-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
HD in Little Rock, Arkansas
- Thread starter Tom Wells
- Start date
Poor Radio Shack....on the bottom level of the mall. sorta set into a hillside, NO radios work. Cellphones won't even work in there,
according to the manager. They have no antenna on the roof, but somehow have cable for the TVs.
They had one Accurian HD radio left, on clearance at $99, the last one of a batch of 22.
People have bought them with no in-store auditioning.
Almost no one has asked about HD, the manager said they're just buying them as a "nice radio" and they're not getting any more of them.
The HD message is not creating buzz here, according the manager.
I'm having a weak moment, wondering if I should buy this technolgical marvel so I can have more input to add here...
I'm considering trading 2 days per diem money just for the laughs..
Only AM 920 here is in iboc, can't tell for the FM with modern step-tuned radios...If I had an analog radio, I could check the FM.
The clock radio in the hotel is too drifty and clumpy to check FMs for iboc.
according to the manager. They have no antenna on the roof, but somehow have cable for the TVs.
They had one Accurian HD radio left, on clearance at $99, the last one of a batch of 22.
People have bought them with no in-store auditioning.
Almost no one has asked about HD, the manager said they're just buying them as a "nice radio" and they're not getting any more of them.
The HD message is not creating buzz here, according the manager.
I'm having a weak moment, wondering if I should buy this technolgical marvel so I can have more input to add here...
I'm considering trading 2 days per diem money just for the laughs..
Only AM 920 here is in iboc, can't tell for the FM with modern step-tuned radios...If I had an analog radio, I could check the FM.
The clock radio in the hotel is too drifty and clumpy to check FMs for iboc.
If I could pick up an IBOC radio cheap and I don't consider 99.00 cheap for an IBOC radio, I'd get one just to check it out, but I'll wait until they're in the bargain bin at 14.95 which at the rate things are going probably won't be too long now especially with Congress finally investigating the mess at the FCC. Of course Congress hasn't done a hell of a lot lately besides bluster on various subjects. I may try to find one cheap somewhere though even though I've never seen one around here in any stores.
I did buy the radio and I'm boggling over its AM performance...
These notes on use as a station monitor for AM:
With strong signals, really low modulation gives wider AF bandwidth,
anything above about 25% modulation begins to hack off huge chunks of bandwith, going from around 7-8 khz DOWNWARD with increasing modulation to about 2khz on full throttle compressed AM.
It sounds bizarre. There's some kind of backwards-acting DSP for eventual AM audio bandwidth.
If I'm running the station to sound great for every hi-fi radio, this one sounds like music on hold with .25 sec delay, and
the wierdest AGC stab/pumping issue I've ever heard.
Then if I bring the mod down to 10-20% the bandwidth goes out to almost 8 khz again.
If it's on the threshold of wide AF, it sounds like a mis-tracking tape!
If mod is kept low to hear widerband on the Accurian, there still exists low-modulation, and you must turn the vol way up.
This does not negate the .25 sec delay or the really weird audio AGC.
Someone with audio processing experience, please help, if you've heard AM on an Accurian, where in the heck do you think this distortion is from?
It sounds like a leaky capacitor in an old cheap 5-tube AM table where it changed the AF amp bias and the sound got muzzy and clumpy.
Anything with a fast rhythm makes it pump hoplessly trying to hit the beat, missing every time, and taking one extra swing, bizzare arbitrary bandwidth changes along the way...wow..
This is with full RF output power to the pt 15 AM 1620, but decreasing RF also results in a smilar opening of bandwidth.
Generally sounds like it was run through a low-sample rate 1980's digital-analog bucket brigade delay.
More arbitrary BW changes....I look at the display, and it's saying Z?TX instead of AM 1620 !!! I love this!
I'll have a lot more to say later related to other behaviors and quirks.
These notes on use as a station monitor for AM:
With strong signals, really low modulation gives wider AF bandwidth,
anything above about 25% modulation begins to hack off huge chunks of bandwith, going from around 7-8 khz DOWNWARD with increasing modulation to about 2khz on full throttle compressed AM.
It sounds bizarre. There's some kind of backwards-acting DSP for eventual AM audio bandwidth.
If I'm running the station to sound great for every hi-fi radio, this one sounds like music on hold with .25 sec delay, and
the wierdest AGC stab/pumping issue I've ever heard.
Then if I bring the mod down to 10-20% the bandwidth goes out to almost 8 khz again.
If it's on the threshold of wide AF, it sounds like a mis-tracking tape!
If mod is kept low to hear widerband on the Accurian, there still exists low-modulation, and you must turn the vol way up.
