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Clear Channel ‘tests’ found no problem with ‘HD’ power hike

R

radioskeptic

Inside Radio is reporting this morning (8/25/09) that Clear Channel engineers performed “extensive tests” in Connecticut and determined that a full 10-dB increase in “HD” digital signals on the FM band wouldn’t cause interference.

Oddly enough, this is the first time since the website was redesigned some months ago that a "read full story" link at the end of a www.insideradio.com homepage story précis has failed to bring up the full story! It asked me to log in. But to log in, you have to be a member, and there’s a substantial fee to join.

Does anybody know whether that Clear Channel “test” report is available online? I’m sure some of us could rip its methodology to shreds!
 
Knowing a bit about the geography and FM band distribution in Connecticut, I'd be fascinated to read this! What did they do, sit in downtown Hartford, listen to the local in-market stations and ignore everything else from Springfield, SW CT, eastern CT, Long Island, etc? I'll bet that's exactly what they did.

What I'd bet that they didn't do was check out the effects of such a hike in a place like Fairfield or Bridgeport or Colchester or Southbury or Enfield. Places where multiple markets' worth of FM signals are available. Not to mention those humid days when signals from Providence and New Bedford come in like locals.

Idiocy.
 
 
Well, in the opening statement it says "During
these tests at -10 dBc and licensed operation at -20 dBc, however, the station did not
receive a single complaint of interference from other stations or the public."

My question is, why would they? Who is listening to this? Buehler? Buehler?

I didn't bother to read the rest of this gibberish.
 
This was inevitable. Somebody had to step up and provide research "for the record" or the FCC would have no possible "factual" basis for adopting a digital power increase. There was simply no credible basis on which a new rule could be adopted other than sporadic and highly anecdotal experiments such as with KROQ Pasadena. The NPR study had to be countered or the digital increase would be deader'n disco.

As is always the case with HD Radio, the fix is in. Personally I think across-the-board -10 dBc may counterintuitively prove to be the best in the long run. The interference will be horrible, and this time, unlike with HD-AM, the stakes will make the interference scenarios too costly and troublesome to finesse or ignore.

AM stations with which Big Group Radio has limited patience and interest are one thing. High-billing FMs in major markets with tens of millions in annual billing are another. As has been noted here, the Northeast is packed with short-spaced major-market adjacents in Boston, NYC, Philly, and nearby smaller cities. (And then there is the NPR problem.)

As we all know, Alliance "experts" can cook the technical books all they want. In the end, when managers, PDs and sales departments start seeing accelerating audience erosion due to interference, the hammer WILL come down.
 
Savage said:
As we all know, Alliance "experts" can cook the technical books all they want. In the end, when managers, PDs and sales departments start seeing accelerating audience erosion due to interference, the hammer WILL come down.
Click to expand...

I hope so, but remain to be convinced, after the AM IBOC fiasco. I think what this will do is accelerate the exodus from terrestrial radio to other program sources; particularly Internet radio and offline listening (music players, etc.)
 
Of course they - Crap Channel - are going to do and say whatever it takes to achieve their goals: greed and domination of their markets What else can we expect from Corporate America?
 
To get a good reading on this, you've gotta step outside the sphere of radio and engineering and related blogs for a moment. Bribing the FCC is one thing, as are faking tests and "moving the goalposts" to "make" the interference seem acceptable.

It is absolutely a different matter to get people to buy HD radios, to get stations to convert when many of them are having problems meeting payroll, to get receiver manufacturers - particularly carmakers - to offer appealing and reasonably-priced HD products. Or to get the public to care one whit about HD Radio.

All this assumes that the hybrid digital system works acceptably - which it doesn't and won't, -10 dBc or not.

At some point HD has to live in the real world. Unlike its desperately stubborn and disappearing proponents. You can jump start a car all day, until the booster cables melt and the starter motor overheats and self-destructs. If it won't keep running....
 
WKCI's digital signal is apparently transmitted from an aux antenna side-mounted on a wide tower, but the analog antenna is top mounted. This would reduce the ratio of D to A behind the tower by several dB, particularly in the vertical polarization. The "compatibility tests" were performed to the west. So might the aux antenna be mounted on the east side?
 
