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710 WOR dumps IBOC / HD Radio?

S

satech

I tuned in WOR today and was surprised to discover that they are not transmitting IBOC (HD Radio) anymore. Now their audio is louder and brighter even on my narrowband car radio, and 700 & 720 kHz are clean as a whistle.

Under Buckley ownership, WOR was the very first AM station to begin transmitting IBOC in 2002, and WOR's engineers were vocal proponents of HD Radio... but maybe Clear Channel has different ideas?
 
Time for CBS to wake up and do the same. WCBS and WINS are available on FM subchannels. No reason for AM HD.
 
Since Tom Ray has left, the WOR audio has been about the worst on the AM dial except for 1560. Dull, muddy, quiet. Tuning over to 770 was like flipping to FM.

They should shut off the I-HASH generator. 660 sounds great since they shut it off. In fact, I-HASH should be shut off on all AM's.

Thin the herd on the band by getting rid of night signal for any stations that have translators that are equal or greater to their night service. Next, if any station wants I-HASH, they have to go into the expanded band. Since nobody will want the expense, and the vast majority of AM's haven't even gone I-INTERFERE, it will quietly kill off the remains of the biggest debacle to hit the AM band.

Ditto for CBS to shut it off on 880 and 1010. Even within 25 miles of the tx sites, it doesn't stay locked in the car. I can take FM blending back and forth because the difference in audio is minimal. On AM it's like putting a pillow over your head and taking it off again every 20 seconds. Nobody is going to put up with that if engineers can't take it.
 
I don't live in NYC, but if WINS is using I-Block, wouldn't there be *some* legitimate concern from 970 & 1050, maybe in certain pockets of the metro?

I guess you could say the same about AM 930 for WCBS' I-Block, but maybe 50 kHz off wouldn't worry as much.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, wouldn't AM 740 on L.I. always have had issues w/ WOR's I-Block?

cd
 
WNTIRadio said:
... the biggest debacle to hit the AM band...
Click to expand...

But Rocky Allen's WABC show has been off the air for about twenty years. ::)
 
cd637299 said:
I don't live in NYC, but if WINS is using I-Block, wouldn't there be *some* legitimate concern from 970 & 1050, maybe in certain pockets of the metro?

I guess you could say the same about AM 930 for WCBS' I-Block, but maybe 50 kHz off wouldn't worry as much.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, wouldn't AM 740 on L.I. always have had issues w/ WOR's I-Block?

cd
Click to expand...

40 kHz away? Come on...quit making stuff up.
 
luperm said:
cd637299 said:
I don't live in NYC, but if WINS is using I-Block, wouldn't there be *some* legitimate concern from 970 & 1050, maybe in certain pockets of the metro?

I guess you could say the same about AM 930 for WCBS' I-Block, but maybe 50 kHz off wouldn't worry as much.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, wouldn't AM 740 on L.I. always have had issues w/ WOR's I-Block?

cd
Click to expand...

40 kHz away? Come on...quit making stuff up.
Click to expand...

It certainly can happen. WSCR 670 in Chicago put iblock back on, and they have an "image" of their analog signal falling neatly in the 630-640 khz range. The signal is "reflecting" off the lower digital sideband "constellation". It is a garbled reflection, since it's not an image
as reflected from a single carrier frequency. But it IS a real spurious byproduct that is outside the permitted bandwidth
defined for an iboc station. Between WSCR and WTMJ (which both sound muddy and hissy) the two stations wipe out all meaningful
use of 600 to 700 khz. WGN sounds OK at 720, WLW at 700 has hiss, and 590 in Omaha has some hiss. 600 WMT is really hard to listen to.

It's one thing to soil your own undies and create a stink in your own vicinity, but to pollute the "property" of 4 other assigned frequencies
is criminally offensive in the same way as physical detstruction upon private property.

Poor implementation or engineering now results in modulation byproducts that extend even beyond the expected 50 khz bandwidth.
Why not just put frequency modulation on mediumwave if you're going to be so sloppy?
 
