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850AM NFL Playoff audio

A

aaronread

Was I imaging things or was the audio quality on 850AM tonight with the Texans/Bengals game absolutely terrible? Levels all over the place, rampant distortion, super-narrow bandwidth...it was tough to listen to. And a disturbing amount of PSA's instead of commercials in there, too. I know we're in New England and nobody cares about the Texans or the Bengals, but c'mon! It's still football!

(this was while driving west on the MassPike to Rt.128, and then south onto I-95 towards Providence; it can't be just weak signal or anything...I drove right past the 850 sticks in Needham!)

Admittedly, I don't think it was just WEEI; I switched to WFAN 660AM at one point and mistakenly thought I was listening to WPRO...forgetting they're 630, not 660...and the audio came in like a local but still had the same craptastic distortion and levels problems. Enough so that I don't think it was just skywave fading in and out (660 did that too, but not terribly frequently...for most of the drive it was just fine).

So maybe it was ESPN's "fault"? Did anyone have a chance to listen to this feed on an FM station?
 
Isn't Dial Global actually either CBS or NBC (I forget which) but it is NOT ESPN, I do know that, so perhaps the Dial Global to 850 (or 660 NYC) feed was snafued....
 
They're associated with CBS, I do believe. The game was on WUCS-FM 97.9 of Windsor Locks/Hartford (97.9-ESPN) with no problems that I heard.
 
How was it distributed? Ku-band satellite? Internet? I'd almost except the latter these days...

FWIW, it's been about five years but I used to listen to 850AM religiously for Sox games when I lived in Boston proper. And the sound quality was excellent. Enough that I preferred listening to 850AM over 104.9FM when I lived in Melrose, because 850 sounded much richer and the crowd noise on 104.7 was too loud.

The 850 I listened to last night was not even close to that standard. So I'm inclined to think the issue is somewhere "further up the line" than equipment under WEEI's direct control. I can see Entercom "caring less" about 850AM now that it's not their flagship station, but not quite to THAT extreme! :) Although FWIW, I caught a few minutes of the Celtics game on 93.7 and was disappointed how many (presumably AoIP) artifacts I was hearing. (it wasn't HD Radio artifacts, I had my radio switched to analog only) I would've thought Entercom has an ISDN line into the Garden? Maybe it was a backup Comrex/Tieline??
 
I have no clue how it was distributed. All I know is that 97.9 FM carried the game in greater Hartford (they also carried the Sunday games, too). Sometimes the games will go to WPOP-AM 1410 of Hartford, a.k.a. FOX Sports Radio 1410, their sister station (WPOP was a New York Jets radio affiliate this season). WPOP-AM was our ESPN Radio affiliate until 97.9 moved in from the Springfield, MA radio market. Coverage of the New York Yankees also moved over to 97.9 this past season. WPOP-AM 1410 carried little besides the New Britain Rock Cats (AA-level Minnesota Twins) baseball club this season.
 
http://www.compassmedianetworks.com...ompass_Media_Networks_NFL_Football_Format.pdf

aaronread said:
How was it distributed? Ku-band satellite? Internet? I'd almost except the latter these days...

FWIW, it's been about five years but I used to listen to 850AM religiously for Sox games when I lived in Boston proper. And the sound quality was excellent. Enough that I preferred listening to 850AM over 104.9FM when I lived in Melrose, because 850 sounded much richer and the crowd noise on 104.7 was too loud.

The 850 I listened to last night was not even close to that standard. So I'm inclined to think the issue is somewhere "further up the line" than equipment under WEEI's direct control. I can see Entercom "caring less" about 850AM now that it's not their flagship station, but not quite to THAT extreme! :) Although FWIW, I caught a few minutes of the Celtics game on 93.7 and was disappointed how many (presumably AoIP) artifacts I was hearing. (it wasn't HD Radio artifacts, I had my radio switched to analog only) I would've thought Entercom has an ISDN line into the Garden? Maybe it was a backup Comrex/Tieline??
Click to expand...
 
aaronread said:
850AM when I lived in Boston proper. And the sound quality was excellent
Click to expand...

indeed, every time ive tuned, it has audio out to exactly 10kc and sounds as good as comcast's TV feed
 
Dial Global has exclusive rights to the NFL post season (team flagship stations excepted.) They are carried on AMC8 using DG's MAX platform inherited from WW1. I have three stations that carry NFL and there were no audio problems on any of them. What I want to know is, who is the deep-voiced announcer at the beginning, halftime and postgame. Everybody gets a credit except him.
 
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