AM HD TURNOFF PACE ACCELERATES

[Play Freebird]

You are far removed from WSM's protected contours....

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WSM&service=AM&status=L&hours=U

These are daytime groundwave contours. However, I would expect WSM's skywave secondary service is still protected at night in Chicago. Watt could tell us for sure.

If someone tried to apply for night service on 650 in that area (even north of there in Wisconsin) and cleared all of the adjacents, the FCC would probably still kick it right out.

Two applications for new stations on 650 in upstate NY have been sitting in the pile for ten years. One of them proposes 9 towers at night -- so why is this necessary if only the groundwave coverage of WSM requires protection?

http://www.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/454546-68139.pdf

http://www.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/587725-74682.pdf

 

[Don Juannn]

To return to the thread of this discussion... at least briefly... WSCR 670 and WBBM 780 both appear to have their IBOC turned off at the moment. I thought maybe it was just for a game, but it has persisted overnight and this morning. Both sound so much better without the annoying hiss in the background!! Enjoy it while it lasts....

Both off all day Sunday, and still off when I went in to work tonight.

Listened to wonderful old stuff on WSM all the way to work.

A quick check now still shows no iboc on either.

You are far removed from WSM's protected contours....

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WSM&service=AM&status=L&hours=U

Honk, Honk. Honk Honk!

Your idea of radio is a weak, small-minded little concept, and far outside the protected contours of the laws of physics.

No it isn't...it's reality.

TV signals continue into space forever....do we protect those too?

Broadcast policy has seen that it is more important to give local service than to get a sometimes signal from some distant capital re-running Coast 2 Coast.

Radio signals can go on to infinity if nothing impedes it...and your receiver is sensitive enough to pick it up.

You have to draw the line somewhere.

 

[Tom Wells]

No it isn't...it's reality.

TV signals continue into space forever....do we protect those too?

Broadcast policy has seen that it is more important to give local service than to get a sometimes signal from some distant capital re-running Coast 2 Coast.

Radio signals can go on to infinity if nothing impedes it...and your receiver is sensitive enough to pick it up.

You have to draw the line somewhere.

Hi Don. Have to first give you props where in another thread you point out the silliness of trying to use a laptop as conveniently as a radio.
You're quite right about the no-fuss factor.

Where do I draw the lline? I don't. That's like asking how thick I've made the ice today.

I was real happy when we respected behavior of the medium. I've always expected that the MW should/would offer up two distinct sets of useful signals, daytime, and nightime. Proper regulation provided that for a long time. I believe a quagmire benefits no one.
Such clear channels as exist that will distinguish themseles with unique content really DO deserve large area protection.

WSM really is listenable now, even on deep fades. It is not overwashed by WSCR.
Likewise I can listen to WWL 700 in the morning on the way home. Tonight I tuned in and something really loud and fast
from 1972 was playing, can't remember what just now. WLW sounded good, almost like the old days, but GOSH they were very muffled due to their own iboc, compared to WSM's crisp as toast audio from the TX site.

I expect city after city presented upon the dial, at night. as the FRC had it all worked out for the greatest good, not for the expedience
of the day. Don't you suppose there was also an overcapacity of night timers back then? Yes, many were made daytimers and many stations
did not not get stay on the air at all, Liike Sunshine Hardware and Drugs on 1000 with 10 watts, or whatever. That's regulation.

What we have now is a farm gone to seed, improperly managed. Needs some good fences and a lot of on-your-knees hand-weeding.

Sure hope ibiquity offers the recent upgrade that WBBM and WSCR got to all AMs with HD.
I think they may be actually running exactly at the original advertised spec now, the sharpess of cutoff of sidebands is markedly improved.
WTMJ's whoosh is still just awful. 1640 Dizzyny in Milwaukee was iboc off today and sounding good in Chicago.

If it works for free, why NOT figure out a way to work with it, not against it?
That's not being obstinate, backward or anything other than recognizing and taking full use of the nature of the medium.

 

[Don Juannn]

Hi Don. Have to first give you props where in another thread you point out the silliness of trying to use a laptop as conveniently as a radio. You're quite right about the no-fuss factor.

Thanks! ;-)

Where do I draw the lline? I don't. That's like asking how thick I've made the ice today.

I was real happy when we respected behavior of the medium. I've always expected that the MW should/would offer up two distinct sets of useful signals, daytime, and nightime. Proper regulation provided that for a long time. I believe a quagmire benefits no one.
Such clear channels as exist that will distinguish themseles with unique content really DO deserve large area protection.

Again, there was a time when we only allowed one station to operate on the clear channel frequencies. The idea being that rural areas that had no radio could receive skywave signals.