This does not negate the .25 sec delay or the really weird audio AGC.
Someone with audio processing experience, please help, if you've heard AM on an Accurian, where in the heck do you think this distortion is from?
It sounds like a leaky capacitor in an old cheap 5-tube AM table where it changed the AF amp bias and the sound got muzzy and clumpy.
Anything with a fast rhythm makes it pump hoplessly trying to hit the beat, missing every time, and taking one extra swing, bizzare arbitrary bandwidth changes along the way...wow..
This is with full RF output power to the pt 15 AM 1620, but decreasing RF also results in a smilar opening of bandwidth.
Generally sounds like it was run through a low-sample rate 1980's digital-analog bucket brigade delay.
More arbitrary BW changes....I look at the display, and it's saying Z?TX instead of AM 1620 !!! I love this!
I'll have a lot more to say later related to other behaviors and quirks.
‘Sounds like a dyslexic designed the Accurian AM section... One would think that a high-RF fully-modulated incoming signal would cause the receiver to open-up and produce greater audio bandwidth. Instead, low RF level and miniscule mod is required for mid-fi listening ??? Did someone seat the DSP in the wrong direction :
I've yet to see an AM mod monitor hanging out at 25-percent ...Not even from my first peek at one in 1970 - and not even in Corbin, Kentucky!!!
Hey Bob Savage... Do you run that beautiful Nautel rig at 25% mod - or do you splurge, live dangerously, and crank-it... You’re shortchanging your 2-3 listeners with an RS HD Accurian if you do
Hey Tom... Did you save the receipt?
I've yet to see an AM mod monitor hanging out at 25-percent ...Not even from my first peek at one in 1970 - and not even in Corbin, Kentucky!!!
Hey Bob Savage... Do you run that beautiful Nautel rig at 25% mod - or do you splurge, live dangerously, and crank-it... You’re shortchanging your 2-3 listeners with an RS HD Accurian if you do
Hey Tom... Did you save the receipt?
Hey, Hippoman - great to hear from you again! You pegged it exactly: We run 20kw with no AGC whatsoever because we want that "pure" high-fidelity sound. Just a little light limiting, slowest possible attack/recovery, on our Gates Silver-Anniversary SA-39 limiter.
We do indeed keep the Nautel under 25%. We get a lot better tube life that way. ;D ;D ;D
We do indeed keep the Nautel under 25%. We get a lot better tube life that way. ;D ;D ;D
Darn, Bob! I thought you would have had a Gates Level Devil paired with that sluggish SA-39 limiter... But then, that would hold the mod a bit closer to a full 25%, and possibly allow a stray 30% peak to sneak through - drive the Accurian HD DSP crazy – and allow your 2-3 listeners who found that radio in the RS “blowout bin” to enjoy the weird “AGC stab/pumping issue” Tom observed. Your such a heartless man, Bob
This just keeps getting better every week... Unless you took out a large loan to rack-mount and pay for the license to light all those LEDs on a Harris “DeathStar” HD-AM PC ;D
This just keeps getting better every week... Unless you took out a large loan to rack-mount and pay for the license to light all those LEDs on a Harris “DeathStar” HD-AM PC ;D
Hey Hippo! Long time no.
I kept the receipt, but I think the yellow tag for clearance items is yellow as a warning for caution.
I don't think it's returnable.
Anyway, I plan to poke at it a while, and I have considered we should play a game of HD hot potato with it.
When I'm done with it soon, we'll propose some way to pass along the radio to the next "auditioner" who'd like
to witness this incredible AM reception. Maybe some informal bidding, or where each person along pays 20 dollars less.
Then we've each paid 20 dollars + shipping for the laughs. Maybe you have to pass it along.
But if you are holding it when AM iboc is put out of its misery, we get to razz you.
I tried this again to make sure I wasn't dreaming.
I'll start a thread specifically for Accurian comments.
Glad I got out of Little Rock on Thursday, the storms must have been awful.
Bob, I do hope you revert to full modulation at night, or nobody'd hear anything. The heck with the Accurian listeners.
I kept the receipt, but I think the yellow tag for clearance items is yellow as a warning for caution.
I don't think it's returnable.
Anyway, I plan to poke at it a while, and I have considered we should play a game of HD hot potato with it.
When I'm done with it soon, we'll propose some way to pass along the radio to the next "auditioner" who'd like
to witness this incredible AM reception. Maybe some informal bidding, or where each person along pays 20 dollars less.
Then we've each paid 20 dollars + shipping for the laughs. Maybe you have to pass it along.
But if you are holding it when AM iboc is put out of its misery, we get to razz you.
