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For those of you that think FM IBOC has no hash on the adjacents
- Thread starter jlehmann
- Start date
StephanieNYC said:
So that's "progress?"
I'm glad the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is ""if not a bit better." That's nice for the 0.0001% of the people in NY who own HD radios but doesn't do much for the rest who are now listening to mediocre sounding analog. Even by the most optimistic projections, it will be a long time before any significant number of people get to enjoy something that is "just as good, if not a bit better" than what they already had a long time ago.
Radioman, I would agree with you that WYSL should not complain about interference which comports with FCC rules. I disagree that WYSL's nighttime service is to be equated with "interference." It's a fully-licensed, legal, radio service which complies with the rules and with our FCC authorization.
Respectfully I say it appears you're missing the point: our case is, that WBZ does NOT comply with the rules. I don't care whether their NRSC mask looks fine on a spectrum analyzer. Even in the surreal world of nighttime IBOC, their digital emissions are not allowed to invade an adjacent-channel station's protected contours, under the rules their company lobbied through the Commission hand-in-hand with iBiquity. WBZ clobbers WYSL, day, critical hours and night.
All this stuff about WYSL and its nighttime operation and whether our presence constitutes "interference" is torturing logic, and one of the pro-IBOC tactics to divert the argument from whether HD creates unacceptable levels of adjacent-channel noise. It's one of the tiresomely-chanted HD "talking points" (including HD is "what we have now," AM is dead unless it goes digital - and digital MUST be HD Radio from iBiquity, "it looks fine on the spectrum analyzer," skywave listening is an irrelevant antique, and so forth.)
Respectfully I say it appears you're missing the point: our case is, that WBZ does NOT comply with the rules. I don't care whether their NRSC mask looks fine on a spectrum analyzer. Even in the surreal world of nighttime IBOC, their digital emissions are not allowed to invade an adjacent-channel station's protected contours, under the rules their company lobbied through the Commission hand-in-hand with iBiquity. WBZ clobbers WYSL, day, critical hours and night.
All this stuff about WYSL and its nighttime operation and whether our presence constitutes "interference" is torturing logic, and one of the pro-IBOC tactics to divert the argument from whether HD creates unacceptable levels of adjacent-channel noise. It's one of the tiresomely-chanted HD "talking points" (including HD is "what we have now," AM is dead unless it goes digital - and digital MUST be HD Radio from iBiquity, "it looks fine on the spectrum analyzer," skywave listening is an irrelevant antique, and so forth.)
Chuck said:
Most of the people listening to WOR are doing it on small clock radios and portables. The station still sounds OK on those, since the audio bandwith is extremely limited.
Listening to WOR on a Tivoli Model 1 radio (or a GE Superradio III set on wideband) is a different story, but people who have Tivoli radios likely did not buy them to seriously listen to AM broadcasts. This was a radio designed for excellent FM reception, the AM being a "throw in" bonus.
And once you set the Superradio to "narrow" and adjust the tone controls to attenuate the treble, WOR sounds fine and the IBOC hash is minimized.
I forgot - Len, you ask about the extent of digital interference radiated in WYSL's direction by WBZ.
A technical statement from a consulting engineer, one with over 20 years of experience in the development of digital radio in the US and Canada, is appended to our first formal FCC complaint. Under oath, this engineering firm states that the 25 COFDM carriers WBZ radiates between 1040 kHz and 1045 kHz present interference to an analog station on 1040, the equivalent of a 10 kw nondirectional co-channel station.
But it's actually even worse than that. COFDM is always on, steady-state.
That's why Martin Stabbert turned off Citadel's night HD service. Even a 50kw local groundwave can't overcome the adjacent-channel IBOC skywave.
A technical statement from a consulting engineer, one with over 20 years of experience in the development of digital radio in the US and Canada, is appended to our first formal FCC complaint. Under oath, this engineering firm states that the 25 COFDM carriers WBZ radiates between 1040 kHz and 1045 kHz present interference to an analog station on 1040, the equivalent of a 10 kw nondirectional co-channel station.
