AM Radio vs. HD-AM Radio on Distance

[Radio1360]

Before HD Radio came alone, we had just analog AM radio. Back then, I could hear radio stations say like, where I live at now (here in Atlanta) stations from New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and St.Louis. Now that HD Radio is here (which I have let to buy) does the HD-AM pick up distant radio stations like that of analog AM? Or not?

 

[KB1OKL]

Before HD Radio came alone, we had just analog AM radio. Back then, I could hear radio stations say like, where I live at now (here in Atlanta) stations from New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and St.Louis. Now that HD Radio is here (which I have let to buy) does the HD-AM pick up distant radio stations like that of analog AM? Or not?

You can pick up the stations themselves in analog on an analog radio but don't waste your money on an HD radio. You'd be lucky to pick 50KW AM IBUZ stations HD 10 miles away from the transmitter.

 

[Tom Wells]

I resemble that remark.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

Yeah... HD is basically the OPPOSITE of the way I was hoping digital would work.... basically, among other things, I was hoping that if an analog signal was so weak that all you could detect was the presence of a carrier, I would still want the HD to be able to decode nearly perfectly (with maybe a slight optional reduction in frequency response to maintain signal lock easier at the noise floor threshold). You lose the trace of the QRSS CW carrier, you are in danger of losing the HD lock, except if the carrier comes back fairly soon (like the nighttime skywave fades, or the long-distance daytime groundwave fades). Unfortunately, that's not how HD coverage compares to analog.

 

[Radio1360]

Oh, my bad. I meant to add in my topic can you here these AM-HD stations at night during the fall-spring months?

 

[briankay]

It's driving me nuts why does everyone say the reception of AM HD is bad, I even can get HD lock 60% of the time in Chicago's Western suburbs from Milwaukee's WTMJ AM 640 and you know this station is directional towards northern Wisconsin. So what is it, does everyone have a bad AM installation in their car. My car has a roof top 31" whip and the radio is a Directed Electronics DMHD-1000. For the Chicago HD AMs (670, 780) stations, I get 99% lock all the way to Peoria, didn't try any farther. I find it's the FM that cuts in and out more. What's more I like the sound quality of AM HD, as long as the source material is of high quality. Maybe I'm not complaining because I'm not trying to get 770 WABC at night just like most people outside of this board.
Can others post the distance they're getting from their low frequency, 50 kW AM HD sticks. Comment such as bad range don't mean anything.

 

[KB1OKL]

Oh, my bad. I meant to add in my topic can you here these AM-HD stations at night during the fall-spring months?

Maybe before skywave is in full swing AND if you park under the towers and that's year round.

 

[KB1OKL]

It's driving me nuts why does everyone say the reception of AM HD is bad, I even can get HD lock 60% of the time in Chicago's Western suburbs from Milwaukee's WTMJ AM 640 and you know this station is directional towards northern Wisconsin. So what is it, does everyone have a bad AM installation in their car. My car has a roof top 31" whip and the radio is a Directed Electronics DMHD-1000. For the Chicago HD AMs (670, 780) stations, I get 99% lock all the way to Peoria, didn't try any farther. I find it's the FM that cuts in and out more. What's more I like the sound quality of AM HD, as long as the source material is of high quality. Maybe I'm not complaining because I'm not trying to get 770 WABC at night just like most people outside of this board.
Can others post the distance they're getting from their low frequency, 50 kW AM HD sticks. Comment such as bad range don't mean anything.

With my Sony XDRF-1 and C Crane twin ferrite directional tunable loop, WTAG 580 5KW, less than 10 miles (because I've never received it even though the hash comes in like gangbusters here) and WBZ 50KW at approx 40 miles, not enough to be listenable for any length of time but enough to know it's not listenable for any length of time. Nothing else in AM IBOC

 

[nd2023]

If you can see the towers and there isn't a thunderstorm within 50 miles then HD AM works great.