I tried this again to make sure I wasn't dreaming.
I'll start a thread specifically for Accurian comments.
Glad I got out of Little Rock on Thursday, the storms must have been awful.
Bob, I do hope you revert to full modulation at night, or nobody'd hear anything. The heck with the Accurian listeners.
Tom Wells said:
Don't worry. I'm part-owner and "Chief Technology Officer" of the AM in the next county over from WYSL and I can assure you Bob takes full advantage of his Nautel's analog modulation capability.
We both leave the local 50 kW IBOC station breathing the dust, the buzz, the hash, the "giant sucking sound" of wasted dollars -- or whatever you choose to call it.
I hope Bob is taking full advantage of that big/beautiful Nautel rig... I took advantage of my 1kw Gates MW-I and later a “Gates” series TX... And the market never recovered ‘Shame, we have to “dial-down” the mod to avoid the Accurian “HD wonder” from limiting our perceived frequency response falling below “music on hold” status ;D
‘Shame, we have to “dial-down” the mod to avoid the Accurian “HD wonder” from limiting our perceived frequency response falling below “music on hold” status ;DOh yeah, guys, I bought an Omnia 3a back in '06 and ran it experimentally on the 6 kHz setting for about two months, just before we powered up from 2.5kw DA-D to 20kw DA-D.
Before we cranked up the Big Rig, one Saturday I said, I just can't freakin' stand it any more. We opened up the Omnia back to 10 kHz. BOOM! The difference was unbelievable, and that's on supposedly massively bandwidth-restricted modern AM car radios with their claimed 2.5 kHz bandpass. It was like we did an eightfold power increase TWICE: first the audio improvement, then the actual power-up.
Sorry, IBOC apologists - the "proof of the pudding is in the eating." You've got to laugh at everyone who makes excuses for VOLUNTARILY making their station sound like a 1944 78rpm record. Suppose you ran a restaurant and downgraded the beef in the burgers to lower quality and loaded it up with salt and seasonings to compensate "because most people won't be able to tell the difference?" And then insisted it represented "progress??"
Many posters here are too young to remember, but I recall American electronic manufacturers bucking high fidelity in the postwar period citing "studies" showing that people rejected wider-response reproduction in blind auditory testing. Yep, radio, TV and phono makers insisted consumers preferred the muffled, mellow tone of 5-tube AM radios, 78 rpm records and intercarrier TV sound. Some time after these claims were widely published, somebody who actually knew what he was talking about and who was agenda-free revealed: test subjects rejected the 15 kHz wide program material because it was loaded with intermodulation distortion from the amp-speaker setup. Until that point intermod was believed to be undetectable to the human ear....which explains the prevalence at the time of single-ended audio systems like the aforementioned 5-tube radios.
Meanwhile US servicemen started coming back from England and Europe with London FFRR records and inexpensive British and German portables that outperformed American "consoles" costing ten times as much. The High-Fidelity craze that led to component audio, FM, Stereo tape and records, was on!
Interestingly: one of the most ardent anti-audio-improvement arguers back in the 1946-50 period was...CBS, whose honcho Bill Paley, hated technology because the company was the only radio company without a manufacturing arm. History repeats itself with IBOC.
Before we cranked up the Big Rig, one Saturday I said, I just can't freakin' stand it any more. We opened up the Omnia back to 10 kHz. BOOM! The difference was unbelievable, and that's on supposedly massively bandwidth-restricted modern AM car radios with their claimed 2.5 kHz bandpass. It was like we did an eightfold power increase TWICE: first the audio improvement, then the actual power-up.
Sorry, IBOC apologists - the "proof of the pudding is in the eating." You've got to laugh at everyone who makes excuses for VOLUNTARILY making their station sound like a 1944 78rpm record. Suppose you ran a restaurant and downgraded the beef in the burgers to lower quality and loaded it up with salt and seasonings to compensate "because most people won't be able to tell the difference?" And then insisted it represented "progress??"
Many posters here are too young to remember, but I recall American electronic manufacturers bucking high fidelity in the postwar period citing "studies" showing that people rejected wider-response reproduction in blind auditory testing. Yep, radio, TV and phono makers insisted consumers preferred the muffled, mellow tone of 5-tube AM radios, 78 rpm records and intercarrier TV sound. Some time after these claims were widely published, somebody who actually knew what he was talking about and who was agenda-free revealed: test subjects rejected the 15 kHz wide program material because it was loaded with intermodulation distortion from the amp-speaker setup. Until that point intermod was believed to be undetectable to the human ear....which explains the prevalence at the time of single-ended audio systems like the aforementioned 5-tube radios.
