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AM HD TURNOFF PACE ACCELERATES

satech said:
1560 WQEW has turned their IBOC back on, after it being off since last November.
Click to expand...

If it's on it's not nearly as intrusive as it has been, at least right now. If it is on that is a big disappointment.
 
OK NOW the accursed iBlock is back on WQEW 1560, sounds like the station is surrounded by a blow torch. I was getting some good DX on 1557 too. I bet all those little kids who live within 1 mile of the broadcast antennas are saying: "Mommy oh boy! The HD is back on!"
 
caca; 700 and 1560 with noise generators back on - they must have read our posts and figured if that many people 'miss the hiss' that they better turn em back on?
 
MarioMania said:
Why?? Why?
Why did WLW turn HD back on?
Click to expand...

Some folks enjoy playing the fool.

I checked out WTMJ 620 this afternoon, and they are by far the hissiest AM iboc I've ever heard, they still have the awful
rev 1 iboc, which requires earplugs or pillow to listen to on the analog. At 75 miles away, they really trash 600 khz-640khz.
Everyone else seemed to upgrade to the slightly less hissy version a few years ago, What's THEIR problem?
 
Tom Wells said:
MarioMania said:
Why?? Why?
Why did WLW turn HD back on?
Click to expand...

Some folks enjoy playing the fool.

I checked out WTMJ 620 this afternoon, and they are by far the hissiest AM iboc I've ever heard, they still have the awful
rev 1 iboc, which requires earplugs or pillow to listen to on the analog. At 75 miles away, they really trash 600 khz-640khz.
Everyone else seemed to upgrade to the slightly less hissy version a few years ago, What's THEIR problem?
Click to expand...
It seems to be a local issue rather than a corporate decision.

970, 620, and 1250, in Tampa run it daytime only. When it is there, I like it. But all of the issues that have been brought up are all with merit. Along with the decreased fidelity when it is listened to in analogue.

Then there is the selling point of the iBoc.
Even though there are very few of us that are receiving it, there must be some type of perception that it is an upgraded signal. Regardless of the reality of out of channel interference.

I see it as a dead man walking. I certainly would not like to see it replace the analogue signal the way Washington KILLED OTA TV.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
mgpt6 said:
No change in Boston. WBZ 1030 WMKI 1260 and WKOX 1430 still have AM IBOC. CBS, Disney, and CC owned.
Click to expand...

Sadly, they all sound less-than-adequate with their +/-5 kHz brickwall filtering and the digital hiss bleeding into the analog carrier on the center frequency. Pre-IBOC, WBZ sounded so clean and crisp, especially when they were running C-QUAM. Even on mono radios, WBZ's audio was superb. It's very hard to listen to any AM IBOC station, especially in the car. AM was simply never designed for digital transmission. They ought to turn off the noisemakers (IBOC), return to C-QUAM and return to pre-NRSC bandwidth. But we all know, "it AIN'T going to happen". AM can sound so great, done properly. But....oh, well. C'est la vie.
 
I mentioned previously about Radio Disney's 50kW voice in Arizona, 1580 KMIK in Tempe (Phoenix), shutting off their HD back in November. For the Disney fans on the boards (or are rbrucecarter5 and I the only ones?), I've noticed the last few nights they seem to be running full 10 kHz analog audio now. :)

Unfortunately, though, my Sony SRF-42 is currently non-functional, so I'm unable to determine if they've resurrected the C-Quam exciter. :( Also their TOH ID is still "This is KMIK and KMIK-HD1, Tempe, Phoenix", not the "AM 1580, KMIK, Tempe, Phoenix" that they used pre-HD. I think it'd be interesting, though, if their ID mentioned HD while they're running C-Quam. ;D (Once or twice probably a couple years or so ago I heard them TOH ID mentioning their frequency and not mentioning HD.)

Bruce, since your local KMIC has dropped HD, are they running full 10k analog now? Also are they running C-Quam, and/or mentioning HD in their TOH ID? And any chance you can get KMIK there, or is KMIC's splatter even without HD too much? KMIK is 50kW, omnidirectional daytime, and main lobe W/SW night (I'm toward N side, signal still potent at ~100kW but with competition from Spanish preacher KBLA), with maybe a minor lobe (~26kW?) toward you.

