Has CBS taken a brave step on the AMs?

[Tom Wells]

When I left Chicago Monday, WBBM AM had been without iBOC for a few days, WSCR had been running it sporadically the last few days.
Upon my return, both are not running it, day or night. Can't say for sure about the time between.
I am listening to WSM without hearing any splatter or "whisps" from WSCR 20 khz away.
I cannot hear 660 at all. OK. But both 650 and 670 sound great.

WLS and WGN still running the quieter version, WTMJ 620 in Milwaukee still running the god-awful flamethrower version.

 

[R.F. Burns]

WFAN (660) still runs IBOC. You may have been listening while they were broadcasting a spotrs event, at whic time they turn off the IBOC exciter. In NYC, only WABC has turned off their IBOC after sundown. WNYC is off post sundown too but that's due to antenna issues at their transmitter site. They diplex at the WMCA site. No matter because WNYC AM is available on their FM's HD 3 channel.

 

[Tom Wells]

No, I posted yesterday after checking throughout the day and evening.
This morning, the same iBOC status.

WTMJ Mil--on

WSCR- Chi-off

WGN Chi --on

WBBM Chi-off

WLS Chi -on

If they're doing another upgrade, it's sure taking a lot longer than it did back in last August.

 

[JohnnyElectron]

WWJ Detroit - HD off both day and night

WJR Detroit - HD off at night

 

[Savage]

Great system: "WE'RE DIGITAL! The BRAVE NEW WORLD of DIGITAL, noise-free, CD-quality, blah, blah..."

("Except we have to turn HD off during live sports because the encoding delay makes it worthless for a significant number of listeners.")

And the lack of robustness makes it unusable in many metropolitan environments. And the coverage stinks. And the codec sounds like Darth Vader. And it won't work with most existing AM directional antenna systems.

Good thing there's still analog.....

 

[R.F. Burns]

Sorry to disappoint the anti group but WBBM's HD is coming back soon. Equipment failure was the cause of their IBOC problems but those problems have been solved. This thread reminds me of Khans recent editorial. He claims that WABC, WADO, WCBS & WFAN have stopped broadcasting in IBOC. How can any one person be so wrong, so often?

 

[Tom Wells]

Sorry to disappoint the anti group but WBBM's HD is coming back soon. Equipment failure was the cause of their IBOC problems but those problems have been solved. This thread reminds me of Khans recent editorial. He claims that WABC, WADO, WCBS & WFAN have stopped broadcasting in IBOC. How can any one person be so wrong, so often?

Perhaps you have inside info. I have onlly the observation that WBBM and WSCR are still analog only and have been today.

They are probably co-located, but why would failure on one station necessitate taking HD down on the other AM?

I know exactly where each xmtr site is, they're close, but can't see any reason why a problem at one would affect the other.

If they've had a failure, ibiquity needs to set these things up to run like a RAID, or voting, best 2 out of 3, etc, or even
a hot backup that switches over in faults. Why wouldn't a huge station like WBBM 780 have a complete spare chassis laying
around? It's just market 3 and when someone has a printing press broken for as long as HD has been off
I have to say it's not being treated like it makes any money.

Why so much equipment failure? Not enough info for me. Hardware or software?
InquringMindsGotToKnow. Is running firmware becoming corrupt?
It's just fine when you re-load it Betcha it is. Isn't it?

There's no way to keep running firmware free from becoming corrupt, unless you are running your system off linux, qnx,
or some other system YOU control. Even then you need to run some kind of parity-checking core memory.
I laugh at radio tripping over the same mistakes I watched industry making back in 1982 or so.
You'll need to run 3, hand off daily @ 3AM, debug and check/reload each chassis daily or at some regular interval.
Or redesign it force reloads of critical executables at regular intervals. This is Radio, it can't just "wig out" out for no reason.
That's not dependable enough.

Born in the Steel city of Gary, raised the Brick City of Hobart, ValpoTech grad, steel mill tech, printing press tech and engineer,
nothing I've dealt with could afford to be down for so long. Once for the install, but seldom for repeat upgrades.
When software approaches the stabilty of steel, brick, steel, vacuum tubes, and physical electronics in general, I'll be impressed.
But it ain't happening on any one-legged approach.

Please don't tell me this runs in Microsoft environment, does it?

