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AM HD TURNOFF PACE ACCELERATES

audioguy said:
I guess this belongs in this thread... The Score (670) has had their HD hash generator off all day... no interference to WSM last night either. So, we'll see. I'm not getting my hopes up because WBBM still has theirs going.
Click to expand...
I am guessing it has something to do with the storms yesterday, so I guess we can't get our hopes
up :'(.

I'm actually surprised that WBBM has their HD on today, after they got hit with lightning, and were off
the air for a couple minutes during the first wave of the storms.
 
De latess' and de greatess: Barry McLarnon's latest HD-AM update, July 31, sez the pop-count of IBOCs is down again - this time to 246. (I think iBiquity was claiming something like 80 more than that in the recent RW article.)

http://www.topazdesigns.com/iboc/station-list.html

Of course the preponderance are only on with HD in daylight hours. And the very few on at night with high power continue to spew horrific adjacent-channel skywave interference.
 
Savage said:
De latess' and de greatess: Barry McLarnon's latest HD-AM update, July 31, sez the pop-count of IBOCs is down again - this time to 246. (I think iBiquity was claiming something like 80 more than that in the recent RW article.)

http://www.topazdesigns.com/iboc/station-list.html

Of course the preponderance are only on with HD in daylight hours. And the very few on at night with high power continue to spew horrific adjacent-channel skywave interference.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's just terrible. I was on lovely Grand Island, NY last week and the skywave hiss from 1020, 1030, etc., totally obliterated that end of the band. WBZ was a blockbuster and it's sidebands held sway. But, surprisingly (to me), WTIC was the victim of sideband interference as often as it was the perpetrator. Their signal is seriously degraded from what it once was in western NY.

And, I really feel for your station at 1040 - in the middle of that disaster of interference! There was not even a prayer of picking up WYSL on my best Tecsun portable dxer, not even with the bandwidth set to 1 kHz! Why, oh why don't they just get rid of AM HD altogether? Nobody is promoting it, few radios can receive it, and it makes the analog sound like crap. Absolute stupidity.
 
Another one bites the dust! Or two.... :D

Barry McLarnon now tallies AM on HD as down another notch, to 245. 83 on at night. Woo hoo.

Does anybody know why two ABC Disney stations have apparently gone silent - KMUS 1380 and KALY 1240? Of course they were in HD.
 
Savage said:
De latess' and de greatess: Barry McLarnon's latest HD-AM update, July 31, sez the pop-count of IBOCs is down again - this time to 246. (I think iBiquity was claiming something like 80 more than that in the recent RW article.)

http://www.topazdesigns.com/iboc/station-list.html

Of course the preponderance are only on with HD in daylight hours. And the very few on at night with high power continue to spew horrific adjacent-channel skywave interference.
Click to expand...

Yes there's a lot of green on that there chart. ;)
 
Savage said:
Disney takes two AM-HDs silent in preparation for selling them....

YAYYYYY! More HD Radio success stories!!! :D 8)
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A net positive for those of us who wish to see an end to AM HD, but a net negative to radio in general because Disney is said to be selling these properties where they find internet streaming to be sufficient. In other words, nevermind AM HD, more young ears are being lost to the internet. :(
 
True enough, but Disney may have accelerated the tune-out because when they turned on HD, the fidelity of the analog signal went to tin-can quality. I used to listen myself, but it sounds so bad that I never do anymore. You might has well try to listen to music over an SSB receiver! Besides, the HD signal hardly went anywhere since most of these facilities were low power (less than 5 kW). I think HD AM on a low power signal is a waste.
 
Zach said:
Savage said:
Disney takes two AM-HDs silent in preparation for selling them....

YAYYYYY! More HD Radio success stories!!! :D 8)
Click to expand...

A net positive for those of us who wish to see an end to AM HD, but a net negative to radio in general because Disney is said to be selling these properties where they find internet streaming to be sufficient. In other words, nevermind AM HD, more young ears are being lost to the internet. :(
Click to expand...

Sounds like The Mickey Mouse Outfit is finally getting sick of paying the electric bills, property taxes, and maintenance costs for transmitters that have few if any listeners - maybe some in mommy's SUV going to and from school, but that's about it. HD has nothing to do with it; it's just that kids don't know, and care even less, what an AM radio is.

But if they ever put their 50 kW hash generators in New York, LA, and Phoenix up for sale, you know Radio Disney will be finished as an over-the-air broadcast service. They don't seem to be even trying to move the stations to FM.
 
