 500W station but probably needs some love) and have read some interesting posts here especially about the Bauer 707. We have a Bauer on our 500W station and planning on replacing it with either a Nautel or a BE.

4. Still interested in hearing some reports from actual users of newer Digital processors just so I can say I did my homework. For those of you with newer AM Orbans, Omnias and Vorsis, please chime in. But I'm open minded in stepping back to an analog box like our 9100 to pop up against our competitors. We are open minded in doing anything to maximize out our signals without busting the law.

Thanks to all of you and let's keep this going.

Jeff
 
In my experience, the only thing you gain with a digital AM box is ease of use.

I'd use an Ariane with an analog Optimod in a heartbeat.

Has anyone tried using Breakaway as an AM processor?

There's even a new 4.5khz LPF in BBP for am stations that just don't care.
 
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