Is a Translator in KBME 790AM's Future?

[2Speakers]

I've never claimed radio was irrelevant. I've said it's slowly headed to irrelevancy, but it'll be years before it gets to that point. As of today, it still serves a purpose in emergency situations and it's low power consumption makes it a great alternative to over-the-top media.

What will always be irrelevant is HD Radio. It just never took off and will probably go the same way AM Stereo did. How many AM stations are left that still broadcast IBOC digital radio? It seems like almost half of the FM HD subchannels in this market are used to feed translators. And those subchannels that do have a neat or unique format have no fallback in spotty areas. Ever tried HD Radio in Conroe? And forget about HD Radio in rimshot stations, they have more dropouts than inner city high schools.

Then there is the issue with some broadcasters completely neglecting or having issues with IBOC digital radio. I remember a few stations always had issues with their audio not being properly delayed so anytime you hit an area with constant dropouts, well...it was annoying. Then there were a few stations who had better audio quality over analog than they did over HD (*cough* *cough* Radio One...Is that still the case? Or have they fixed that issue?)

HD Radio is just a very unreliable medium that never took off in an already competitive market. You said it yourself; many of these media companies are struggling to turn a profit, so how is potentially spreading listeners even more throughout HD subchannels helpful? It's destined to fail. I wouldn't be surprised if this technology is dropped by broadcasters in the next 10 years or subchannels that don't feed translators go away.

You should try 92.9, 95.7, 96.5, 100.3 or 101.1 up there in Conroe. They're all running elevated HD power, and work reliably for me there. 97.9 and 104.1 are joining the club shortly, as they have new transmitters on order.

You can hear 610 and 790 a lot better on 100.3 and 93.7 after dark in Conroe.

It isn't much of an investment these days to add HD to a new transmitter order, so there's just about zero chance any of the big companies will be shutting it down. There's absolutely no reason to do so, unless you want to treat your listeners in HD equipped cars to multipath and a far less compelling program associated data experience, that's less like the streaming services and more like 80s tech.

 

[tb_]

You should try 92.9, 95.7, 96.5, 100.3 or 101.1 up there in Conroe. They're all running elevated HD power, and work reliably for me there.

Can confirm - I was able to take KILT-HD3 as far north as New Waverly without any drop in signal.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Ever tried HD Radio in Conroe?

But that is beam tilt, not the fault of HD radio. Service for some is considered more important than service for others. Conroe- didn't make the cut. So Houston radio in general sucks coverage wise. Get down close to the lake, and most Houston stations are seriously degraded even in analog.

 

[The Rimshot]

You can hear 610 and 790 a lot better on 100.3 and 93.7 after dark in Conroe.

Is there a map that would show KQBT-HD2's coverage area?

Would like to see if it covers cities southwest of Houston like Rosenberg, Kendleton, Beasley, Wharton, etc. These are cities KBME fails to reach during nighttime coverage.

Also, Katy isn't covered by KBME during nighttime coverage. What a shame Astros fans driving to HEB after dark are struggling to pull in an MLB team 45 minutes away.

 

[tb_]

Is there a map that would show KQBT-HD2's coverage area?

Would like to see if it covers cities southwest of Houston like Rosenberg, Kendleton, Beasley, Wharton, etc. These are cities KBME fails to reach during nighttime coverage.

Also, Katy isn't covered by KBME during nighttime coverage. What a shame Astros fans driving to HEB after dark are struggling to pull in an MLB team 45 minutes away.

Those cities are all in KQBT's 60dBu contour, reception of the HD subchannel should be very good.

 

[The Rimshot]

Those cities are all in KQBT's 60dBu contour, reception of the HD subchannel should be very good.

I remember listening to KBPA-HD2 in my car when I lived in Austin in 2011, I could pull it in as far south as Schertz on I-35.

I wonder if, based on the KQBT map above, if I could expect the signal to fade inside the red (local) circle, or perhaps the pink (marginal) circle, or maybe in between those two circles. Tough to say.

 

[stevenNOLA]

It's likely solid inside the red circle and may occasionally drop out if you are outside of it. Co-channel and adjacent channel interference are big factors.

 

[The Rimshot]

I believe K236AR is the strongest translator in Houston and would cover the biggest gaps that KBME's nighttime coverage is missing (Katy, Rosenburg, Wharton, etc).