Policymakers have decided that it is more important to get local service to those areas, than for them to listen to an out of town signal.

I didn't make the policy, but they started breaking down the clears in the late 70's....30+ years ago. It's now a fact of life....not that I (or you) like it.

While you and I could long for the days of clear channel stations owning the frequency at night....the FCC and policymakers have had a differing view.

Also, even the clear channel stations admit there is nothing to be gained monetarily from listeners outside of their local market.

Would you agree that that ship has sailed?


WSM really is listenable now, even on deep fades. It is not overwashed by WSCR.
Likewise I can listen to WWL 700 in the morning on the way home. Tonight I tuned in and something really loud and fast from 1972 was playing, can't remember what just now.

I have fond memories of picking up music stations at night from far away!

Don't you suppose there was also an overcapacity of night timers back then? Yes, many were made daytimers and many stations did not not get stay on the air at all,

Somewhere along the line the FCC thought more stations was a better idea....and finding ways to squeeze in more smaller station would be a good idea.


That's not being obstinate, backward or anything other than recognizing and taking full use of the nature of the medium.

Again, would you agree that ship has sailed?

Wow...we're having a rationale discussion! ;-)

 

[Tom Wells]

Rural listeners? Many days I have been the rural listener, and not in any way interested in the "local" scene.

I hate to say any ship has sailed when I still see a matter through engineering experience.
Hard to beat what works, regardless of whether it can be capitalized in modern market sensibilities.

I do not "have memories of listening to stations from far away".

Not as a neat packaged thing from some other time that's gone.
While I do, that's not it at all. The radio still just works fine this way and it IS useful.
It's not a warm and fuzzy anything or special thrill. It's hearing a station play a record I KNOW
wouldn't have been aired on a local choice, and enjoying it so much that the TX location is immaterial.
Half the time it's something familiar, half the time it's a song that's unknown to me, to me that's great radio.
I get more real choices in programming than if my radio were just as deaf as most modern AM auto radios,
shouldn't I have a choice for americana on WSM on the way to work?
I actually have shopped a number of times at Friedman's Army and Navy Surplus.

The FCC seems to have shuffled off all the old slide-rule guys in favor of those who never had to remember any
formulas, references or electrical constants. Where the MW dial once presented itself RF-wise as a well-dressed man
in a sharply tailored suit, the current dial looks and sounds like Homer Simpson in a sweat suit.
Neatness counts.
I'm making the point I guess, that let's say the local market is well served in most areas by FMs.
So why shouldn't there be large regional/semi-national services maintained when the technology has been reliable for many years, is ubiquitous, and able to operate stand-alone in disaster when networks are down?


Yes, it would be nice for modern market ideals for AM to behave more like FM.
Just because it won't ever do that is no good reason to keep trying, where each added signal at night only makes it worse.

 

[TheBigA]

The FCC seems to have shuffled off all the old slide-rule guys in favor of those who never had to remember any
formulas, references or electrical constants.

Oh I don't know about that. Texas Instruments invented the hand-held calculator in 1967, and it replaced the slide rule by 1970. I'd suggest anyone who used slide rules retired from government work a long time ago. Same thing with remembering formulas. That kind of teaching went away in the early 70s.

But the reality, and I've discussed this here many times, is that the federal government, in an attempt to become smaller and less expensive, has been on a 27 year campaign of replacing in-house bureacrats with outside contractors. You read about them running the Afghan war, and I can tell you from experience they're the ones doing technical work for the FCC. Smaller government is the mantra we hear every day. Smaller, cheaper government is what the American people want. Who was the astronaut who said his thought as the missile soared off the launchpad was that he was surrounded by stuff that came from the lowest bidder. Then came Challenger. Whoops.

So that brings us to the current incarnation of the FCC. This FCC is not going to do anything that gives a handful of huge radio companies (and they're the ones who own all the 50K AMs) the ability to reach more people. The primary interest of the government, and you heard it again last week from Michael Copps, is built around stations better serving their licensed markets, not blanketing the continent. If anyone is going to have a station that operates in a national way, it will be owned by the government, not some private profit-making company. And that decision was made back in the 1950s, when civil defense plans were begun, and later in the 1960s, when NOAA's weather radio service replaced local radio weather forecasting. If you turn off the physics rules for a minute, and study the HISTORY of the federal government in the 20th century, and the fundmental change that occured in the 1930s, you'll begin to understand why the concept of privately owned radio stations reaching large areas of the country are not in the best interests of the federal government. Rather than take advantage of the "benefits" of AM skywaves, the government would prefer to see AM radio die, and as a result, has done nothing to help AM in over 30 years.

