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AM HD TURNOFF PACE ACCELERATES
- Thread starter Savage
- Start date
Whoa, Santa Baby! The HD-AM total is down four stations since YESTERDAY. Barry's new AM-HD tote-board shows: 235.
When this thread started early this year the count was 260.
MERRY Christmas to all, and to all....a GOOD NIGHT!!!
(And on a somewhat related note - it appears Radiosophy is outta business. The website has been taken down and the company's phones have been disconnected.)
When this thread started early this year the count was 260.
MERRY Christmas to all, and to all....a GOOD NIGHT!!!
(And on a somewhat related note - it appears Radiosophy is outta business. The website has been taken down and the company's phones have been disconnected.)
DavidEduardo said:
WFDF was affected by the cyclical nature of the economy and automobile industry. The previous 3 tower facility was supposed to go on to 880 kHz from 1310 but ended up on 910 on March 29, 1941. It was apparently built for 880 kHz, along with a lot of other DAs at the time that were designed for their old frequency. It would appear that at some point after 1941 they could easily have been 5 kW day and night and went to 5 kW day in 1957. There was a tornado that brought down the towers and they went from self supporting towers to guyed towers at that time also. There was a house or two on property just south of the transmitter property that was apparently subdivided at some point, precluding the easy construction of a fourth tower which would most likely have been required for 5 kW night. I wish I had known all that when I was young or I would have pushed them to do it. If they had, they probably could have more easily been 50 kW night instead of 25 kW. It also might have made the facility more viable in later years. It also has a relitively low NIF, 5.0 mV/m at the old site, and 5.8 mV/m at the new site.
They were on several other freqeuncies, David, and I think the 860 was mainly before the 1926 frequency reorganization. My father played as a live musical performer on WFDF at night in the late 1920s and 1930s, so I know that it was on at night then. I never saw anything that indicated it was ever daytime only.
It's such a shame that the once mighty and relevant WFDF is now a 50 kW mouse repeater that almost nobody listens to -- and I'm not exaggerating. It has never broken a 0.1 share in the Detroit PPM's -- and remember the PPM's are 6+. I would guess that more people are annoyed by WFDF's IBOC sidebands while trying to listen to stations on 890, 900, 920, and 930 than actually hear the mouse repeater on 910.
local oscillator said:
Another fact is that even after the format was changed to Radio Disney while WFDF remained in Flint, it still showed up in the ratings as I recall with a 0.7 share. The managers did some clever things to promote it locally and make it sound more local. Of course, you have quite a number of FM stations in Detroit that play a lot of the same music, and I suspect that draws listeners away.
local oscillator said:
One of my favorite formats (unappreciated by many) was when CJ Jones was programming "The Giant 91" and "The Giant 1130" and also 1240 in Lansing back from 1970 to 1972, local oscillator. Didn't take much to realize that "Robert R. Morgan" at The Giant 1130 was Bob Burchett at The Giant 91! The Giant 91 and Giant 1130 are now both IBOC. I do give Clear Channel some credit though for realizing that they were interfering with themselves with IBOC at night on WRVA and vice versa and turning it off at night.
I was on the leading edge of anticipating the WJR/WABC night IBOC de-BOC-le even before the fulltime "experiment" when I noticed interference even during critical hours.
Schroedingers Cat said:
The WJR/WABC IBOC nighttime interference was something to behold, wasn't it!?! At the time, I thought that if Citadel were let it go on for much longer, they would be certifiably nuts! Citadel has done some less than bright things along the way, but I have to give them credit for shutting off their IBOC jammers.
Why do some of these station's IBOC go off for a few days and then come back on?
travisl5678 said:
NO one knows! ( Officially )
Possible and quite plausible reasons:
1. Encoding has failed and all hissing is in vain. It can actually hiss uselessly for days with no decode possible.
KFUO ? the Lutheran college in St Louis had this and *sparkles* beyond the hiss to about 60 khz each side. Reboot did not help....they turned it off for quite a while.
2. Encoder hardware has failed and waiting on repair/replacement/upgrades.
3. Antenna system bandwidth/spectral regrowth issues, and being worked on as part of upgrades to AM HD, each step reducing
to some degree the intrusiveness of the hiss as perceived to local listeners (step 1) and less splat on 2nd adjacents,
(step 2).