But it's actually even worse than that. COFDM is always on, steady-state.
That's why Martin Stabbert turned off Citadel's night HD service. Even a 50kw local groundwave can't overcome the adjacent-channel IBOC skywave.
Savage said:
Ehhh? Um....sure. ??? No worries.
I suspect that depends largely on what programming there is to listen to. I'm sure that most people really do listen to WOR on $11.99 Sunbeam clock radios that are capable of picking up three or four stations max. Even so, I'll bet that there are a lot of people with Bose, Tivoli's, BA's, etc in the city. They might listen too, if it is something they wanted to hear. The fact that it sounds good doesn't hurt.StephanieNYC said:
A year or so, I was visiting Monterrey California. A local restaurant had a Tivoli radio that was playing some really great music. I ate slowly, hoping to hear a station ID so I could tune it in on my rental car. I was sure it was FM. When they ID'd, I was amazed to find out that it was an AM station. It sounded that good on the Tivoli.
AM really can sound reasonably good. Unless you have money to burn, it doesn't make a lot of sense to make your analog AM sound bad in the hopes that in five to ten years there will be enough of the "new & improved" radios to make a difference. I understand the plan is that HD listeners will come on line at least as fast, and hopefully faster than analog listeners go away. Maybe so, but I think it is going to be a long wait, and I doubt that very many small stations can afford the gamble.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't WYSL originally hope to get a different frequency when it went 24 hours but had to settle with 1040? I throught I read that somewhere. I think originally it was 1220 or something but that would have caused more of a mess than being given 1040. Pre Iboc, I was able to hear both WHO and WYSL, without one walking over the other, despite both coming at me from the same direction.
Stupid question....I wonder if it had been possible to move WYSL closer to Rochester and just diplex it off an existing stick?
Although I'm sure Bob would have done that already if he could. ??? :-\
Although I'm sure Bob would have done that already if he could. ??? :-\
Savage said:
Actually, for someone who is so concerned with HD hash, your move to 1040 and nighttime authorization on 1040 has only added to the added noise on the band
It's these kind of decisions made by the FCC over the last 50-60 years on the AM dial that have led to the disaster that have led to the problems we have today. It should be simple
1) If you need to be DA under 5kw at night, and can't make 250 watts at all, daytimer only.
2) If you need to be DA under 10kw during the day, bye bye.
This would eliminate alot of nonsense.
And those here know I am not an HD supporter, I know Stephanie is not an HD supporter per se, but I also know she is not blinded like some other people on this list serv. And one can DX Jim Bohannon at night on stations much stronger than WYSL if they are concerned with WBZ's hash. WYSL is a product of a time long ago, just like many of the AM stations here on LI that are in distress. His efforts are commendable but it is an eight track player in an Ipod world.
wgliradio said:
That would eliminate a lot of stations that were otherwise in place and not hurting anyone before the FCC decided to play social engineer. :-\
Not a stupid question, but you're right - it was considered and rejected because (a) it's not practicable and (b) it wouldn't make much difference. If you go very far north you can't build a pattern that would get the required city-grade over the COL without building the western contour so far it impermissibly would cross WHO's protected contour.
(B) - as has already been noted here, in many cases even 50kw nondirectional has proved insufficient to overcome IBOC skywave - hence the Citadel decision to turn HD off at night for mutual protection of WABC, WJR and WSB. WBZ is utterly killing KDKA in suburbs of Pittsburgh. The stations are co-owned. It's mind-boggling.
WYSL has won a "dispositive preference" against a mutually-exclusive filer for 1220 kHz. In fact we're completing that 301 and will file it before the end of the year. The new facility would be diplexed on the existing WYSL array.
(B) - as has already been noted here, in many cases even 50kw nondirectional has proved insufficient to overcome IBOC skywave - hence the Citadel decision to turn HD off at night for mutual protection of WABC, WJR and WSB. WBZ is utterly killing KDKA in suburbs of Pittsburgh. The stations are co-owned. It's mind-boggling.