I'm not an engineer and I defer to those of you who are on technical issues. But it seems that it's not uncommon for AM stations with IBOC to run IBOC-free - off and on - for days at a time. Is this automated operation and nobody is paying attention? Does whatever generates IBOC just turn itself on and off at random?

It all sounds like quirky technology.

That said, yes, there is no need for HD AM when AM stations are on HD FM sub-channels. I have to wonder if IBOC hash and the inability to scan without hitting IBOC hash over and over drives people away from the AM band.
 
Actually, WOR is not being transmitted on an FM HD signal, although now that it's owned by Clear Channel, that could be changed easily. Clear Channel owns five FM stations in NYC, any of which could carry WOR on an HD channel.

I agree that IBOC is not needed since nearly all major AM stations have co-owned FM stations in their markets that could give them an FM HD channel. Maybe WGN Chicago is the only major stand-alone AM station I can think of. And surely they could arrange for an FM HD channel if they wanted.
 
DToTheJ said:
WNTIRadio said:
... the biggest debacle to hit the AM band...
Click to expand...

But Rocky Allen's WABC show has been off the air for about twenty years. ::)
Click to expand...

LOL!!

Re: IBOC, it's amazing to me that stations didn't give up on this several years ago, especially AM IBOC. When consumers reject a technology as soundly as this one, clearly it's time to move on.
 
AM IBOC never worked well, virtually nobody listens to it that way. Time to stick a fork in it. If you want a digital Gina's for your AM put it on an FM HD channel.
 
satech said:
Under Buckley ownership, WOR was the very first AM station to begin transmitting IBOC in 2002, and WOR's engineers were vocal proponents of HD Radio... but maybe Clear Channel has different ideas?
Click to expand...

Radio World published an article a few years ago written by their chief engineer lamenting the difficulty of finding a HD radio as a factory option for his new Ford truck. He asked for an HD radio the response was satellite radio. His quest for a Ford HD radio went all the way to a Vice President of technology and that guy had never heard of HD radio.
 
R.F. Burns said:
My wife just bought a 2013 Subaru and it came with an HD radio.
Click to expand...

Great! Ask her to tune in the Alternative HD2 station for you. Or Smooth Jazz HD2, or whatever corresponds most closely to her programming taste. I'd love to know if she can find it.
 
radiorob2.0 said:
Radio World published an article a few years ago written by their chief engineer lamenting the difficulty of finding a HD radio as a factory option for his new Ford truck. He asked for an HD radio the response was satellite radio. His quest for a Ford HD radio went all the way to a Vice President of technology and that guy had never heard of HD radio.
Click to expand...

That article was written by none other than (now-former) WOR Chief Engineer Tom Ray.

http://www.rwonline.com/article/hd-radio-shouldn39t-be-this-hard/3684
 
And now today it's 1010 WINS which is not transmitting IBOC. I don't know why they ever bothered putting IBOC on WINS in the first place, since anyone with an HD Radio could tune in their simulcast on 102.7 WWFS-HD3 and get better reception than WINS's AM signal, which might be good in NYC itself but gets badly distorted in much of NJ due to all of the nulls in their directional signal, and basically drops to nothing at night due to the pattern change and all the skywave interference from 1010 CFRB in Canada.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
R.F. Burns said:
My wife just bought a 2013 Subaru and it came with an HD radio.
Click to expand...

Great! Ask her to tune in the Alternative HD2 station for you. Or Smooth Jazz HD2, or whatever corresponds most closely to her programming taste. I'd love to know if she can find it.
Click to expand...

Why? Smooth Jazz aka Jazz for white people, is today's beautiful music. Alternative? She's a NPR fan.
 
You said your wife bought a car that came with an HD Radio. My point was, does she listen to any of the subchannels and/or even know they're there? I was just curious how someone who acquires an HD radio in a new car uses it. Then again she's married to someone in the business so it's probably not a very representative sample so let's forget it.
 
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