Gee, nobody complained in 60 days so that makes it okay. How simplistic and idiotic. Most people were probably annoyed but didn't think to complain. The public rarely complains about such things to the authorities. Take a look at pirate radio, for example. Just because no one complains doesn't make it acceptable.

CBS is in the tank for IBOC, so they're not going to complain about losing audience for WCBS-FM in Suffolk and Fairfield Counties; Cumulus should have complained loudly - but perhaps were convinced to be "quiet." Just wait and see what happens when the digital power is increased for WPDH, WCBS-FM, and WWBB Providence (don't forget about them). It will be a mess.

As someone who has to author technical documents, I just cannot believe how simplistic Clear Channel's submittal to the FCC is. It reminds me of the kind of argument that a 3rd grader would come up with. No one complained, so the increase should be permitted - QED. How absurd.
 
As noted earlier - it's all about getting something - ANYthing - "positive" on file about the digital power increase in light of NPR's stiffening opposition. Any official filing purporting to report "positive" results can thus conveniently serve as a pretense for allowing the tenfold power hike. It allows the FCC staff to indulge in their typical, "draw the curve, then plot the data" sophistry in brushing aside legitimate opposition and seize upon cherry-picked predetermined results.

Recall the "exhaustive field tests" of HD-AM after sunset - consisting of a couple hours, on a single night, of WOR vs. WLW. Both CC and Buckley were in the tank for HD, so of course the reports of "no interference" were glowing.

The situation will be finessed with a the usual HD "let's just put it in service and see how it does" cynicism. Then, naturally, the focus will be to ignore the inevitable interference complaints, marginalize critics, and force implementation.

All of which tactics will produce more of the same results which have marked HD Radio as the industry's most notorious engineering, programming and marketing debacle in the once-proud 90 year history of radio broadcasting.
 
So, that's it the FCC just rolls over, surprised? Don't be these are the same idiots who can't run the post office,
who will make a mess out of heath care and will bankrupt the United States of America.

Like it's already been said, then there's the real world where ratings and budgets matter big time..
and where revenues follow ratings.
 
This is actually a pretty interesting case. On the surface, it appears to give some convincing evidence that the power hike skeptics are all wet. Consider the situation with WKCI and WPDH: only 93 km apart, which is 76 km less than the usual minimum spacing for 1st adjacent Class B's. If WPDH got no interference complaints caused by WKCI's IBOC, even at the 10% power level, surely this proves that the power increase would be fine just about anywhere, right? Well, no. There is the little matter of topography. In between WKCI and WPDH lie the Taconic and Berkshire mountain ranges, effectively isolating the two stations from each other. Despite the short spacing, their coverage areas are essentially disjoint.

Clear Channel is right about one thing: the formula proposed by NPR is deeply flawed. As the WKCI example shows, contours based on the FCC F(50,50) and F(50,10) curves often do a lousy job of predicting real world coverage, and interference. I assume that NPR knows this too, and will soon be proposing a more sensible scheme.

I think the WKCI example also illustrates something else: that the half-dozen or so transmitters used by iBiquity & friends for the high-power tests were carefully selected to minimize the chances of serious interference to adjacent channel stations happening (or at least that the "victim" stations had to be owned by fellow members of the IBOC consortium, as was the case with WKCI and WCBS-FM).
 
And pigs think everything smells just fine.
 
BRNout said:
It reminds me of the kind of argument that a 3rd grader would come up with. No one complained, so the increase should be permitted - QED. How absurd.
Click to expand...

However, that's exactly how the FCC operates. They're speaking FCC language. I read reports of obsenity on the radio all the time. But if no one complains, it didn't happen. I read reports all over R-I about pirates. No one files a complaint, they don't exist.
 
radioskeptic said:
Inside Radio is reporting this morning (8/25/09) that Clear Channel engineers performed “extensive tests” in Connecticut and determined that a full 10-dB increase in “HD” digital signals on the FM band wouldn’t cause interference with other Clear Channel stations.
Click to expand...

Quote fixed.
 
The WKLB 10db increase didn't cause interference for me even though I thought it would. In Billerica I can pick up 102.1 clearly and sometimes 102.3 WWHK Concord, NH and 102.9 WBLM in Maine with a regular radio. In Sandown, NH I get all of those stations clearly without any problem at all on a regular radio. Also With my HD portable I can get WKLB to encode HD in Concord, NH now.
 
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