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AM HD TURNOFF PACE ACCELERATES

Quote from David Eduardo on March 25 at 2:47 PM (Reply # 444):
Quote from: Savage on March 25, 2011, 11:37:55 AM:
The WIND notation is interesting. I was under the impression Salem wasn't bothering with IBOC on any of its AMs.
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They turned it off when they bought it from Univision because they had concerns that it was hurting the coverage of their 540 operation in metro Milwaukee.
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It’s more likely that Salem bought WIND for the express purpose of turning off the Hiss-O-Matic!

I don’t know about all their properties, but I do know that neither of Salem’s Philadelphia properties—WFIL on 560 and WNTP (formerly Fifties and Sixties legend WIBG) on 990—has ever even entertained the idea of installing Iniquity’s destructive technology. In fact, their CE (whose name I can’t remember off the top of my head) used to be a prominent critic of the technology on this discussion board.

You might also be interested to know that WFIL successfully negotiated an agreement with Clear Channel to reduce the “HD” power of WHP on 580 in Harrisburg.
 
Those would be the CBS and Greater Media stations. From companies stubbornly embedded in HD Radio denial, with engineers and executives who are personally and professionally invested in the noisemaker. (Screw the listeners and the advertisers - gotta look like we know what we're doing for the Board meeting.....)
 
Savage profferred:

Those would be the CBS and Greater Media stations. From companies stubbornly embedded in HD Radio denial, with engineers and executives who are personally and professionally invested in the noisemaker. (Screw the listeners and the advertisers - gotta look like we know what we're doing for the Board meeting.....)
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That would likely be the "executive" engineers at these companies, would it not? You know, the "executive" engineers are the ones who tell the engineers in the trenches what they want done.

I don't think that the engineers in the trenches, even at these illustrious companies, are in such denial. After all, it's not like it is any secret how bad this technology really is. Even Mr. Struble can't modify the physics to his liking.

Keep following the money.
 
I cannot see any benefit to the HD broadcasting... We have a few stations in Las Vegas that promote that they are HD broadcasting. All I really notice is extra noise on the channels surrounding the main transmitter frequency. Is it supposed to be clearer broadcasting where you can hear a pin drop? Perhaps it is supposed to be a dominant sound experience where the signal appears louder than others when you press the preset button? I don't think it is worth the investment, unless somebody can tell me the benefits of HD.
 
Yeah: multiple channels with coverage problems, that drop out to silence. And don't forget the reduced analog mobile coverage and interference to adjacent channels. And self-interference in many installations with add-on Tx antennae.

The transmitting facilities with high-level combining have massive increases in utility cost.

And then there's the fact that most listeners can't tell the difference between the analog and digital channels.
 
What's worse is that I CAN tell the difference between the analog and digital audio: The analog audio has wide stereo separation and better presence and cymbols; when the digital HD1 kicks in, I lose the audio high end and stereo separation stage is very narrow - again, this is on those stations that have an HD-2 also, and that's probably the problem.
I hear no difference in analog and HD-1 with single channel HD's on FM, except for the hiss on the 1st adjacents. Also, they don't have any active PAD data, so HD-1 on Cumulus stations here is a waste of time as the PAD info on HD is simply the stations' web address; no artist; no songs; no EAS; no traffic; just the web address - what a waste.

On AM - if it's a music program - yes it sounds excellent in HD - BUT, why not HD stereo audio? I just don't understand why they don't run stereo on HD, especially when they DID have a stereo audio chain when they ran CQuam AM stereo. In that case, I would rather they ran the CQuam as it was stereo, and didn't destroy 50KHz of spectrum 20above, 20khz below and itself! AMAX should have been made a receiver standard for any HD FM radio, and why no portable AM HD radios?
 
Johnny I'm not hearing what you're hearing regarding lack of stereo separation on stations with subchannels. Could it just be the processing on these stations?

Where I live we have a mix of HD-1 only stations (Cumulus) and stations with one subchannel (Clear Channel). While the ones with no subchannels are markedly better sounding overall, the Clear Channel stations do still have more separation and a noticeably lower noise floor on the HD-1s versus analog.

I think it's just the processing that makes the difference. For example, CC's classic rock "The Rocket" sounds pretty much the same HD vs analog, but rocker "TK 101" has a completely different sound between the two modes, so much so that blending is an exercise in futility. The HD is hollow but clean, the analog dense and bass-y.