 

[KB1OKL]

WFAN (660) still runs IBOC. You may have been listening while they were broadcasting a spotrs event, at whic time they turn off the IBOC exciter. In NYC, only WABC has turned off their IBOC after sundown. WNYC is off post sundown too but that's due to antenna issues at their transmitter site. They diplex at the WMCA site. No matter because WNYC AM is available on their FM's HD 3 channel.

I haven't listened for a few days, but WFAN does run IBOC ususally completely obliterating WSM in the process which used to come in very well here in MA on car radios. Why an all sports station need to run IBOC is beyond me although sports talk probably doesn't so quite so shrill as music does in glorious IBOC.

 

[R.F. Burns]

Yes I have heard from inside. Failures occur and repairs are made. Now to the poster from Massachusettes, if you really love WSM and want to listen do so online for much better sound and no fading. This isn't 1927. Today we have computers and streaming audio. Who cares about hearing a 50 KW station in lousy mono AM when you can listen to a stereo high fidelity source.

 

[SML]

IBOC runs on a Linux platform. That being said, running the entire operation through the IBOC machine is a lousy idea. Unless you don't mind re-booting the station at least once or twice a month. Most of the installations I have built avoid running the analog stream through the IBOC computer, and the few that could not for whatever reason (mostly money) are off the air until a re-boot occurs after a hiccup.

Beyond that, the stuff mostly works. I look at it as an assurance of job security.

 

[SUPERCASTER]

Don Mussell said:

I look at it as an assurance of job security.

At least "job security" as an honest reason for playing with HD radio, and is something with which I can empathize. Thanks, Don, for not pitching the "HD/IBOC is perfection and is absolutely necessary to save radio, in spite of the 'fact' that radio is doing very well and doesn't need saving" snake oil.

 

[LinoNYC]

Tom, what would be "brave" about dropping a technology that atleast holds some hope of turning things around for AM.

That isn't brave, it's defeatist.

"Brave" is what they call a patient after all the treatment options have failed.

Lino

 

[Tom Wells]

Well, thank goodness they chose Linux. They know about computers.
I too rely on the "pretty good" level of quality and depandability for job security.
I just prefer the rock solid factor and dependable over the gee whiz factor.

As far as bravery, "Radio" was brave to try this method on AM.
It also is brave to test something and back out, deciding that it is a mis-step.

Think of how much effort could have been expended in making the FM HD that much better,
instead of the disappointing AM HD results.

Salvation for AM is not to be found in HD any more than wieight loss can be bought in a bottle.
It requires a slow undoing of the problem to be effective or meaningful in either case.

 

[calstymes]

Don Mussell piped in:

IBOC runs on a Linux platform. That being said, running the entire operation through the IBOC machine is a lousy idea. Unless you don't mind re-booting the station at least once or twice a month. Most of the installations I have built avoid running the analog stream through the IBOC computer, and the few that could not for whatever reason (mostly money) are off the air until a re-boot occurs after a hiccup.

It is such a great system that my sources tell me that a CBS radio engineer at one of its stations somewhere designed and constructed some kind of circuit board which senses when the Linux IBOC computer has stalled (or crashed) and reroutes the audio through another path so that analog listeners aren't greeted with dead air when that happens.

Yeap. We're making progress here.

LinoNYC then queried:

Tom, what would be "brave" about dropping a technology that at least holds some hope of turning things around for AM. (?)

That isn't brave, it's defeatist.

It holds some hope, eh? How much is "some"? Do you really think it is going to help the AM listening numbers go up substantially? Heck, it hardly even works for most people (except for those who have been lucky enough to listen in areas where there is little to no noise and/or had the skill and know-how to erect some sort of external antenna and even that is usually a crap shoot).

Never mind, Lino. I am wrong and you NYC broadcaster types are correct in your assessments of the great listening public. Their awareness of AM HD is increasing exponentially every day. Please don't bother replying to my tirade here. You win.

 

[LinoNYC]

quote author=Tom Wells
As far as bravery, "Radio" was brave to try this method on AM.
It also is brave to test something and back out, deciding that it is a mis-step.

Way too early to say that, like pronouncing AM stereo a failure in 1985.

Think of how much effort could have been expended in making the FM HD that much better,
instead of the disappointing AM HD results.