You've got to wonder what they're thinking over at Mickey Mouse Radio. Running all these 50 kW jammers to which hardly anyone listens. OK, in New York, WQEW cracks a big 0.1 share 6+, but others like WFDF in Detroit have never shown in the PPM's. The national network probably has the same listening as a good medium market rock, country, or talk station. Maybe it's all a secret homing device; beware the giant alien mice from outer space!!!
 
BRNout said:
Why, oh why don't they just get rid of AM HD altogether? Nobody is promoting it, few radios can receive it, and it makes the analog sound like crap. Absolute stupidity.
Click to expand...

Or, do what the brighter nations to the north and south of us have done and continue to do, which is to eliminate the majority of AMs and restrict the remaining ones to the larger cities that may need and can support niche programming.

Canada has transitioned more than half its AMs to FM, and Mexico is attempting to move nearly all stations... in some states, not a single AM will remain.

In Latin America, nearly all audience has moved to FM and the number of AMs is thinning... and since Disney has been mentioned in this thread, there is not a single Radio Disney in any of those countries on AM.
 
DavidEduardo said:
BRNout said:
Why, oh why don't they just get rid of AM HD altogether? Nobody is promoting it, few radios can receive it, and it makes the analog sound like crap. Absolute stupidity.
Click to expand...

Or, do what the brighter nations to the north and south of us have done and continue to do, which is to eliminate the majority of AMs and restrict the remaining ones to the larger cities that may need and can support niche programming.

Canada has transitioned more than half its AMs to FM, and Mexico is attempting to move nearly all stations... in some states, not a single AM will remain.

In Latin America, nearly all audience has moved to FM and the number of AMs is thinning... and since Disney has been mentioned in this thread, there is not a single Radio Disney in any of those countries on AM.
Click to expand...
How was the listenership in Mexico and Canada, compared to AM listenership in The US, when
they started to migrate most of the stations to FM. Was it comparable to US listenership, or lower?

The problem I see is, that the FM dial, like the AM dial suffers from overcrowding. Where would we
move all the stations too? Wouldn't there be a lot of stations, particularly smaller stations or groups
that would be left out?

I'm not saying your idea is not worth talking about, but, even if this were to happen, it would take
some time.

If HD AM was turned off today, it would be one problem that would be solved now.

When you mention Radio Disney, within the last couple of years, ABC tore down the towers,
and rebuilt them on WRDZ AM 1300, La Grange/Chicago, Il.

They then added the HD, my nephew and niece, like to listen when there in my car.
I let them, and the AM never bothered me, since the HD however, it's really grinding
to listen too. I still let them listen, but, there are times I just want to say no, because
the HD sounds so bad. Like I said, the music on AM didn't bother me, the HD however
is so irritating. I often times wonder how many other people with kids in the car, aren't
as patient as me, and simply won't turn it on.
 
WRT Radio Disney, maybe it's time to revisit letter writing to complain about the crappy audio quality and digital hiss. It couldn't hurt! Be sure not to use any industry insider terms like "HD Radio", or (especially) IBOC. Describe what you hear and why it sounds bad. If they got enough letters, maybe they would turn it off.

CBS will not. I've written, and they don't care. They are married to IBOC. They are the biggest spectrum polluter on AM.
 
CBS now stands for the Continuous Bu*****t System.
 
The money The Mouse spent on Detroit O/O WFDF was astounding. They moved a daytimer in Flint into suburban Detroit and put up a 50kw 8-tower DA-2, all broadbanded and built for HD. The station has about 60 feet of dual (day/night) Kintronics phasors. I understand the phasor alone was over a million bucks.
 
TR1992 said:
How was the listenership in Mexico and Canada, compared to AM listenership in The US, when
they started to migrate most of the stations to FM. Was it comparable to US listenership, or lower?
Click to expand...

Canada is hard to judge, as they have always allowed fewer station in relation to population than the US, and there was considerable AM listening... much of it to the fine CBC services... that they just pushed over to FM.

In Mexico, there was a realization that AM was not to be viable in the future, and already most of the last viable AM formats had moved to FM including talk, so shares were comparable to the US... maybe 15% of all listening and less than 10% of the under-50 listening was to AM.

Your point about the band being fuller in the US is valid... there is no place to migrate AMs to, so future change will be economic based; stations will move viable formats to an FM they acquire or they will do paid programming and eventually disappear over a longer period of time.
 
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