KBME would have to acquire it from KBRZ-AM, but that shouldn't be a problem.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I remember listening to KBPA-HD2 in my car when I lived in Austin in 2011, I could pull it in as far south as Schertz on I-35.

I wonder if, based on the KQBT map above, if I could expect the signal to fade inside the red (local) circle, or perhaps the pink (marginal) circle, or maybe in between those two circles. Tough to say.

But KBPA quite obviously doesn't emply beam tilt, because they are after the Austin market, much of which is over hills from their tower. That is why I occasionally got them in HD on the West side of Houston in my car, prior to Cypress radio signing on. I am surprised you didn't get them farther South - much farther South. I've personally done 70 mile HD reception in the car to 50% dropout, other people report 84 miles at a fixed location using a dipole. But that isn't behind an obstruction, like the elevation in Conroe near the lake.

A lot of people use these circles like they are cliffs or brick walls, "oops you are a mile outside the 60 dB contour, no way you can get the station or advertisers care for you". Bovine excretion! The real signal strength probably resembles confetti dropped on the floor, with micro pockets of strong signal and dropouts all over the map. I've seen the screen capture of the program people use to shoe-horn in allotments, it takes terrain and obstructions into account and paints a really realistic picture of the signal in the near fringes as it encounters more and more obstructions. If you use those circles at all - you would be well advised to think of them as statistical averages, the median of a bell curve where a given strength is the median point and 2 or 3 sigmas off is commonplace.

 

[The Rimshot]

But KBPA quite obviously doesn't emply beam tilt, because they are after the Austin market, much of which is over hills from their tower. That is why I occasionally got them in HD on the West side of Houston in my car, prior to Cypress radio signing on. I am surprised you didn't get them farther South - much farther South. I've personally done 70 mile HD reception in the car to 50% dropout, other people report 84 miles at a fixed location using a dipole. But that isn't behind an obstruction, like the elevation in Conroe near the lake.

I can get KBPA much farther south, sure. I've heard KBPA as far south as Pearsall without static.

However, I'm speaking about KBPA HD2, which has one-tenth of the reception KBPA HD1 does.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I can get KBPA much farther south, sure. I've heard KBPA as far south as Pearsall without static.

However, I'm speaking about KBPA HD2, which has one-tenth of the reception KBPA HD1 does.

So was I - there are little nodes all over West Houston where Cypress radio is absent, and KBPA comes right in. I parked under a tree at my last job - KBPA in perfect HD, including HD-2. That has to be 150 miles. Drive up and down the Grand Parkway prior to Cypress radio, KBPA in HD about half the time. It is a monster!

 

[The Rimshot]

So was I - there are little nodes all over West Houston where Cypress radio is absent, and KBPA comes right in. I parked under a tree at my last job - KBPA in perfect HD, including HD-2. That has to be 150 miles.

Wow so you were able to Mega HD2 in Cypress? That's awesome!

I was able to pick up MegaHD2 in Boerne, I thought that was awesome. I could pull in KBPA 103.5 in Boerne with a little static because of K279AB, but HD2 was hit and miss (mostly miss).

 

[ContinuousWave]

KRBE will not increase it's HD power due to new transmitter...not sure where you got that info but it's incorrect. It will be low level injection same polarity instead of high level cross pol (LH CP) as is now..but licensed power will remain the same

 

[davideduardo]

But KBPA quite obviously doesn't emply beam tilt, because they are after the Austin market, much of which is over hills from their tower.

The "Austin Market" is right at the foot of the KBPA tower. Hays County is part of the Austin MSA, and the KBPA 70 dbu gets all the way up into Williamson County. The 60 dbu essentially covers the whole market which is five counties.

Beam tilt is used when a site is quite high over the immediate market area... a tall tower or building in the center of a market, or a mountain or hilltop that has great elevation over the targeted population. KBPA has neither situation.

A lot of people use these circles like they are cliffs or brick walls, "oops you are a mile outside the 60 dB contour, no way you can get the station or advertisers care for you". Bovine excretion! The real signal strength probably resembles confetti dropped on the floor, with micro pockets of strong signal and dropouts all over the map.

