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AM HD TURNOFF PACE ACCELERATES
- Thread starter Savage
- Start date
audioguy said:
Considering the great ground conductivity around Chicago and the huge signal they have, I bet WBBM is one of the few AM HD signals that actually works for listeners reliably. I seem to recall reports of regular HD reception out over 50 miles, but that still pales in comparison to the usable analog audio that's often good out to Springfield or better.
Still, it should be turned off and the audio brought back to pre-HD wideness. There truly is no need for it at all, not that there ever was for news to begin with!
Whether it is Chicago, NYC, L.A., Tampa, or here in Sa-ra-so-ta!, I would disagree as the fidelity and stereo would have no need on a spoken word station. But for advertising on that spoken word station, the impact with stereo on the listener is there. That's what convinced the broadcasters to begin with. Too bad the range/signal level has to be too high for real world reception. Otherwise we may have been speaking differently about AM-HD.Zach said:
C-quAM had the same problem. We all know what happened to that.
Give us something that works, it will be accepted. Shove it down our throats as "the next best thing", we will reject it every time.
Hear that iBiquity? Keep working on it, you are, at least, on the right track.
Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
Well, I've been meaning to mention these HDs we've lost
here in the LA area, over the 4years or so I've owned a
SONY and an Insignia. Lately both 790 KABC and 710 KSPN
had switched off their HD. That 710 has a
`monster signal in Sherman Oaks.
KABC had run again briefly, but now I think we just
have KFI, KFWB, KNX, and KDIS. 1260 was supposed to
get an HD some time ago. On FM, 107.1 had HD1-and-2,
both seem to be gone at least 2years. 96.3 KXOL HD1
supposedly broke, went away late June 2010, however,
they still ID as "KXOL HD" Not sure if 103.1 KDLD is
still in HD? They did have an HD2 running dance.
We briefly had an HD3 on KRTH over Christmas 2009.
Also, an HD3 on KPWR went away quite some time ago.
Lately KSWD 100.3 running Mormons on both HD2-and-3.
KPCC still has HD3, also, KCBS-FM and KTWV have 3, also
KLOS
here in the LA area, over the 4years or so I've owned a
SONY and an Insignia. Lately both 790 KABC and 710 KSPN
had switched off their HD. That 710 has a
`monster signal in Sherman Oaks.
KABC had run again briefly, but now I think we just
have KFI, KFWB, KNX, and KDIS. 1260 was supposed to
get an HD some time ago. On FM, 107.1 had HD1-and-2,
both seem to be gone at least 2years. 96.3 KXOL HD1
supposedly broke, went away late June 2010, however,
they still ID as "KXOL HD" Not sure if 103.1 KDLD is
still in HD? They did have an HD2 running dance.
We briefly had an HD3 on KRTH over Christmas 2009.
Also, an HD3 on KPWR went away quite some time ago.
Lately KSWD 100.3 running Mormons on both HD2-and-3.
KPCC still has HD3, also, KCBS-FM and KTWV have 3, also
KLOS
Richardson Broadcasting had been an early adopter of HD for their 1 kW R&B station WJDL in Birmingham. It wasn't on last time I was in town, but they are still advertising HD on their website. They recently leased out their FM translator to Clear Channel, and I wonder if they'll flip the HD back on now that they're solo again.
More oddly, they just bought a struggling station in town, WAYE, and are getting it back on the air as "Praise 1220". Guess what Praise's new website has on it? Yep, an HD alliance logo and link.
If these people are seriously installing HD on ANOTHER weak as heck 1 kW station in Birmingham, I'm going to cry.
More oddly, they just bought a struggling station in town, WAYE, and are getting it back on the air as "Praise 1220". Guess what Praise's new website has on it? Yep, an HD alliance logo and link.
If these people are seriously installing HD on ANOTHER weak as heck 1 kW station in Birmingham, I'm going to cry.
Signal level at the receiver. Any noise at all would drop it into mono. Even the sound of the horn in the car!Zach said:
In addition, the "platform motion" was never resolved. It was masked by mono.
I could go on, all I have to do is copy and paste from previous posts.
Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
Hm. I was under the impression that the last generation of C-QUAM receiver chips resolved most of the platform motion issues. Of course, that was probably after stereo's last breath industry-wise, but the solution should be there for future use.
As far as signal level at the receiver, I've never experienced the issue you described in the few stereo receivers I've worked with. On the old Toyota OEM radio it didn't drop to mono until there was almost nothing audible to hear.
As far as signal level at the receiver, I've never experienced the issue you described in the few stereo receivers I've worked with. On the old Toyota OEM radio it didn't drop to mono until there was almost nothing audible to hear.