 

[Savage]

Hey briankay: how about the CE of WBZ? He told me he couldn't get reliable lock on his OWN STATION - local 50kw, daytime so interference-free, with a field of over 15 mv/m in a wood-frame house.

More people must agree with him and me than with you. It's the only explanation for why HD is being turned off at an accelerating pace. See the thread on this board, with hundreds of posts and over 8000 page views, if you think cases of unreliable HD reception are the exception rather than the rule.

Sorry if it "drives you nuts," but HD just doesn't work acceptably on AM. Field experience has now proven this beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

[RedWingCJS278]

With a radio that has great selectivity and with a good AM antenna, one can still pick up distant stations at night. I live just north of Boston, and HD reception of WBZ is never a problem. Two other local AM's, 1260 and 1430, are also very strong on HD about 90 - 95% of the time. For the record, I have the Sony XDR-S10HDiP with a Terk antenna. At night, I'm able to pick up the big NYC area stations consistently. There have been times where I've picked up HD on WFAN & WCBS, albeit only for a few moments at a time before reverting to analog. Beyond NYC, 1110 WBT from Charlotte, NC, 760 WJR Detroit, 1210 Philadelphia, a host of Montreal stations, and many more are all regulars. My Sony SW radio does even better with AM. But, I will admit that AM reception is not quite as good as it once was due to IBOC. I have to believe there eventually will be improvements made that will allow for digital AM without the reception problems. However, the trend now seems to be abandoning IBOC altogether. Sure, that's a good thing for lower-wattage AM stations and DXers like myself, but for the long-term future of AM radio I am not so sure.

 

[KB1OKL]

However, the trend now seems to be abandoning IBOC altogether. Sure, that's a good thing for lower-wattage AM stations and DXers like myself, but for the long-term future of AM radio I am not so sure.

Just wondering, you seem to think that IBOC could somehow be good for the long term future of AM radio, do you have any specific ideas for how that could be?

 

[RedWingCJS278]

However, the trend now seems to be abandoning IBOC altogether. Sure, that's a good thing for lower-wattage AM stations and DXers like myself, but for the long-term future of AM radio I am not so sure.

Just wondering, you seem to think that IBOC could somehow be good for the long term future of AM radio, do you have any specific ideas for how that could be?

Well, I discussed this on a thread on the Boston board (WRKO Going HD?), but if some sort of happy medium could be found - where IBOC is improved upon somehow or a different system is put in place - I could see a day where music formats once again thrive on AM. Especially formats that have been mostly shut out of FM, like classical, standards, et al. The truth, as just about everyone on these boards acknowledges, is that AM radio has seen better days. Younger listeners, and even many older ones, either don't know or care about it. Too much static, poor sound quality, so on and so forth. A combination of better promotion, improved IBOC, and a wider variety of formats could, at least in theory, revitalize AM radio. Whether any of this is possible is anybody's guess. Personally, I love AM radio and don't care all that much about sound quality, but not everyone feels that way. If all AM's sounded like FM, I'd have to believe it would have more listeners. So, whether it's an improved IBOC, or some viable alternative, there is at the very least great potential here. Is just maintaining the status quo going to do anything for the future of AM? That's the question I tried to get answered in the thread I mentioned above, and nobody seemed to have an answer. One gentlemen on there is the owner of a small station that plays standards, and he comes across as very set in his ways. Won't even stream online (and I wish he would, because his station is really fun to listen to and deserves to be heard everywhere.) That's all well and good, I respect that, but what's going to come of his station when he's gone? IBOC has issues, no doubt about it, but shouldn't we be working on ways to improve it or coming up with an alternative? The vast majority of the population just doesn't listen anymore, and with even FM having problems retaining (particularly younger) listeners, shouldn't the owners of AM radio stations be doing something to get those listeners back? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a cheerleader for HD radio, but if the technology is there and can be improved, then why not HD?

