AM HD TURNOFF PACE ACCELERATES

[iyiyi]

badjef;

I believe that Mr. Savage explained things perfectly. No corrections are needed!

Thanks!


-

 

[badjef]

badjef;

I believe that Mr. Savage explained things perfectly. No corrections are needed!

Thanks!


-

There was no disrespect intended. My response was not meant as a correction. His explanation was on the money with respect to the realities we face.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[MarioMania]

KCBS 740 HD is Off, Keep it off

 

[ajc_trw]

KCBS 740 HD is Off, Keep it off

I would think iBiquity would beg for KCBS to keep their AM-HD off as the so-called FM quality would be quickly disproved by actual FM quality.

 

[audioguy]

I was just noticing that this thread began slightly more than two years ago in February 2010. Unfortunately, I wouldn't say that the title of the thread "AM HD Turnoff Pace Accelerates" has proven true over those two years. Rather, AM HD is s-l-o-w-l-y being turned off, one station at a time.

The band is still polluted with a ton of HD hash at night, but every station that shuts it off makes a small improvement in the overall noise level. And of course, if you happen to live near that station, it usually makes a dramatic improvement in listening quality-- especially if they open the audio bandwidth back up.

I am glad the local Radio Disney in Chicago turned it off. Unfortunately the kind of music they play has changed quite a bit since the AM stereo days, so I don't really listen to the station that much anymore. But it does sound a lot better now. I sure hope they leave it off.

I can't wait for the day that WBBM turns theirs off!

 

[spunker88]

I am glad the local Radio Disney in Chicago turned it off. Unfortunately the kind of music they play has changed quite a bit since the AM stereo days, so I don't really listen to the station that much anymore. But it does sound a lot better now. I sure hope they leave it off.

I'll be surprised if Radio Disney is still on AM radio at all in 10 years. Their demographic does not listen to AM radio anymore. Their stations will eventually be sold, converted to ESPN Radio affiliates or just go silent if its not a good signal in the market. Its a good sign if both NYC and Chicago have pulled HD on Radio Disney.

 

[stormy01]

I am glad the local Radio Disney in Chicago turned it off. Unfortunately the kind of music they play has changed quite a bit since the AM stereo days, so I don't really listen to the station that much anymore. But it does sound a lot better now. I sure hope they leave it off.

I'll be surprised if Radio Disney is still on AM radio at all in 10 years. Their demographic does not listen to AM radio anymore. Their stations will eventually be sold, converted to ESPN Radio affiliates or just go silent if its not a good signal in the market. Its a good sign if both NYC and Chicago have pulled HD on Radio Disney.

I can see it coming: ESPN Deportes 1300. That 97.5 translator just isn't cutting it!

 

[MarioMania]

I am glad the local Radio Disney in Chicago turned it off. Unfortunately the kind of music they play has changed quite a bit since the AM stereo days, so I don't really listen to the station that much anymore. But it does sound a lot better now. I sure hope they leave it off.

I'll be surprised if Radio Disney is still on AM radio at all in 10 years. Their demographic does not listen to AM radio anymore. Their stations will eventually be sold, converted to ESPN Radio affiliates or just go silent if its not a good signal in the market. Its a good sign if both NYC and Chicago have pulled HD on Radio Disney.

The only reason Radio Disney is still on AM radio is kids yell in the car, So Mom turns on RD to shut them up

 

[davideduardo]

I'll be surprised if Radio Disney is still on AM radio at all in 10 years. Their demographic does not listen to AM radio anymore.

Radio Disney's demo is 5 to 11; I'd be surprised if kids that age know the difference between AM and FM. I'd be even more surprised if anything or anyone at all is on AM in 10 years.

 

[MarioMania]

I think kids listen to they Ipods these days...

 

[satech]

in C-QUAM mode, we would have to reduce modulation to protect the stereo image. There would definitely be a coverage deficit in fringe areas in reducing negative peaks from 99% to about 92%.

C-Quam is capable of the same +125% / -100% modulation as mono. I've done it myself and it sounds fine.

You're probably thinking of the defunct Magnavox system, which required negative modulation to be limited to -95% to prevent the stereo decoder from "popping" on large negative peaks.

 

[audioguy]

Savage,

If you've got a CQUAM exciter, why couldn't you run a little music programming somewhere in your schedule to take advantage of it? With 168 hours to fill every week, why not?

One thing I never understood is why the industry seems to have an unwritten rule that we must be all talk, all the time. Music is not allowed except for short snatches used for "bumpers". If our government made a law that you could not broadcast music, everyone would be up in arms about it, but the industry has apparently outlawed music on its own.

 

[radiotower40]

Savage,

If you've got a CQUAM exciter, why couldn't you run a little music programming somewhere in your schedule to take advantage of it? With 168 hours to fill every week, why not?

One thing I never understood is why the industry seems to have an unwritten rule that we must be all talk, all the time. Music is not allowed except for short snatches used for "bumpers". If our government made a law that you could not broadcast music, everyone would be up in arms about it, but the industry has apparently outlawed music on its own.

I second that, I miss the days when WGN, WLUP AM(now WMVP, I don't need to say what the calls were before :] ), WHAS and other threw in a song or two on here and there, while still being talk stations.