 

[KB1OKL]

The FCC seems to have shuffled off all the old slide-rule guys in favor of those who never had to remember any
formulas, references or electrical constants.

Oh I don't know about that. Texas Instruments invented the hand-held calculator in 1967, and it replaced the slide rule by 1970. I'd suggest anyone who used slide rules retired from government work a long time ago. Same thing with remembering formulas. That kind of teaching went away in the early 70s.

In Tom's defense I think his use of the term "slide-rule guys" was a metaphor for people who understand radio because obviously you would come up with the same conclusions with a calculator as a slide-rule just quicker if you knew radio, but the rest of your post is a sobering thought which I have to digest. All I will say is that I am a life long democrat who is teetering toward the other side as a result of the ineptitude and failures of this current administration.

But the reality, and I've discussed this here many times, is that the federal government, in an attempt to become smaller and less expensive, has been on a 27 year campaign of replacing in-house bureacrats with outside contractors. You read about them running the Afghan war, and I can tell you from experience they're the ones doing technical work for the FCC. Smaller government is the mantra we hear every day. Smaller, cheaper government is what the American people want. Who was the astronaut who said his thought as the missile soared off the launchpad was that he was surrounded by stuff that came from the lowest bidder. Then came Challenger. Whoops.

So that brings us to the current incarnation of the FCC. This FCC is not going to do anything that gives a handful of huge radio companies (and they're the ones who own all the 50K AMs) the ability to reach more people. The primary interest of the government, and you heard it again last week from Michael Copps, is built around stations better serving their licensed markets, not blanketing the continent. If anyone is going to have a station that operates in a national way, it will be owned by the government, not some private profit-making company. And that decision was made back in the 1950s, when civil defense plans were begun, and later in the 1960s, when NOAA's weather radio service replaced local radio weather forecasting. If you turn off the physics rules for a minute, and study the HISTORY of the federal government in the 20th century, and the fundmental change that occured in the 1930s, you'll begin to understand why the concept of privately owned radio stations reaching large areas of the country are not in the best interests of the federal government. Rather than take advantage of the "benefits" of AM skywaves, the government would prefer to see AM radio die, and as a result, has done nothing to help AM in over 30 years.

On a brighter note WTAG 580's IBOC has been off for close to a week now.

 

[TheBigA]

The American system of broadcasting and the FCC were begun in the 1920s. Most FCC regulation is based on 1920s thinking of limited government and private enterprise. Had American broadcasting and regulation started just ten or so years later, we would have seen a very different system. There are a lot of things in FCC rules & regulations (the "public interest, convenience, and necessity" line for example) that are based in a very different era. That's why they haven't enforced a lot of those rules.

Had the government wanted radio or broadcasters in general to take a stronger role in disaster coverage or emergency services, they would have dealt with it when the Department of Homeland Security was created after 9/11. But while the smallest police departments managed to get money to purchase Jeeps and Segways, no money or authority was given to local broadcasters. That should tell you a lot. That's also why I don't expect any "mandates" for FM or any form of radio in cell phones based on emergency services. That role is reserved for government. If ANY kind of service is to be mandated on phones, it will be NOAA's weather service. Or if there will be mandated traffic service, it will be a service that comes from DOT. Not privately owned and controlled radio.

 

[Savage]

It's significant to note that while it is indeed true that Americans want smaller, less expensive and less intrustive government, precisely the opposite is what has happened - and what continues to happen. It's very bad for all of us. HD Radio is a not-so-shining example. It's a broadcasting system designed by computer geeks, with the connivance of a few self-interested - and short-sighted - broadcasters.

 

[Don Juannn]

Rural listeners? Many days I have been the rural listener, and not in any way interested in the "local" scene.

I hate to say any ship has sailed when I still see a matter through engineering experience.

But the realities of how listeners use the medium, broadcast policy, the realities of the marketplace make holding onto some kind of dated ideal a little like spinning your wheels, no?

While I do, that's not it at all. The radio still just works fine this way and it IS useful.

I agree it can be useful...however the audience is abandoning the AM dial in droves.

shouldn't I have a choice for americana on WSM on the way to work?

If only a handful of people are listening? Would they be better served by local content? That's the decision the FCC has had to wrestle with.

 

[spunker88]

Two applications for new stations on 650 in upstate NY have been sitting in the pile for ten years. One of them proposes 9 towers at night -- so why is this necessary if only the groundwave coverage of WSM requires protection?

http://www.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/454546-68139.pdf

http://www.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/587725-74682.pdf

Of course we have WFAN's IBOC signal on 650 here in Upstate NY which drowns out WSM. I'd like to see a smaller signal fight with WFAN's IBOC and WSM, they'd be better off finding a graveyard channel.

