HD = Hearing Distortion

[Radknowski]

Citadel engineer Martin Stabbert confirms to R&R that he sent out a memo to his company’s AM stations asking them to suspend nighttime HD Radio broadcasting pending further work with the technology’s developer, iBiquity, in an effort to reduce adjacent channel interference.

Looks like alls not perfect in the land of Ibiquity as Citadel-ABC flamethrowers WABC 770 and WJR 760 become hash-throwers after sunset and garbling each other's signals. How's this for iBiquity spinning the Citadel advisory:

"Since September 14, the vast majority of the feedback we’ve received on AM nighttime broadcasting has been positive. We understand Citadel’s caution and are working with them to understand what they are experiencing and to address their concerns."

Brings to mind Savage's HD post from a few weeks back.

 

[JohnW]

I realize that by having an interest in nighttime AM, I have identified myself as a Luddite to just about all of the current world. I live in Rochester and have a son living in Pittsburgh. I listen to KDKA to see what's going on in his town, but thanks to WBZ, KDKA is underneath the hash. So is WYSL. Laugh if you will, but occasionally I like to hear the trucker show on WWVA for something different. WHAM obliterates it now. It's as if all of those stations who have the IBOC on at night are giving everyone who wants to listen to something else the finger.

 

[Tom Wells]

Having described myself as a luddite or "half-amish" for quite few years, there is no shame in rejecting new things which
deserve rejection. There is no shame in pointing out faults and flaws honestly.
The most successful feature of AM HD radio is its ability to jam the life out the host analog and take out 4 other available choices!
There! Now you'll have to listen to our signal with hissing! Don't you DARE listen to Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Boston, New York or Chicago!
You live in Rochester, and listening to out-of-market signals is STEALING money from some broadcaster in Rochester. How dare you!
Get back in your cage, and do not tell others that AM radio signals travel long distances at night.
All the people who knew about this and used radio this way were supposed to have died a long time ago.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Let AM be AM

To coin a phrase from "The West Wing" "Let Bartlett be Bartlett" station owners should let AM be AM.

HD or not you're probably not going to get the FM listeners many of whom have grown up listening to FM over to the AM band. With that in mind try not to tick off the listners you already have by making the AM band a noise fest at night. Oh and 50KW clears....learn how to make money serviing a regional instead of local audience or sell the station to someone who knows how to do it.

End of rant

 

[jefflaurence]

HAAAA That's hilarious Tom..and Mike..you are so right. These can be valuable media outlets, and it sure seems like "somebody" is trying to crush it out. Now the question..WHO is poised to make money after AM dies off completely? Why can't stations like Bob's WYSL, and scores of other smaller powered outlets be protected especially at night?..and is ANYONE actually listening to digital AM in any sized market?


I'll hang up and listen...

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

As I've posted before, there's nothing like scanning the AM band late at night when you're 400 miles from home, driving up Rt 86 and connecting with that big signal that brings you closer to home. What's going on with HD on AM does not seem to benefit the long term interests of AM radio and its operators, large or small (but especially small operators.) iBiquity's written response to Citadel's actions seems curious at best. When I want to hear AM 700 WLW, I'm more concerned about programming content and to some extent, technical clarity, more than "high fidelity."

 

[Mark Giardina]

HD is turning out to be the VD of AM radio. Let's hope the doctor can cure the disease before it becomes fatal.

 

[Bob1370]

HD is a wonderful thing in the envioronments where it works from a technical standpoint. It's been proven to work well in the FM band, allowing stations to offer multiple programming streams with high quality stereo sound. (My own company offers three different digital program streams within its FM signal's spectrum footprint.)
AM? A different story because the creators of AM HD haven't mastered the concept of making two different transmission modes coexist within the same spectrum space--so they allow a station's spectrum footprint to spread out. And we're not talking about a second program stream, just a digital simulcast of what you get on analog AM.
If they really wanted to enhance AM sound and make it more competitive with FM, they should have just told AM operators, "Go back to transmitting 30 hZ to 15 kHz audio, let your modulation run hot to 125% positive peaks, and bring back C-Quam." In other words, do what we were doing 25 years ago. Sounds better. uses less spectrum than IBOC HD.

 

[SirRoxalot]

If they really wanted to enhance AM sound and make it more competitive with FM, they should have just told AM operators, "Go back to transmitting 30 hZ to 15 kHz audio, let your modulation run hot to 125% positive peaks, and bring back C-Quam." In other words, do what we were doing 25 years ago. Sounds better. uses less spectrum than IBOC HD.

Let me add just one more thing to these words of wisdom:

AM digital needs to be in a separate band. That's the only answer.

 

[webcastboy]

I listen to KDKA to see what's going on in his town, but thanks to WBZ, KDKA is underneath the hash.

I think this may be heavily location-dependent. I've been driving back and forth from Rochester to Boston on I-90 a lot lately. Naturally, WBZ comes in loud and clear for most of the trip...the HD even buffers in and I hear improved audio here and there (the skywave isn't strong enough to make it steady, though...not until you get into the Boston area itself does that happen).

However, until about Springfield or so, I can listen to KDKA fairly well after dark in my car. It's not great, but it's perfectly listenable. There are places where it's not listenable at all, though, so it's possible you're just unlucky enough to be in a place that doesn't get a good enough skywave bounce (or in a place where WBZ gets too much of a skywave bounce). Skywave is a funny thing; I can hear WHAM better in the Metrowest suburbs of Boston than I can for most of the Thruway :-\ Also FWIW, I recently put a ground noise filter and a better radio in my car and it made a world of difference; the OEM car radio had TERRIBLE AM reception compared to the HD tuner I've got in there now.

In other words, do what we were doing 25 years ago.

Engineeringly you might be right, Bob...but how many AM stations were on the air 25 years ago vs. today? Are you willing to sacrifice half the AM band to achieve technical clarity? That would seem to run counter to the spirit of the localism initiative so many are championing these days, wouldn't it?

 

[dampier]

HD, especially on AM, is the biggest boondoggle there ever was. Digital Radio Mondiale, which is being developed for shortwave and promised to be the next savior for that band (just like we used to say about SSB to end fading distortion and save shortwave broadcasting), has more promise than this mess-of-a-standard, and DRM is going nowhere either. And where is the clamor for this coming from? Certainly not from listeners. I'm still not convinced most people are going to care about IBOC on FM either.

HD Radio is hell on earth come sundown, especially in the 700s on the dial. Hash thrown 10khz either side, coming from adjacent stations, just raises the noise floor on all of them.

Now imagine this up and down the dial. Yay... back to my XM I guess.

Speaking of WHAM... outside of our area listeners have been reporting to Glenn Hauser a 1k heterodyne coming from some sort of jamming operation running on 1181. Since Radio Marti has been gunning for a double power increase on 1180, Cuba is responding in kind with some high-power return fire. I'm not noticing anything locally, even in the background, but others have.