It absolutely dropped out. The reason was the pulse count. It needed continuous pulses. If it missed one, it would drop to mono and start counting again. If it was interrupted, it started the count over.Zach said:
I called it psuedo-stereo. Hit the horn, that would be enough for it to miss a pulse.
It was made to kill AM. It almost succeeded.
Platform issue was resolved by dropping out of stereo even earlier.
I was proudly a "Kahn-man". It would stay in stereo long after C-QuAM was out. With no platform motion.
Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
From the airchecks that I had heard Kahn's sound was inferior. You talk about C-QuAM being an AM killer but it seems that was the Kahn methodology. It sounds worse & was supported by AM killers such as Randy Michaels. Then Kahn had that dumbass lawsuit of his to stop ANY OTHER STEREO METHOD from reaching AM further allowing FM to get ahead & now we're at a point where ANY stereo method to AM didn't work & FM has about 80% market share. C-QuAM sounds good (not as good as Magnavox but better than Kahn) & I had an AM stereo radio in my car. Never had a problem with the signal dropping out because of the horn or anything else inside the car, unless of course you're talking about a signal that is so weak anyway that any other electrical interference would wipe out the signal as well. Then, maybe!
We had a Powerside at WPEP & I tried to yank it out. Unfortunately that was the exciter for the SX-1A we had. What a P.O.S. (Powerside).
One last question, since a quote is attributed to Kahn saying that there's no limit to the fidelity of AM, that it does better mathematically than FM, why does his stereo system limit stereo separation to 6kc.?
C-QuAM for the win.
We had a Powerside at WPEP & I tried to yank it out. Unfortunately that was the exciter for the SX-1A we had. What a P.O.S. (Powerside).
One last question, since a quote is attributed to Kahn saying that there's no limit to the fidelity of AM, that it does better mathematically than FM, why does his stereo system limit stereo separation to 6kc.?
C-QuAM for the win.
N1WVQ said:
I can't think of anyone who had more faith in AM when many were declaring the band dead "when the music died." Think WLW. Michaels backed investment in AM stations and in upgrading the equipment of the stations; he is probably the most technically knowledgeable of any of the larger group heads, ever.
If anything, he followed his belief in AM into too many smaller markets where there were just not the kind of opportunities that he envisioned.
That's the truth. Were AM stereo to have been authorized in the '78-79 time frame we had originally been aiming for, AM would be quite different today. In '78, AM still had half the audience in most markets, and could have self-promoted AM stereo.
By the time we disposed of Kahn's legal posturing, AM was down to less than a third of listening and the transition to all talk by the bigger signals was well under way.
On stations ranging from 5 kw to 50 kw, I never heard of dropout. And the platform motion thing was solved, but, again, too late to be a solution. The problem was not technical, but timing.
I had Kahn in the car along with C-CrAP for several years. Motorola was the AM StereoN1WVQ said:
killer. Why else would they write a “cease and desist” letter to a company like Sony with
regard to their producing multi-mode decoding of AM Stereo?
Motorola was supported by the FCC with an interest in Motorola succeeding.
This was not a technical issue as much as it was Political. WNBC and WQXR in NY, WRBQ-AM, here were in
Kahn. WINS, WJLK, and WMTR were in C-CrAP along with WSUN, here.
There was a world of difference in the sounds of those stations.
There was no winners here, except for Motorola. Welcome, Motorola, you won the
building even though it burnt down while you were fighting in it.
P.S. David, dropping out of stereo does not eliminate the platform motion!
That is killing the baby!
Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
badjef said:
There was no winner. By the time any system could be used on the air, the window of opportunity for AM stereo had long passed. We have Leonard Kahn to thank the the delay.
There was a station-end fix for that. As I said, the issue was timing... AM stereo became available too late for AM stations to hold the line on audience erosion. In many markets today, AM has a single digit share of listening among people under the age of 55.
You are correct. There was no winners. But Kahn was not the bad guy. His system was ready to go, not 1978, but 1960’s!DavidEduardo said:
I heard airchecks of the trials from XETRA.
Looking for a bad guy, how about two! Payne and Draper killed AM Stereo in the 80’s. One of them was with Motorola and the other with the FCC. How does any system have a shot at standardization if you have one of the major companies (Motorola) writing “cease and desist” letters to a major receiver manufacturer (Sony)?
Why do you ignore that fact?
That’s right there was a window of opportunity that was ideal, but the window never completely closes. If it did, AM-HD would have not even had a chance of acceptance.
Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
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