As of this writing, I am in Chicago today, and WSCR had it off. I'm getting a nice, strong WSM.

RD also has it off still. I hope it is for good!!

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

One thing I never understood is why the industry seems to have an unwritten rule that we must be all talk, all the time. Music is not allowed except for short snatches used for "bumpers". If our government made a law that you could not broadcast music, everyone would be up in arms about it, but the industry has apparently outlawed music on its own.

Which would you rather listen to for music on an average radio? AM or FM? Even ignoring, for a moment, the analog-vs.-digital debate, the reason music formats started moving over to FM 35-40 years ago were obvious. FM had none of the noise, interference, fading and (in the present context) IBOC-spalsh that AM suffered (and continues to suffer) from. As practiced at the time, the FM system had better overall frequency response than AM. AM thus moved into spoken-word formats because there audio quality mattered less.

At the present time people under 55 almost never use AM, and since advertisers tend to shun the over-55 crowd for music formats, you simply won't find them on AM. It's purely business.

 

[audioguy]

Actually music can sound quite good on AM if you do the engineering correctly. Radio Disney plays music on AM. WGN used to at least occasionally play music on AM (I don't know if they still do). AM 740 plays music. WSM plays music. As we speak my Part 15 station is playing classical music and it sounds great for the block or so that it covers. If I can do that with 0.1 watts, why can't a station running many times the power do it successfully? Oh and by the way, many stations in Europe play music on AM (medium wave). And it sounds good, too!

 

[pianoplayer88key]

I prefer music on AM when it's done properly. I just happen to like being able to hear music for long distances, and still have good signals. For example I'd love to be able to drive 75 mph / 120 km/h heading west across northern Canada on the summer solstice, from sunrise(3-4am) to sunset(10-11pm), listening to one AM music station whose tower is too far to even get a grandfathered superpower FM on top of its tower by tropo (the Southern California coast type that Scott Fybush has mentioned previously when I've mentioned my regular 212-mile reception of KVYB) - without it ever fading out enough so that if the volume is set similar to the front row at a Disney-sponsored concert (or similar), the radio noise would ever be audible with the road noise in the car.

It would help if the FCC would get their act together and go after all of these noisemakers in the AM band. BTW recently I looked at the FCC part 15 (unlicensed) rules for unintentional radiators (100s sections) vs intentional radiators (mostly 200s sections, possibly others, don't remember atm), and noticed that the general limits (109, 209) were the same in both cases. IMO, I'd like to see the unintentional radiator limits decreased so that, for example when using a 0.1 Hz bandwidth (or whatever QRSSSSSS CW or PSK31 would be), the signal is at least 60dB below natural wintertime/auroral (whichever is lowest) atmospheric noise measured at the exterior surface of the device with any user-servicable cover removed. I'd be ok with seeing intentional radiator limits increased, though (especially the non-wideband ones, relative to the typical use of that frequency range - for example FMs with their 200 kHz wide channels (part 15 IBOC, if it's even possible, would still have the current limit) would be increased (maybe similar to what 27 MHz or 13.56 MHz gets now) and AM with up to 20kHz audio response & stereo would get up to a watt or two (input into the antenna, allowing for a little extra for transmission line losses), and antennas would be something between 15 meters (with the transmission line and ground not included) and no more than 200 feet high (to avoid FAA requirements).

Also my main computer's down (looking at getting replacement parts, haven't decided what all yet but that's a topic for somewhere else) but somewhere I have some airchecks of Radio Disney's L.A. outlet, KDIS, when they were C-Quam, recorded from an SRF-42 I had (and may still have, but is misplaced and/or non-functional now). Someday I hope to be able to split them into songs (I hate scoped airchecks btw) or at least segments, and upload some of them.

 

[MarioMania]

How well can a AM Station playing music sound better?

Do you need a good AM Radio?

Maybe RD on 1310 from Vallejo on my Walkman sound not as good as my DX-380..or itmight be weak coming in

 

[KB1OKL]

How well can a AM Station playing music sound better?

Do you need a good AM Radio?

Maybe RD on 1310 from Vallejo on my Walkman sound not as good as my DX-380..or itmight be weak coming in

The transmitting station has to broadcast a good sounding wide signal and you need a receiver that can pick up a wide signal. Meduci makes a C-Quam tuner that is also very high fidelity. Many of the older tube-type communications receivers had positions as wide as 16 Khz which are capable of sounding very good. A lot of the old console radios also sounded very good. The problem nowadays is finding AM stations that broadcast wideband signals.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

Actually music can sound quite good on AM if you do the engineering correctly.

You forget: There are TWO sides to this equation. The best transmission system in the world is useless if the receiver won't reproduce anything above 3kHz, and you will be hard-pressed to find anything the average consumer can afford (or is willing to pay for) that can do that. We won't even talk about all the other challenges AM faces on the engineering side, like atmospheric noise, skywave fading, interference from other stations (IBOC or not), a grossly overcrowded AM band...things which no transmission system, no matter how well engineered, can overcome.

 

[audioguy]

I own AT LEAST a dozen AM receivers that easily reproduce up to 10 kHz of audio bandwidth. The least expensive of these cost less than $50 (a GE Superadio III). It is simply NOT TRUE that you can't find inexpensive AM receivers that sound good, although most of the ones you will find in stores are indeed very poor.