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KFI fired up IBOC (HD) today.
- Thread starter lalf
- Start date
I hope you're kidding about the huge part.... 
Anyway this is bad news for signal quality for 99% of the listeners. It must have been turned on after lunch sometime. That ugly hash sure sucks. Why bother?
OTOH in the last month or so, KABC turned their IBOC off. IBOC compromises too much of the AM signal fidelity in order to satisfy the 1% or 2% who have HD radios. :
Anyway this is bad news for signal quality for 99% of the listeners. It must have been turned on after lunch sometime. That ugly hash sure sucks. Why bother?
OTOH in the last month or so, KABC turned their IBOC off. IBOC compromises too much of the AM signal fidelity in order to satisfy the 1% or 2% who have HD radios. :
SuperRadioFan said:I hope you're kidding about the huge part....
Anyway this is bad news for signal quality for 99% of the listeners. It must have been turned on after lunch sometime. That ugly hash sure sucks. Why bother?
OTOH in the last month or so, KABC turned their IBOC off. IBOC compromises too much of the AM signal fidelity in order to satisfy the 1% or 2% who have HD radios. :
Gotta agree. IBOC is a killer for my already poor-receiving stock AM radio.
And the next person I meet with an HD radio will be the first.
lalf said:
Oh good more noise on AM. Just what we need.
Here in lovely North Hollywood there is an appreciable sideband hash on 630 and 650 but not as noticeable as the over modulation splatter on KRLA. Actually KFI's IBOC envelope is almost louder here than nearby KSPN. KABC has turned off the HD, no sideband noise there but I can't remember exactly when as I missed the change. I think it was installed during the ABC days before Citadel took over.
KFI had the IBOC transmitter installed before the tower was knocked down but their auxiliary tower would not accept the signal. I wonder if Ibiquity made them pay the fee for all of the time it wasn't being used. My major objection to HD radio is that they exact a fee for having the equipment and the radios are so expensive too. If they really want us to embrace the technology shouldn’t they bring the price of receivers down to an affordable level. Also I notice a lot of "Public" radio stations have HD, and they are always begging for money so how do they afford the costs?
KFI had the IBOC transmitter installed before the tower was knocked down but their auxiliary tower would not accept the signal. I wonder if Ibiquity made them pay the fee for all of the time it wasn't being used. My major objection to HD radio is that they exact a fee for having the equipment and the radios are so expensive too. If they really want us to embrace the technology shouldn’t they bring the price of receivers down to an affordable level. Also I notice a lot of "Public" radio stations have HD, and they are always begging for money so how do they afford the costs?
You have my heartfelt sympathy. More hiss heaped on the noise pile, and western listeners of WSM 650.
KFI is surely not in their right mind. This is awfully late in the game to be wasting any money on such a
hurtful, hateful technology that does not even sound as good as the analog it proposes to replace.
I can't listen to the artifact-ridden HD AM, the "doubling" or "chorus" effect on voices is too distracting.
KFI is surely not in their right mind. This is awfully late in the game to be wasting any money on such a
hurtful, hateful technology that does not even sound as good as the analog it proposes to replace.
I can't listen to the artifact-ridden HD AM, the "doubling" or "chorus" effect on voices is too distracting.
The purpose of AM HD is not to make the stations that are running it sound better (because demonstrably, it makes them sound worse). The purpose is to generate interference to other stations legally. Otherwise, why bother?
As for public broadcasters running IBOC, the equipment purchases were funded by CPB. Your tax dollars at work.
As for public broadcasters running IBOC, the equipment purchases were funded by CPB. Your tax dollars at work.
flakunkel said:
Another government mark of excellence.
Tom Wells said:
WSM does not have any "western" listeners as the Mexican co-channels make getting beyond the plains states difficult.
KFI was in HD until the tower was felled by an aircraft; the temporary tower they used could not deliver the necessary bandwidth for HD. Now that they have rebuilt (after nearly 4 years) they are going back to HD.
DavidEduardo said:
This question maybe belongs on the DX board but how far does WSM come west?
I know that WLW used to be heard here but that was during the 500KW days. The farthest I've ever gotten WSM was Iowa where WOI is on 640 (@1KW nights). IBOC is a source of noise and I am not sure why they allowed it on the MW bands as they have, however the damage to anyone but DXers is minimal. It should have been either all digital like TV or none at all. If all stations do go to HD as it is now done then the noise will become a problem and put the final nail in the AM radio coffin.
nmoore6676 said:
Today there is hardly any coast to coast DX because the clear channels are long gone & IBOC.
In the 60s--thru 80s I could easily hear WSM and most midwest stations up & down the west coast. WLS & WBBM Chicago were easy catches & KFI could be heard nightly in the midwest & sometimes on the east coast. In the 60s I heard WCBS, WABC, & WBZ in California.
Unfortunately that can't be done anymore.
By "western listeners" I meant those who were WEST of WSM, and listened. Not necessarily west COAST listeners.
I have listened in to WSM in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, in the 80s and 90s.
As if the noise encroaching from 670 in Chicago weren't bad enough, now the lower sideband will be trashed as well.
I'll stop before I begin to "channel" the old Pocket Radio. I can feel the spirit of ire rising.
AM iboc, just go away and die while the FM still has a chance. Bad science is worse than superstition.
I have listened in to WSM in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, in the 80s and 90s.
As if the noise encroaching from 670 in Chicago weren't bad enough, now the lower sideband will be trashed as well.