WYSL has won a "dispositive preference" against a mutually-exclusive filer for 1220 kHz. In fact we're completing that 301 and will file it before the end of the year. The new facility would be diplexed on the existing WYSL array.
That's great, WGLI. Why don't you go find a thread titled "FCC - Notable FUBAR Moves Since 1950" and post there, instead of calling legally operated broadcasters names on the HD board?
Talk about "a lot of nonsense" - that's the argument that duly approved and rules-compliant broadcasters are "interference generators" because we have the temerity to complain about illegal IBOC adjacent-channel noise.
It's just a diversionary tactic to deflect the hard engineering evidence against HD-AM from pro-IBOCers masquerading as "objective observers."
Talk about "a lot of nonsense" - that's the argument that duly approved and rules-compliant broadcasters are "interference generators" because we have the temerity to complain about illegal IBOC adjacent-channel noise.
It's just a diversionary tactic to deflect the hard engineering evidence against HD-AM from pro-IBOCers masquerading as "objective observers."
Savage said:
What name did I call you in the first post? I am merely suggesting that those who have shoehorned "improvements" to their own facilities have done so at the peril of the band as a whole... and are just as guilty as those who back this flawed technology. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Savage said:
So this means you might be moving your station to 1220? If that results in eliminating that nasty day/night power difference that's certainly a good thing.
The band gets more and more crowded up there, unfortunately. :-\
StephanieNYC said:
I listen to WWKB 1520 Buffalo NY at night a lot. WCKY Cincinnati 1530 which is at least twice the distance from here actually covers WWKB sometimes with it's hash, we are talking a good 1000 miles or close to it.
WLW 700 Cincinnati's IBOC actually covers up WOR sometimes which also uses IBOC, they take turns here and with an added bonus of WGN 720 Chicago sometimes adding it's own beautiful hash to the mix. There are nights 690- 730 here is all hash with stations beneath it all taking turns being the dominant one creating an undulating mass of noise. This is just one little part of the spectrum. WBZ here is a noisy flamethrower but WOR is even worse most of the time as is WFAN which covers up WSM. Incidentally I'm talking in my car not with my good DX receivers.
WSYL may get more hash there than I do here at night with skywave, it is something you just can't predict very well a lot of times which is a big reason IBOC does not belong in radio. Being a DXer teaches you a lot about propagation. Skywave can vary quite a bit from night to night, even minute to minute.
Geez, what kind of filtering do you use? If you can hear IBOC sidebands 30 or more KHz away that tells me that your filtering is broad as a barn door. I mean, I am 25 miles from NYC and I can hear WLW with my Receptor. I can hear WWKB & WCKY and neither interferes with the other. I can hear WHO on 1040 with no interference from WBZ, although the local WEPN non Iboc sideband causes interference from time to time. You talk about long wires and box loops and you can't null out first adjacents from hundreds of miles away. Technique might help you. If I were interested in hearing those stations for anything more than an ID, I'd listen to them over the internet. Streaming audio would blow away anyhting I could capture at night on a skywave signal.
KB1OKL said:
That's true if you live next door to the transmitter, they don't over proccess the audio and they don't broadcast syndicated programing. You see, every syndicator is using some form of MP2 transmission and many of the programs go through more than one level of compression/decompression prior to its arrival over your radio. I remember listening to WABC in the 70's using a diode and a tuning capacitor. The station sounded great, but it didn't sound natural. The audio was over proccessed and there was never any silence. You'd hear hum or studio noise or tape his or what have you. Funny, I worked on the air at a station in the mid 1970's and we'd monitor the audio via a sampling loop connected to a modulation monitor. The station sounded great but natural isn't a word I'd use for it. No one is suggesting that small station owners rush out and retrofit their stations for IBOC capability. Right now, its the big guys who can afford to do it. I'll say again, if small stations can never afford to do anything to upgrade their facilities, it would make no business sense for major market statons to remain technologically stagnent, just like their poorer neighbors. That makes absolutley no sense and is a sure fire way to financial ruin.
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