That's why more precise evaluations are done with Longley-Rice projections. You can do your own at http://lrcov.crc.ca/main/

I've seen the screen capture of the program people use to shoe-horn in allotments, it takes terrain and obstructions into account and paints a really realistic picture of the signal in the near fringes as it encounters more and more obstructions. If you use those circles at all - you would be well advised to think of them as statistical averages, the median of a bell curve where a given strength is the median point and 2 or 3 sigmas off is commonplace.

We already knew that. However, as general indicators of where a station will get most of its listening, the predicted contour method is quite sufficient. The fact is, we know what kind of signal is needed to get ratings response, so discussing fringe listening where essentially no ratings are generated is a waste of time.

 

[2Speakers]

KRBE will not increase it's HD power due to new transmitter...not sure where you got that info but it's incorrect. It will be low level injection same polarity instead of high level cross pol (LH CP) as is now..but licensed power will remain the same

That would be surprising.

Every station on the Senior Road Tower has the option of increasing HD power to -14 dBc by going low level combined.

All of the CBS stations and KKBQ have already increased to -14 dBc in this manner.

Since the KRBE transmitter on order has the same capabilities as the new KKBQ transmitter, opting at stay at -20 dBc would be a curious choice. The transmitter itself would certainly be more than capable of higher power HD operation.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

That would be surprising.

Every station on the Senior Road Tower has the option of increasing HD power to -14 dBc by going low level combined.

All of the CBS stations and KKBQ have already increased to -14 dBc in this manner.

Since the KRBE transmitter on order has the same capabilities as the new KKBQ transmitter, opting at stay at -20 dBc would be a curious choice. The transmitter itself would certainly be more than capable of higher power HD operation.

Maybe they are concerned about self-jamming, a problem well documented by listeners across the country - at least those who have good enough equipment to notice it. There is no advantage to degrading the audio quality of the main channel where the money is just to support a little known or listened to format on an HD-2 channel.

 

[2Speakers]

Maybe they are concerned about self-jamming, a problem well documented by listeners across the country - at least those who have good enough equipment to notice it. There is no advantage to degrading the audio quality of the main channel where the money is just to support a little known or listened to format on an HD-2 channel.

About 16% of the cars on the road in the Houston market now have HD Radio. Those cars are primarily owned by listeners with qualitative profiles advertisers would like to have.

I'd be a lot more concerned with the constant switching from analog to HD in The Woodlands and Conroe than purported "self jamming." A very minor increase in the analog noise floor - completely undetectable with modulation - is a lot less annoying than constant HD to analog switching.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

That's why more precise evaluations are done with Longley-Rice projections. You can do your own at http://lrcov.crc.ca/main/

That antenna location is still far South of that large hill in the South part of Austin. Between Oltorf and Riverside is an elevation change of several hundred feet - I lived there for a year and a half. They don't call it "Travis HEIGHTS" for nothing. In fact, I had much better reception of Dallas FM than I did of San Antonio FM at the time, I was in the shadow of that hill. There is no way the KPBA tower can possibly bridge that elevation change even given its location.

Thank you for that link! While I am waiting for them to send an email so I can confirm my registration - the best I can do is call your attention to the simple-minded maps and look at that elevation change by zooming in. It really doesn't show topographical lines, but the view from the top of the hill looking down into downtown puts you so high you can see the roofs of downtown skyscrapers. KBPA - has a problem. Large parts of Austin are below the horizon. I drive up there often. FM is the worst mess - in a one mile stretch I can get the radio switching from Spanish language KLOL to classical WRR to oldies KONO. There are parts of Austin where I don't get KBPA as well as I used to in Cypress. Especially when I go up to Cedar Park, down to Lake Travis, etc. That real estimation of their coverage is going to be interesting, but not nearly as interesting as looking at 101.1 in the Austin area! If I had a house up there, I am convinced I could get a good fraction of Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio FM stations just by rotating the antenna!