Meanwhile US servicemen started coming back from England and Europe with London FFRR records and inexpensive British and German portables that outperformed American "consoles" costing ten times as much. The High-Fidelity craze that led to component audio, FM, Stereo tape and records, was on!
Interestingly: one of the most ardent anti-audio-improvement arguers back in the 1946-50 period was...CBS, whose honcho Bill Paley, hated technology because the company was the only radio company without a manufacturing arm. History repeats itself with IBOC.
BTW Freebird, I congratulate you on your station's sound as well. I'm frequently over in your County calling on a few people and I always tune in. I assume you're running an Optimod? Did you guys get a Gates Two?
I think it would be fun to play Hot Potato with the Accurian (or maybe, more appropriately, "Beat The Bomb.") But I wonder if we need a control here? We're performing these tests on a single model. Is there any other visitor to this board who has had a similar experience with an Accurian on AM?
I can't help but wonder if Tom's Accurian has a problem. Sounds like a badly malfunctioning AGC/AVC circuit to me. Could they have really designed a radio to perform like that??
I think it would be fun to play Hot Potato with the Accurian (or maybe, more appropriately, "Beat The Bomb.") But I wonder if we need a control here? We're performing these tests on a single model. Is there any other visitor to this board who has had a similar experience with an Accurian on AM?
I can't help but wonder if Tom's Accurian has a problem. Sounds like a badly malfunctioning AGC/AVC circuit to me. Could they have really designed a radio to perform like that??
Savage said:
My Accurian doesn't perform like that. It's not a great AM radio - I'd much rather turn on the 30-year-old Radio Shack TRF that sits right next to it in the living room - but it's not nearly as bad as the one we're hearing about here from Tom. Perhaps RS was having the same quality-control problems that seem to have yielded up a few decent HD Recepters and a whole bunch of dogs. (The one I had was a dog; I don't have it any longer.)
Tell you what, Bob - next time Freebird's in town, let's all meet over Wahlburgers, I'll bring my Accurian, and we can play. I think I can still afford the gas for the drive down to Avon...
That's a deal. I understand that Cook Oil has "low-interest rate financing" on fillups, and it's right next to Wahl's. I've got a tour of Radio Ranch available for Freebird too!
Any TRF radio is gonna sound great - you're talking about wide-open bandwidth with that circuit. Use of a TRF radio to listen to any AM operating IBOC would NOT be recommended.
Any TRF radio is gonna sound great - you're talking about wide-open bandwidth with that circuit. Use of a TRF radio to listen to any AM operating IBOC would NOT be recommended.
Sounds good, I'll bring my Accurian so you can compare notes. The AM performance has many shortcomings, but I've found it's an acceptable receiver when used with an outdoor antenna (K9AY loop, switchable in six directions.) But on the supplied loop, it wouldn't decode WHAM's digital signal anywhere I tried it in Wyoming County.
You’ll get my thumb-up on the Radio Shack TRF [it only offered the AM band] - It was my second portable radio [summer 1970] after this little RCA gem: http://www.transistor.org/collection/rca/rca18.html which was a Christmas gift to me in 1965 [my first radio]. Back then, $35 was a lot to spend on ONE holiday present for a third-grader. Dad had a new job, a new mortgage, and money was tight... I asked for a six-transistor pocket model – they sprung for the nine-transistor upgrade. In 1973, I received a really-nice Panasonic AM/FM portable in the $50 class. It was the first to incorporate IC/FET circuits - had a four-inch speaker, bass boost, AND a signal strength meter. The Radio Shack TRS and Panasonic sounded very-fine on AM... I actually used them as a reference in 1990 when I was setting up our new NRSC-compliant Optimod on my first AM station. Both are still in working condition today! Every time I see these radios, I fondly recall my nights with Super ‘CFL, WLS, Scott Carpenter on 1050-CHUM, and Jackson Armstrong on class-3 skip from 13-Q.
AM radio is simply TOO GOOD to have fallen onto “life support”. It’s a natural resource and needs to be bolstered – IBOC IS NOT the bolster! Interestingly, I have this sense that there are MORE “decent quality” AM receivers available today than in 1995. I can easily recite no-less than a dozen affordable radios John ‘n Jane can buy today that offer good AM performance. Furthermore, remaining AM broadcasters seem to be more focused toward an exemplarily technical facility – offering listeners the highest possible audio quality... They have seized upon technology and put it on their side. They also offer program options that many FM stations have cast-aside because of their mere real estate value. I currently work in market research, and have floated the term “AM radio” before a bunch of late-30 and 40-somethings [just for fun]... I DID NOT detect any indignation toward the AM service from that group. Rather, they asked how they could reduce the noise and enjoy their local station!