 

[KB1OKL]

Two applications for new stations on 650 in upstate NY have been sitting in the pile for ten years. One of them proposes 9 towers at night -- so why is this necessary if only the groundwave coverage of WSM requires protection?

http://www.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/454546-68139.pdf

http://www.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/AM_DA_patterns/587725-74682.pdf

Of course we have WFAN's IBOC signal on 650 here in Upstate NY which drowns out WSM. I'd like to see a smaller signal fight with WFAN's IBOC and WSM, they'd be better off finding a graveyard channel.

WFAN drowns out WSM here in MA also.

 

[KB1OKL]

So that brings us to the current incarnation of the FCC. This FCC is not going to do anything that gives a handful of huge radio companies (and they're the ones who own all the 50K AMs) the ability to reach more people. The primary interest of the government, and you heard it again last week from Michael Copps, is built around stations better serving their licensed markets, not blanketing the continent. If anyone is going to have a station that operates in a national way, it will be owned by the government, not some private profit-making company. And that decision was made back in the 1950s, when civil defense plans were begun, and later in the 1960s, when NOAA's weather radio service replaced local radio weather forecasting. If you turn off the physics rules for a minute, and study the HISTORY of the federal government in the 20th century, and the fundmental change that occured in the 1930s, you'll begin to understand why the concept of privately owned radio stations reaching large areas of the country are not in the best interests of the federal government. Rather than take advantage of the "benefits" of AM skywaves, the government would prefer to see AM radio die, and as a result, has done nothing to help AM in over 30 years.

If the FCC is now promoting smaller local stations over the big boys who cover a lot of land why do they allow 50KW stations like WBZ and WINS to hash all over their adjacents? Those are hardly small local stations. They use the skywaves to obliterate local stations hundreds of miles away at night. That is not in the best interests of small local stations.

 

[TheBigA]

If the FCC is now promoting smaller local stations....

This isn't a recent change for the FCC. This is a longstanding agenda of theirs going back almost 30 years.

why do they allow 50KW stations like WBZ and WINS to hash all over their adjacents?

Re-read my last sentence. Approving HD made radio companies the enemy instead of the FCC. Mission accomplished.

 

[Don Juannn]

HD Radio is a not-so-shining example. It's a broadcasting system designed by computer geeks, with the connivance of a few self-interested - and short-sighted - broadcasters.

....and complained about by a few hobbyists, DX-ers and operators of pipsqueak stations that need every ounce of strength to be heard on the next block.

 

[Don Juannn]

If the FCC is now promoting smaller local stations over the big boys who cover a lot of land why do they allow 50KW stations like WBZ and WINS to hash all over their adjacents?

The question is where geographically is the hash audible....if it's somewhere no one cares about...then it's a non-issue.

 

[audioguy]

The hash is audible right on your own dirty signal, on almost every kind of radio that I have tested. Therefore, in addition to screwing your neighbors on the dial, you're hurting your own audience. But, I guess people don't care (especially CBS, the worst IBOC polluter on the radio).

 

[DaveBayArea]

The question is where geographically is the hash audible....if it's somewhere no one cares about...then it's a non-issue.

The real question is "Where is the hash audible AND identifiable as interference by the general public?" When a radio station has static and distortion on it the general listener will just listen to something else. The trained ear of those of us in the business (generally) know the difference between digital noise and regular 4ktb noise.

A large number of radio stations in the US - both AM and FM - just sort of disappeared a few years ago for many people. They don't know why, but they don't listen to them any more.

Dave B.

 

[TheBigA]

A large number of radio stations in the US - both AM and FM - just sort of disappeared a few years ago for many people. They don't know why, but they don't listen to them any more.

The decline of audience for AM stations began over 20 years ago, pre-dating IBOC. So to attach it as the reason for AM's decline isn't factually correct.

I guess people don't care (especially CBS, the worst IBOC polluter on the radio).

Clearly listeners don't care, because there is no relationship between stations using IBOC and ratings.

 

[Don Juannn]

The hash is audible right on your own dirty signal, on almost every kind of radio that I have tested. Therefore, in addition to screwing your neighbors on the dial, you're hurting your own audience. But, I guess people don't care (especially CBS, the worst IBOC polluter on the radio).

The question was where GEOGRAPHICALLY is the hash located. If it's in your own town, then you probably don't have "neighbors". If it's somewhere no one cares about...then it's a non-issue.