 

[Chuck]

I suspect that everyone on this board would agree that improving quality on AM would be a good thing. The problem is HD, at least as it currently exists, does not seem to be the answer. If it worked reliably and did not cause any undue interference to the station's neighbors, it would have quite a few fans. That just doesn't seem to be the case.

When the cure is worse than the problem, it is hard to get very enthusiastic.

 

[Darth_vader]

"A combination of better promotion, improved IBOC, and a wider variety of formats could, at least in theory, revitalize AM radio."

I can see your point, however you should have phrased that as:

A combination of better promotion, a wider variety of formats, no IBAC, and receivers that don't sound like a bad phone line could, at least in theory, revitalise MW radio.

Especially the bit about receivers that don't sound like a bad phone line. Some of the new MW rigs coming out these days are so narrowband, they sound HORRIBLE.

 

[tomservo]

I agree, it's not the stations or really even the interference for the most part, it's manufacturers who for whatever reason have built AM receivers so narrow a human hair couldn't fit through.

It can't be a cost factor, because the cheapest K-Mart Chinese junk is the one most likely to output 10 kHz or better audio.

Maybe it was done on the perception that AM was going talk and wideband audio isn't needed for that, so let's narrow down the bandwidth to eliminate some noise so customers complain less. I know the barely 4 kHz AM section in my mother's Mazda sounds like a telephone line, but it does suffer less from "interference" because of that. Whereas my VW radio goes out a little further and actually sound half decent, but the price is paid under every little power line or by every business with computer monitors and florescent lights.

The only way I could see HD really helping the AM band would be to stop all the IBOC at night (and preferably, daytime too) for now. If the radios can be mass produced and shoved into the hands of the average consumer, maybe in 10 or 20 years, after all the pea shooter and poorly managed stations have finally gone silent, could we allow those allocation to be reborn as digital only. So you'd have a mix of high power analogs and smaller but now more robust digital onlys, with an established radio base to tune in.

I would hope that in a digital only mode, the sidebands wouldn't splay out over two or three adjacents quite so bad, mitigating much of the problem we have now.

The idea of all digital on radio no doubt galls many old timers on this forum but you WOULD get used to it after a while. After having satellite radio for years and experiencing varying dropouts from seconds to minutes due to terrain and buildings, it really isn't any more annoying that static.

 

[RedWingCJS278]

Yeah, I'm in complete agreement with Zach & Darth Vader that most of the receivers being made nowadays are complete junk. It's funny, because the Sony model HD radio I have now is the single best receiver I have ever had for analog performance on AM and FM. For the price I paid for it and the antennas (the Terk AM antenna and a CCrane FM 'reflect' antenna) - around $200 - it is, perhaps, the single best bargain on any single product I've ever bought. But, I'm not here to be a salesman, I'm just saying. I have - give or take - around eight radios in my house, ranging from the Sony HD to a cheap little transistor radio that I paid $5 for at Rite Aid. Apart from the Sony HD and my portable Sony SW, the rest of the receivers are basically junk. Bear in mind, two of them are alarm clock radios. Another one is a weather radio/alarm clock, which actually does sort of okay with reception but has terrible selectivity. Another is a Victoria model turntable unit that has the look of an old-time radio and is quite fun to play with, but FM & AM reception on it leaves a bit to be desired, especially on AM. The absolute worst is a Sharper Image brand CD player/tuner I own. I paid about $100 for the stupid thing some years back, and I've regretted it everyday since. AM reception can actually be semi-decent when using the Terk antenna, but the FM antenna is internal and there is no output on it to hook up an external antenna. I'm lucky if I can pick up Kiss 108, a very powerful station whose transmitter is a mere five miles from my house. So, yes, the quality of these radios being manufactured today is a very real problem. I find that to be the case for a whole host of consumer goods, i.e. stuff made in China. What a terrible price we have paid - in terms of product quality, but more importantly in jobs lost - for having shifted virtually our entire manufacturing base to China. But I digress.