As for the other Disney stations, I was wondering - Which ones have, so far…
Dropped HD?
Resumed full 10kHz analog audio?
Resurrected any C-Quam exciter they may have had?
Discontinued mentioning HD in their TOH ID?

Interestingly, when I was in VA last August, I noticed Richmond area's 1290 WDZY mentioning 1290 and omitting HD in their TOH ID, although they were running HD.

Unfortunately for me, 1110 KDIS in Pasadena (LA area), the closest Disney station to me, is still running HD, so I have to put up with 5kHz analog audio. Probably shouldn't matter all that much to me, though, as between a weak signal (~22dBu midday on PL-398mp even with 80kW ERP (day, night ~2kW) thanks to poor ground path - 50kW KNX despite being ~ same distance is ~25dB stronger thanks to saltwater), strong local 2nd-adjacents (1090 ~52dBu, 1130 ~76dBu with 10k audio), and local electrical interference, I'm often using the ±1kHz BW on my PL-398mp to bring it in.
 
Speaking of Radio Disney, WQEW 1560 is really hissing up the dial since they turned the hash maker back on, what are they thinking?
 
Peter Q. George (K1XRB) said:
They ought to turn off the noisemakers (IBOC), return to C-QUAM and return to pre-NRSC bandwidth.
Click to expand...

Let me see if I understand my history. The NRSC mask was put in place to reduce adjacent channel interference at night, correct? With automation being so good these days, what would it hurt for stations to go back to 15 kHz during the day, then automatically switch to 10 kHz or less at night? I don't see why that wouldn't be feasible. We'd have the best of both worlds in this compromise: higher fidelity for those that can handle it during the day, and less interference at night.

Stations have historically turned C-Quam on and off this way, and many do it with HD now. So why not adjust the NRSC mask on the fly?
 
Zach said:
Peter Q. George (K1XRB) said:
They ought to turn off the noisemakers (IBOC), return to C-QUAM and return to pre-NRSC bandwidth.
Click to expand...

Let me see if I understand my history. The NRSC mask was put in place to reduce adjacent channel interference at night, correct? With automation being so good these days, what would it hurt for stations to go back to 15 kHz during the day, then automatically switch to 10 kHz or less at night? I don't see why that wouldn't be feasible. We'd have the best of both worlds in this compromise: higher fidelity for those that can handle it during the day, and less interference at night.

Stations have historically turned C-Quam on and off this way, and many do it with HD now. So why not adjust the NRSC mask on the fly?
Click to expand...

I used to DX back in the days before the NRSC mask, even the widest stations were infinitely better than today's HD as far as hogging other channels. Only loud transient peaks would overlap into the next channel, sounds such as such as cymbals etc.
 
I actually enjoy "monkey chatter", the inverse frequency product sometimes heard when speech on an adjacent is at just the right level to demodulate against the desired freqeuncy and produce an "intelligible" audio product.

But then I enjoy listening to empty shortwave frequencies where "nothing" is happening just to listen to the ionosphere breathe.

I meant to check on the "Chicago" Disney at 1300 today but did not.. >shame on me<.
 
MarioMania said:
Can anyone tell me the diff between 5 kHz and 10 kHz Analog Audio on AM??
Click to expand...

If you have a radio that doesn't roll off at 3500 or 4KHz, then of course you can, unless your hearing aid is broken... :eek:
 
MarioMania said:
Can anyone tell me the diff between 5 kHz and 10 kHz Analog Audio on AM??
Click to expand...

Here is an example, I took audio from CFZM which runs full 10khz bandwidth and ran a low pass filter in two different parts of this recording so you can hear the difference. For the low pass filter I tried to make it look just like Radio Disney's analog audio frequency analysis from a recording of WQEW I had.

http://users8.jabry.com/spunker88/Temp/Ambandwidth.mp3

Here are the frequency plots if you want to see the difference that you are hearing:
http://imgur.com/m9n1Kmv
 
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