4 No one noticed it was off. ( It is sad but some radios are so crippled by design that you can't hear anything above 3 khz. )
5.Live sports broadcast, "forgot" to turn back on/wouldn't boot.
travisl5678 said:
Most stations don't have backup HD equipment. Between the economy, uncertainty about HD's benefits and insecurity about whether the hardware will be signficantly changed or altered there are quite a few reasons why stations won't have backups any time soon.
Tom: you forgot:
6. Got to the Tx site but forgot to stop to get change, so couldn't pump more quarters into the HD exciter - no pay, no play
7. Barometric pressure was too high on an alternate Thursday for the HD to work
8. Couldn't get out to Tx to reboot Decepticon because had to fix GM's DirecTV system at home
9. Engineering pickup truck needed oil change
10. I just hate that #@!!xx** thing
6. Got to the Tx site but forgot to stop to get change, so couldn't pump more quarters into the HD exciter - no pay, no play
7. Barometric pressure was too high on an alternate Thursday for the HD to work
8. Couldn't get out to Tx to reboot Decepticon because had to fix GM's DirecTV system at home
9. Engineering pickup truck needed oil change
10. I just hate that #@!!xx** thing
11: iBiquity hasn't sent me the parts I need to fix the exciter since I can't buy them myself!
12: Software upgrade didn't work last time, so I left it off - 24/7; no more AM IBOC for one of 2 stations.
13: AM Stereo worked, didn't piss-off the 2nd adjacents and we had a nice signal, (125%+ peaks /-100% neg peaks) was (is) plenty, who needs 140%+ anyhow? And there were millions of Chrysler Minivans and GM's with AM stereo radios. The hardware penatration of AM stereo in 1990 was equal to what XM/Sirius has now.
12: Software upgrade didn't work last time, so I left it off - 24/7; no more AM IBOC for one of 2 stations.
13: AM Stereo worked, didn't piss-off the 2nd adjacents and we had a nice signal, (125%+ peaks /-100% neg peaks) was (is) plenty, who needs 140%+ anyhow? And there were millions of Chrysler Minivans and GM's with AM stereo radios. The hardware penatration of AM stereo in 1990 was equal to what XM/Sirius has now.
klutch00 said:
Years ago I received an earphone demonstration of AMAX AM stereo at NAB. They weren't very pleased with my response to listening. To me as compared with FM stereo, it was very unimpressive. There was a high pitch tone or squeal above the music and talk. I had very good hearing back in the day, and that tone would drive me, and most female listeners to change the station. AM is in a rough situation to begin with. Bringing back old failed technologies in the hope that radio manufacturers will adopt it is wasting the Internet bandwidth and effort to type it.
That was probably the 10 kHz adjacent carrier whistle. These days DSP based receivers can filter this out much more effectively than analog filtering ever could, while still preserving wideband audio response. Unfortunately most DSP receivers are excessively narrowband on AM, probably because iBiquity convinced the manufacturers that a 5 kHz audio brickwall would soon become mandatory for all AM transmission in the USA.TVradioguru said:
Two things in the electronics world have changed drastically since then: the ability to put AM stations carrier frequency 'dead-on' by using GPS, etc...and all DSP radios that can kill the 10KHz adjacents (in fact, the DSP radios can even kill the IBOC buzz on the 1st & 2nd adjacents!) The 3rd gen AMAX chips and DSP also eliminates the AM Stereo 'platform motion' that Kahn was so opposed to.
If iBiquity wouldn't sue me, I'd convert their exciters to transmit C-Quam -and- a barebones AM station ID for HD displays!
If iBiquity wouldn't sue me, I'd convert their exciters to transmit C-Quam -and- a barebones AM station ID for HD displays!
AM Stereo sounds dynamite on a good radio like the mid-2000's Dodge Intrepid radio, for example. No whistle, etc.
OK so AMAX may or may not be the solution. Either way couldn't a high-quality analog transmission standard be implemented?satech said:That was probably the 10 kHz adjacent carrier whistle. These days DSP based receivers can filter this out much more effectively than analog filtering ever could, while still preserving wideband audio response. Unfortunately most DSP receivers are excessively narrowband on AM, probably because iBiquity convinced the manufacturers that a 5 kHz audio brickwall would soon become mandatory for all AM transmission in the USA.TVradioguru said:
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