 

[KB1OKL]

The AM section in my Sony tuner is junk like all the rest of the new tuners, no bandwidth and no sensitivity. Now my Hallicrafters SX-28 has good sounding AM in it's 13 Khz wide position., that shows what AM can really sound like on good wideband non-IBAC stations. Many AM stations also transmit so narrow they sound like telephones, especially IBOC stations.

 

[Play Freebird]

Maybe it was done on the perception that AM was going talk and wideband audio isn't needed for that, so let's narrow down the bandwidth to eliminate some noise so customers complain less. I know the barely 4 kHz AM section in my mother's Mazda sounds like a telephone line, but it does suffer less from "interference" because of that. Whereas my VW radio goes out a little further and actually sound half decent, but the price is paid under every little power line or by every business with computer monitors and florescent lights.

That's exactly what has happened. Car radios must be designed to handle a wide variety of situations, and the cheap and easy way to make power line noise less audible is to narrow the IF filter passband.

The Visteon (Ford) radio in my truck has better-than-average bandwidth which makes AM listening quite enjoyable out on rural interstates -- but on the local roads, many of the power lines are so noisy that I just have to shut it off. Many of these noise problems have persisted for years, but the utilities apparently don't respond unless threatened with fines.

I would like to see the FCC Enforcement Bureau take a greater interest in this problem and help to clean it up. Couldn't the EB staff turn on AM while driving around to inspect broadcasters (or respond to other complaints), note the locations of these unlicensed "spark transmitters", and then send the utilities official notices of violation?

Take a look at this list of the pirate broadcast cases investigated by the FCC last year:

http://www.diymedia.net/fccwatch/eadtable09.htm

Of course this represents a small portion of the EB's work; their people also spend many hours on the road tracking down leaky cable TV lines, GPS and cell phone jammers, etc. But if each of these visits also resulted in one official observation of excessive power line noise (with a notice sent to the responsible utility and subsequent action), significant progress could be made.

 

[Tom Wells]

I love where this thread's going...without going on forever, I'll admit to RedWingCJS278 that AM high fidelity is my hobby and religion, and all points made others already are the major culprits. We had a plan, but we adulterated it, figuring it wouldn't matter all that much. Lots of nightime authorizations, switched-power high-hp motor drives, lamp dimmers, switched
powers supplies, all kicking back directly into the line with their racket. Figured it wouldn't matter. Then we could eliminate
a bunch of bypass capacitors in auto control and dash circuits, cuz it would only matter for AM, etc.
Figured it wouldn't matter. I could go on and on, so could all those so informed.

Question then, would be how to get teeth into the enforcement bureau to effect at least the badly needed filtering in new
equipment. You'd think think they already have the right to find these very noises the responsibility of the manufacturer
of equipment, or the provider of power; then the responsibility of harmonic and spike suppression would become the
responsibilty of one or the other. This did not happen, so we have the present quagmire.
We are collectively noticing that the advancing the argument of "it doesn't matter" leads eventually to " how do we fix it?"
If it won't work for analog anymore, digital hasn't a hope at MW unless it has half again as much bw as it uses currently.
I still see this as so much "sweeping water up a hill".
I'm not saying digital won't work, I'm saying MW is telling us that it doesn't do what we're asking it to do.
It warps, spindles and mutilates things in ways most unkind to the needs of digital reception, challenging the redundancy
more or less continuously. Anything smaller than 10m ought to work well for this in a full digital mode.
I like the idea of an RDS code tellling the 8meter digital tuner to sync and link to the main AM or FM, then use the analog for
time sync to audio until when you drove out of signal, and you could then continue driving from Baltimore to Ft Worth
continuing to listen to the digital on 8m ( or whatever ).

I wish the FCC would simply empower themselves to begin fining users and manufacturers of industrial motor drives.
I see and hear this as being the biggest problem, from my urban/suburban perspective.
The consumer grade electronics are the next chapter..then cable modems, then vacuum flourescent displays, plasma TVs.
Isn't the FCC missing out somehow on a chance to fine their way to greatness?