I'll stop before I begin to "channel" the old Pocket Radio. I can feel the spirit of ire rising.
AM iboc, just go away and die while the FM still has a chance. Bad science is worse than superstition.
Had an insomnia attack last night so I tuned up and down the dial. KFI and all other IBOC was off so that can't be a factor for DX. KRLA was still splattering from 860 to 890 so those kind stations could be a factor for people searching for distant stations. I’m in North Hollywood and I checked several points. KFI had some overlap at 650, as did KSPN at 720 and KABC at 800. I had the same pattern for KHJ, KLAC, KFWB, and KNX. KGIL was playing music so they had a bit of buzz on 1270 but quiet on 1250. Also noticed that KYPA on 1230 a lot stronger. I noticed that they now knock out KGIL coming out of Union Station on the Metrolink at about the area of the old Union Pacific rail yard until just south of Glendale. They must have finally deactivated the old flat top on the roof.
My point being that if AM radio went back to the fidelity that I recall from my childhood the interference would be less or no more and not the hash of IBOC day and night and they wouldn't need HD for the sound. I wish I still had the old tapes I made in junior high off air of several stations in Ohio. The sound was so much better than what KGIL has today with the same kind of music and in those days the Gates “Level Devil” or “Sta Level” were state of art processing. ;D
When I made the tapes I had a Heath Kit AM/FM mono tuner connected to a long wire outside antenna and of course there were no microwave ovens, computers or compact fluorescent lamps. Those devices and dimmers and other appliances contribute a lot of noise and nobody has outdoor antennas for radio especially in the city.
My point being that if AM radio went back to the fidelity that I recall from my childhood the interference would be less or no more and not the hash of IBOC day and night and they wouldn't need HD for the sound. I wish I still had the old tapes I made in junior high off air of several stations in Ohio. The sound was so much better than what KGIL has today with the same kind of music and in those days the Gates “Level Devil” or “Sta Level” were state of art processing. ;D
When I made the tapes I had a Heath Kit AM/FM mono tuner connected to a long wire outside antenna and of course there were no microwave ovens, computers or compact fluorescent lamps. Those devices and dimmers and other appliances contribute a lot of noise and nobody has outdoor antennas for radio especially in the city.
LA_Guy said:
The whole AM band is now in the "dog" cagegory, and as more and more AM news talk, news and sports stations move to FM, it will become even less relevant... except, maybe, to folks over 60.
HD really does not hurt, but it certaninly was too late to have any chance of helping AM to survive.
DavidEduardo said:
David, you must be kidding by saying that "HD really does not hurt". This huge dog has done nothing but splatter first and second adjacent channels that technically don't belong to the host IBOC station. This dog (IBOC AM) basically was the coup-de-grace for any possiblity for any decent audio frequency response on analog AM (thanks in part to those God forsaken "brickwall" filters being used even when the IBOC carrier is extinguished). IBOC is only one of the many missteps that have plagued AM radio over the course of the past 25 years. Had the FCC not mandated the updated NRSC curve back in the late 80's, AM probably would have sounded a hell of a lot better than it does now. Had the FCC mandated a specific AM Stereo system in the first place, it could have made for a more level playing field against FM. All in all, AM's technical standards have been so mismanaged, mangled and put into 2nd class status, it's no wonder what we have, right now..... AM stations sounding like tin-cans (compared to the full-frequency response we had just 25 years ago). The radio manufacturers have not been overly helpful over the years, either. While putting all of the effort on the FM side of things, they generally put only the very basics on the AM side.
IBOC AM is a total disaster from the get-go. When it comes to IBOC, "You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear". I hate to see so many great AM stations that used to sound so GOOD, now sound sooooo BAD. This is progress? You tell me.
Peter Q. George (K1XRB) said:
But there is no damage unless there is listening to first and second adjacents in the primary signal area of an HD station. The fact is, that if any such listening exists, it is not measurable and the FCC felt that the potential for digital far outweighed the nearly non-existent listening to stations outside their primary coverage areas.
Most radios in use today have AM sections not much better than telephones as far as response is concerned. In fact, the study that Bob Orban was part of showed a broad sample of recivers to be off by 10 db or more at 3.9 kHz.
The 10 kHz cut was done to prevent hets on AM as the band became so congested. Part of the congestion was out of the FCC's control as Latin American stations grew in power and sophistication.
Even when the first systems were submitted, FM already had over half of the audience. The idea of making AM a music medium was lost before that time. The delays just made the decline go faster.
When I put the first FM on the air in my cluster of 3 AMs in 1966, it was really obvious to me that FM sounded better than even the best AM on the best radio. I immediately put FM simulcasts on each of my AMs. Today, not one of the AMs even exists, while the FMs are still there! And we engineered all the AMs very carefully, but they were still AMs.
Smart folks, those manufacturers. They know nearly nobody has listened to AM for music for nearly 25 years and so spending on the AM part is not critical. In this era where WalMart picks suppliers based on a few cents in price difference, this becomes a critical trade-off.
Nothing can detain the decline of AM. The receivers will not reporduce any improved audio, and there are two generations of Americans who grew up without any use of AM... for them, it does not even exist. Most AM listeners are over 55 and out of advertisers' target ages... much of radio's listening time losses, in fact, are due to the AM decline.
O
OCradiodude
Guest
I said it once and I'll say it again. When and where will we see KFI-FM?
OCradiodude said:
Do they currently own an FM?
radioman148 said:
5 of 'em. The vulnerable one appears to be 92.3.
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