The two were conceived separately, but both had limited bandwidth to work with, both needed to have minimal effect on the analog carrier and were expected to have frequency response and dynamic range superior to the analog. The AM might fare better by using a different codec such as that used by Real Networks which works quite well in extreme low bitrates.

Salvation for AM is not to be found in HD any more than wieight loss can be bought in a bottle.
It requires a slow undoing of the problem to be effective or meaningful in either case.

"Salvation" for AM, if there is one will have to improve the audio.

I would personally rather have seen Motorola's Symphony system adopted but iboc has the important marketing advantage of being bundled with FM iboc. As with AM stereo and A-Max, single band solutions are probably doomed, there just isn't much interest in AM anymore.

Lino

[/quote]

 

[Play Freebird]

A truly "brave" move would be an industry-wide effort to reclaim abandoned low-band TV spectrum for digital use by AM stations, rather than continuing this medium-wave IBOC nonsense.

 

[KB1OKL]

Yes I have heard from inside. Failures occur and repairs are made. Now to the poster from Massachusettes, if you really love WSM and want to listen do so online for much better sound and no fading. This isn't 1927. Today we have computers and streaming audio. Who cares about hearing a 50 KW station in lousy mono AM when you can listen to a stereo high fidelity source.

RF, Well actually I kind of like mono, high fidelity is what does it for me. WSM sounded pretty good on my R-390's with their 8 and 16 Khz filters open and came in pretty fade free most of the time until WFAN in it's infinite wisdom turned on the old sideband obliterator for no apparent reason. I do listen to radio online quite a bit these days, problem is that doesn't help me in my car.

 

[R.F. Burns]

Broadcasting is a bussiness and commercial broadcasters are in business to sell commercial time. By a wide majority, I'd say 99% of the available audience would choose any FM stereo source over mono, frequency response limited, static prone AM any day. Don't believe me? Check out any car radio made over the past 20 years or so. How many AM presets do these car radios allow? How many FM presets? Why are there twice as many FM presets as AM? I'd also say that in your region of New England there might be five people trying to hear WSM on 650 Khz. In the scheme of things, the DX audience for WSM in the north east just doesn't matter. At one time I believe the Opry on WSM was sent out to a network of stations. If enough people in your area really cared about what WSM was playing one of your local stations would become a network affiliate. In my city of NY if you want to hear country music, you buy a HD radio and listen to WKTU's HD 2 channel. Face facts, DXing AM radio as it relates to the average listener in the north east of the US is a barely surviving hobby.

 

[calstymes]

R.F. Burns submitted:

By a wide majority, I'd say 99% of the available audience would choose any FM stereo source over mono, frequency response limited, static prone AM any day.

Mr. Burns, why do you hate AM so much? Do you not like News/Sports and Information formats? Every chance you get, you point out how bad AM is and how the FMs are walking away with all the awards in the broadcast radio popularity contest.

Can you get the same interesting and compelling formats on FM that you have on FM? No, you can't. So WHY do you feel that the AMs don't have a chance as we forge ahead into the 21st century?

Hey, you don't have to answer (after all, LinoNYC has established that I AM a crackpot!), but it has been awhile since I've needled you so I thought I'd take a poke.

 

[Savage]

A recurring - and fallacious - theme on this board is that "AM has no future without an improvement in audio quality, that audio is the dominant factor holding AM back, and that the only solution is IBOC."

These cascading fallacies are obvious. The AM transmission system suited listeners just fine for over 60 years, until another elitist group of self-appointed experts imposed the NRSC-2 squishathon on AM in 1990. You can mark whatever "decline and fall of AM" which exists from that point and the end of simulcast restrictions in 1986. The two combined to accelerate management greed and disinterest in AM which have largely produced the current problems the band faces.

What AM needs is not another expensive, undesired, technically-flawed "fix" declared from on high from pontificating self-interested industry and NAB suits. What AM needs is quality receivers with defensible bandwidth, anti-noise legislation with teeth affecting all RF-radiating devices, a new technical standard for AM broadcasting that has some relation to reality and better programming.

Not necessarily in that order....

"Another one bites the dust," thanks Freddie Mercury, as CCU shuts down WRVA nighttime IBOC because the digital saddlebags were obliterating co-owned WDFN Detroit.