Back to the subject of fringe ratings. Houston, you got a problem. The Woodlands and Conroe. Populations booming, population density heading in the worst possible direction for the Senior road installation. Dallas has the same thing, McKinney, Frisco, etc. Austin is doing it too - very upscale affluent young demographic going farther and farther up 183 into hilly terrain. May not be as bad for some of their stations, but for KPBA stuck way down South - not good. There seems to be a danger in these centralized antenna farms constructed decades ago - they picked cheap land near population density decades ago, and if the city grows in a different direction, you are talking about way off on the horizon - i.e. you better not beam tilt! Conroe - definitely not reached well. The Woodlands, not sure but I bet there are some neighborhoods up there that are suffering for signal if everything is beamed downtown Houston. It may be dense, but what about the demographics? What makes sense for hip-hop reaching the early wards won't make sense for country or top-40 because their listeners aren't in those wards. Their listeners are in Katy, Cypress, Spring, the Woodlands, Conroe, etc. There are no "local" stations up there. They are Houston market through and through. But in the oldies days of 107.5 - no go at my sister-in-laws lake house. KLUV from Dallas - solid and clear on a cheap clock radio. So that is where she tunes. And tunes it in her car. If the signal hits the ground before getting there - oh well.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

About 16% of the cars on the road in the Houston market now have HD Radio. Those cars are primarily owned by listeners with qualitative profiles advertisers would like to have.

I'd be a lot more concerned with the constant switching from analog to HD in The Woodlands and Conroe than purported "self jamming." A very minor increase in the analog noise floor - completely undetectable with modulation - is a lot less annoying than constant HD to analog switching.

Oh its very real - just google it for numerous examples, some with very good quality youtube clips of the effect. No purported about it. Its very real. But I agree constant switching back and forth is annoying. 106.9 / 107.5 alternate frequencies 0.2 seconds apart is almost unlistenable in Cypress, where they are about the same strength. My wife had me looking in the menu of her car radio when I explained it - hoping I could switch the feature off. I couldn't. Simple-minded Delco. Analog to HD isn't bad as long as they are synchronized - the 91.7 debacle last year comes to mind. The station was unlistenable, I had to program my car radio back to the Sugarland translator / KSBJ HD-2 to listen. HD-2 dropouts to dead silence are even worse. I am still not convinced that a paltry 6 dB will make any difference when signal strengths fluctuate by decades. Those overpasses on I-10 and 290, those dips in the road near Cypress Creek and every other creek in town, etc. 6 dB won't help much. I think there are some stations already doing it - and it doesn't help them in the scenarios I described. Lest you think those are just one radio or isolated incidents - I drive my daughter's HD equipped car often. Its in the shop way too much. And every driver has to exit I-10 and 290 somewhere. Half will go under the bridge and lose HD, maybe for a minute or more depending on the light. They are going to hit the button in seconds when it drops. 6 dB - is that all they got? It makes me laugh!

 

[2Speakers]

Oh its very real - just google it for numerous examples, some with very good quality youtube clips of the effect. No purported about it. Its very real. But I agree constant switching back and forth is annoying. 106.9 / 107.5 alternate frequencies 0.2 seconds apart is almost unlistenable in Cypress, where they are about the same strength. My wife had me looking in the menu of her car radio when I explained it - hoping I could switch the feature off. I couldn't. Simple-minded Delco. Analog to HD isn't bad as long as they are synchronized - the 91.7 debacle last year comes to mind. The station was unlistenable, I had to program my car radio back to the Sugarland translator / KSBJ HD-2 to listen. HD-2 dropouts to dead silence are even worse. I am still not convinced that a paltry 6 dB will make any difference when signal strengths fluctuate by decades. Those overpasses on I-10 and 290, those dips in the road near Cypress Creek and every other creek in town, etc. 6 dB won't help much. I think there are some stations already doing it - and it doesn't help them in the scenarios I described. Lest you think those are just one radio or isolated incidents - I drive my daughter's HD equipped car often. Its in the shop way too much. And every driver has to exit I-10 and 290 somewhere. Half will go under the bridge and lose HD, maybe for a minute or more depending on the light. They are going to hit the button in seconds when it drops. 6 dB - is that all they got? It makes me laugh!

6dB equates to about 4X ERP in this case. That's 4X as much power.

I have HD in my vehicle, and don't experience dropouts for any of the stations running elevated HD power, pretty much anywhere in the metro. The stations still running -20 dBc on first generation hardware? Yes, they have a very real problem with dropouts, but that will improve as they replace the first generation boxes, whether they increase power or not. The first generation equipment from one manufacturer in particular produces defective HD Radio signals at any power level.

I personally don't find much of the negative info on the web about HD Radio to be very credible. Most of it appears to have been posted by a small, but very vocal group of nut jobs. One guy in particular appears to have made it his sole mission in life.