I do not believe that ANYONE here wants our AM industry to “go away”. EVERY aspect of the public interest would be served by a healthy and robust AM band. Don’t count this so-called “prehistoric animal” out... There is a value in perseverance and “history”! There is VALUE in AM RADIO!
AM radio is simply TOO GOOD to have fallen onto “life support”. It’s a natural resource and needs to be bolstered – IBOC IS NOT the bolster! Interestingly, I have this sense that there are MORE “decent quality” AM receivers available today than in 1995. I can easily recite no-less than a dozen affordable radios John ‘n Jane can buy today that offer good AM performance. Furthermore, remaining AM broadcasters seem to be more focused toward an exemplarily technical facility – offering listeners the highest possible audio quality... They have seized upon technology and put it on their side. They also offer program options that many FM stations have cast-aside because of their mere real estate value. I currently work in market research, and have floated the term “AM radio” before a bunch of late-30 and 40-somethings [just for fun]... I DID NOT detect any indignation toward the AM service from that group. Rather, they asked how they could reduce the noise and enjoy their local station!
I do not believe that ANYONE here wants our AM industry to “go away”. EVERY aspect of the public interest would be served by a healthy and robust AM band. Don’t count this so-called “prehistoric animal” out... There is a value in perseverance and “history”! There is VALUE in AM RADIO!
Amen Brother Hippo! I have NEVER (41+ years in the profession
a. Witnessed the often-cited-here disdain for AM radio from members of the general public. The worst that can be said for feedback is "lack of awareness," mostly among younger demos, who DO express disdain for the typical music formats available on FM (bland, repetitive, uninteresting, etc., hence their gravitation to iPods, Internet, et al.)
b. Had a listener or advertiser ask about HD Radio (when are you guys going HD?)
c. Had a listener or advertiser or potential advertiser say, I would consume/buy your product if AM only sounded better.
I HAVE, on the other hand, had complaints about (a) sideband hiss heard on HD-AM stations, (b) encoding delay on HD-AM stations that screws up use of the station to hear live play-by-play, (c) incessant, irritating, stupid HD Radio promos.
So the box score: AM analog radio 3, HD zip. Time for the seventh inning stretch....
THERE. That feels better. A footnote to my audio-history ramblings above: the first 45 rpm releases by RCA, dating to about 1952, were usually limited in frequency response to about 5000 Hz, as opposed to early LPs which ranged to 12 kHz or beyond. In 1949, the time of the 45's debut, 90% of record purchases were the "standard" 78 rpm discs and the fear was if the 45s sounded TOO good they'd kill the existing market.
Plus the little 45-J series radio attachment players had very light, short tonearms with crystal pickups which wouldn't track very wide-response grooves too well. Plus - SAY IT WITH ME - most of the little Bakelite players were plugged into PHONO jacks on AM RADIOS WHERE NOBODY WOULD HEAR THE WIDER RESPONSE ANYWAY.....
a. Witnessed the often-cited-here disdain for AM radio from members of the general public. The worst that can be said for feedback is "lack of awareness," mostly among younger demos, who DO express disdain for the typical music formats available on FM (bland, repetitive, uninteresting, etc., hence their gravitation to iPods, Internet, et al.)
b. Had a listener or advertiser ask about HD Radio (when are you guys going HD?)
c. Had a listener or advertiser or potential advertiser say, I would consume/buy your product if AM only sounded better.
I HAVE, on the other hand, had complaints about (a) sideband hiss heard on HD-AM stations, (b) encoding delay on HD-AM stations that screws up use of the station to hear live play-by-play, (c) incessant, irritating, stupid HD Radio promos.
So the box score: AM analog radio 3, HD zip. Time for the seventh inning stretch....
THERE. That feels better. A footnote to my audio-history ramblings above: the first 45 rpm releases by RCA, dating to about 1952, were usually limited in frequency response to about 5000 Hz, as opposed to early LPs which ranged to 12 kHz or beyond. In 1949, the time of the 45's debut, 90% of record purchases were the "standard" 78 rpm discs and the fear was if the 45s sounded TOO good they'd kill the existing market.
Plus the little 45-J series radio attachment players had very light, short tonearms with crystal pickups which wouldn't track very wide-response grooves too well. Plus - SAY IT WITH ME - most of the little Bakelite players were plugged into PHONO jacks on AM RADIOS WHERE NOBODY WOULD HEAR THE WIDER RESPONSE ANYWAY.....
- Status