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AM HD TURNOFF PACE ACCELERATES

MarioMania said:
Will CBS turn there HD off for good on there stations like KCBS, KNX, WBZ & KDKA??
Click to expand...
ddsparxx said:
Probably not, Mario. The clowns at CBS just don't get it that the HD on AM is causing more harm than good.
Click to expand...

Nor will they maintain (or maybe they can't) their HD signals on AM.

WSCR 670 continues to be an embarrassment. Analog audio peaks are splattering crunchy spits at +30 and -30 khz.
This is simultaneous in nature with the "fuzz" in the main audio (even perfectly center tuned),
a grungy sound like rf getting into an old audio amp where all the caps
are getting old and it starts to oscillate on RF "getting in" cuz the bypassing isn't good enough anymore.

Perhaps that's the nature of spectral regrowth from an AM in HD.
Probably why the "Do Not Exceed -94% specification exists.
 
WSCR has had the HD off for a day or two now.
The remaining analog sounds just fine.....no splatter at all, and nice and crisp.
I wonder if the noise was comng from a bad spot on a roller inductor that didn't "like"
the load...? We'll see what develops.
 
Tom Wells said:
WSCR has had the HD off for a day or two now.
The remaining analog sounds just fine.....no splatter at all, and nice and crisp.
I wonder if the noise was comng from a bad spot on a roller inductor that didn't "like"
the load...? We'll see what develops.
Click to expand...

I think a more likely scenario is that they have main/alternate transmitters, only one with HD. The main has problems (which you're hearing) and they're on the standby. It may or may not be related to HD. Certainly a standard old PWM transmitter is far easier to maintain than an HD-ready linear device.

Dave B.
 
Or there's more endless/chronic dorking around going on with firmware. WBZ-HD was off last night too. It's mostly there, sometimes not - which I'm sure nobody notices but WBZ technical staff and the guy in Rochester. It is nice to get my coverage of the market back once in a while, even if intermittently.
 
Is WBZ running their aux transmitter (with CQuam) or running the HD unit with the HD turned-off? It's always nice to hear the stereo commercials on WBZ with they use their AUX transmitter.
 
Iboc is still off at WSCR in Chicago today.
Last week, maybe wednesday, before they turned it off, I tried the Accurian HD on 670 and it did decode OK, while
the analog was having the fuzz-spits on the peaks.
 
Iboc still off at WSCR 670 as of this morning.
Must be goin on twenty days now..seems like it went off the 7th or so...
 
The FM side ain't much healthier, here.
CC-Tampa moved their FM antennas a couple of months ago, HD still not back up.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
770 AM in the Cape Coral/Ft. Myers area has given up on HD on the AM band. They are continuing to broadcast in analog on the AM band, but are also broadcasting on 96.1 HD-2.
 
Down to 231 noisemakers according to Topaz Designs. This is exciting...kind of like New Year's Eve! I can't wait to count down from 10 (stations left doing AM IBOC)!
 
The longest New Year's Eve countdown in history. It would outlive Guy Lombardo, Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest all serving consecutive sentences.

WBZ-HD skywave has been particularly obnoxious in recent weeks. And, I ask rhetorically: for what? I would argue that the number of actual digital listeners to WBZ's digital signal is less than a dozen. And meanwhile their main analog signal is the rough equivalent of a neglected 1960s daytimer in the middle of Utah somewhere.

You know, where they couldn't afford an 8 kHz phone loop to the transmitter any more, so they had to downgrade to 5 kHz. (A noisy one.)

Again, I ask: is it even possible to buy a new (non-return, non-Craigslist) HD-AM receiver any more? Other than a smattering of new-in-box units gathering dust in BBs and Shacks?
 
Savage said:
Again, I ask: is it even possible to buy a new (non-return, non-Craigslist) HD-AM receiver any more? Other than a smattering of new-in-box units gathering dust in BBs and Shacks?
Click to expand...

Well, the highly-touted Sony XDR-F1HD has been discontinued. That one surprised me, given all of the good press it has gotten - even here on the board - as a dx machine. So the options actually do seem to be dwindling. Despite what Bob 'Strudel' says.
 
BRNout informs:

Well, the highly-touted Sony XDR-F1HD has been discontinued. That one surprised me, given all of the good press it has gotten - even here on the board - as a dx machine. So the options actually do seem to be dwindling. Despite what Bob 'Strudel' says.
Click to expand...

Mr. S, it's time to turn the lights out. The party is over. Do you still intend to try doing the IPO? Are the kids still in college?
 
Uh-oh! Bad news as The Stroob prepares to fly out to China for "strategic meetings" with iBiquity's Chinese "manufacturing partners." (The partnership consisting of: kindly pay us promptly, thank you very much, and we'll continue cranking out the underwhelming trickle of HD Receivers NOT in demand in the US.)

In harmony with the theme of this massively visited and posted thread:

AM-HD stations are down again. Now it's 230. Thanks, Barry, for maintaining this list.
Somebody should start a website listing FM HD stations and noting the pop-trend. I'll bet that one's tanking too.
 
One can't help but wonder: does "strategic meetings with manufacturing partners" mean something like "begging vendors not to cancel contracts for failure to fulfill ordering commitments" or "extending lines of credit" or otherwise desperately trying to save HD's manufacturing capacity?? ???

Seriously. I can't believe that real-world, truthful monthly sales of HD Radios can be more than a few hundred. Worldwide.

Talk about a debacle and a bad joke. Nobody who's invested in this is doing much more than marking time. Most are trying to back away from it, while trying to look like they aren't. ::)
 
Savage said:
The longest New Year's Eve countdown in history. It would outlive Guy Lombardo, Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest all serving consecutive sentences.

WBZ-HD skywave has been particularly obnoxious in recent weeks. And, I ask rhetorically: for what? I would argue that the number of actual digital listeners to WBZ's digital signal is less than a dozen. And meanwhile their main analog signal is the rough equivalent of a neglected 1960s daytimer in the middle of Utah somewhere.

You know, where they couldn't afford an 8 kHz phone loop to the transmitter any more, so they had to downgrade to 5 kHz. (A noisy one.)

Again, I ask: is it even possible to buy a new (non-return, non-Craigslist) HD-AM receiver any more? Other than a smattering of new-in-box units gathering dust in BBs and Shacks?
Click to expand...

WCCO-AM in Minneapolis has taken to regularly promo'ing the fact that they (WCCO-AM) are available on one of their co-owned FMs (WLTE) subchannels. If this is the case, why not shut the damn thing off on the AM, and go back to the quality audio I used to enjoy from 'CCO on my GE Superadio in wideband mode? Is CBS management insane?
 
Radiomonkey2 brings it in.

It is interesting that, over the years, as the front ends of the AM radios suffered in favor of FM, instead of improving on them, the industry fell for the buzz word of a new era, "digital". Not everything "sounds" better with digital. The industry was so eager for it, they didn't even mind the intereference that it caused. Interference that would not have been tolerated just a few years before. When we listen to AM stations with such radios as the GE "superadio", we are listening through a technology that was left in dust by cutting corners. We embrace the GE radio because we remember how AM radio used to sound.

Even with the software defined radios, the AM sound is still lacking in the quality. I remember AM radio having the capability of a much higher fidelity.

So, does that make me want an AM-HD radio because it sounds better? No, I want an AM radio that sounds good again. The technology has worked for almost 100 years!

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
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