My experience with AM HD is very limited, as I can't find an AM HD radio to play with or an AM HD station strong enough to tune in. But what I HAVE heard makes me wish for its immediate demise and a return to AMAX and C-QUAM like you.
 
Geez, according to a lot of corporate broadcasters, there are already too many radio signals in most markets. Yet they're the ones supporting the idea of additional signals by adding HD streams, and have be doing their damndest to move fringe signals as close as possible to urban areas, even if they can't cover the entire metro.

Apparently, I just don't get it. Somewhere there must be a benefit derived from the millions spent on this junk technology. I say bring back CQUAM AM, and leave FM alone.
 
SirRoxalot said:
Geez, according to a lot of corporate broadcasters, there are already too many radio signals in most markets. Yet they're the ones supporting the idea of additional signals by adding HD streams, and have be doing their damndest to move fringe signals as close as possible to urban areas, even if they can't cover the entire metro.

Apparently, I just don't get it. Somewhere there must be a benefit derived from the millions spent on this junk technology. I say bring back CQUAM AM, and leave FM alone.
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Bring back c-crap and Kahn and any other technology you can think of, aided with the new "software defined" radios, we should be fine.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
JohnnyElectron said:
On AM - if it's a music program - yes it sounds excellent in HD - BUT, why not HD stereo audio? I just don't understand why they don't run stereo on HD, especially when they DID have a stereo audio chain when they ran CQuam AM stereo.
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AIUI AM has enough bits to do good mono but not enough for stereo. CMIIW but I don't think AM-HD has the capacity for parametric stereo like AAC+ (or HE-AAC) has in version 2. With parametric you can do stereo-lite with a few bits from the total and it will sound not much worse. Without PS stereo comes with a price too high to retain fidelity good enough to be considered equal to C-QUAM stereo. :p
 
Sadly, in St. Louis, there are four AM HD stations:

KFUO 850 kHz 5 kW-D (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod)
KMOX 1120 kHz 50 kW (CBS)
WSDZ 1260 kHz 20 kW-D/5 kW-N DA2 (Disney)
KATZ 1600 kHz 5 kW DA2 (Clear Channel)

KMOX is the only reliable station that can decode in HD at my residence 24 hours a day. The other two nighttime signals don't have enough power to decode the signal into HD, and I am well within the coverage area for all of them. Unfortunately, I can easily hear the digital hash from all four.

For all of the bandwidth the stations use, the sound quality isn't all that great. I have heard better sound quality and more reliable internet streams from these stations. WSDZ (Radio Disney) only broadcasts in mono on HD.

In the 1980's, St. Louis had several AM stereo stations:

KSD/KUSA 550 kHz (then owned by Gannett)
KEZK 590 kHz (then owned by American Radio Systems)
KJSL 630 kHz (Crawford)
KSTL 690 kHz (Crawford)
KXEN 1010 kHz (Kaufmann)
KMOX 1120 kHz (CBS)
WESL 1490 kHz (can't remember, last owned by Simmons)

In my opinion, the best sounding AM stereo in my market was KUSA. At the time they were running a country format. Even in mono, their processing sounded excellent.

The others sounded all right, but not exceptional. KMOX, when they did play music, were using turntables that were wired for mono. The Cardinals and Blues broadcasts were in stereo (the home games) and sounded great.

The last AM stereo station to sign off here was KSTL, which was sometime last year.
 
Yea Zack, how ironic that when I visited Catalina Island with my CQuam radio in 2005, AM740 had some great sounding AM stereo.
Now, 6 years laster they (KBRT) spew-out toxic interference toward the California coastline and screw-up an adacent station in LA/Orange County!
Crawford USED to have very well engineered stations and lots of CQuam stereo; now it's the opposite. Detroit/Monroe MI 560 totally obliterates a Canadian music station on 580 - not cool; they need to dump one sideband.
 
JohnnyElectron said:
Now, 6 years laster they (KBRT) spew-out toxic interference toward the California coastline and screw-up an adacent station in LA/Orange County!
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There is no station on either adjacent channel, 750 or 730, in LA or Orange County. Neither is there anything on the second adjacents, 720 and 760.
 
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