I still spend more time listening to the AM side of the Talk Stations and Sports, (Even though they are available on FM) because it is easier to get the competitor Talk/Sport stations, should you want to sample them. FM 100.5 KXNT-FM, FM 102.3 KDOX, FM 98.9 are available with a clearer signal (depending where you are in the valley), but it is easier to flip from 840, 1100 & 1280 to 670, 720 & 920, if you stay on AM. Chances are, you've already got the pre-set buttons on the other AM stations already. Soooo, from a listener point of view are the FM's going to be viable to justify them being there, unless of course you set it to one frequency and leave it there all day long. Comments?
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Las Vegas Talk/Sports on FM vs AM
- Thread starter kenb
- Start date
I can relate. I am used to my AM presets and it's easy to navigate between them all. It would be a duplication and seem like a waste to replace an FM music station on my presets with a station I already have on AM.
That's just me though. I still think these 3 statons did the right thing to simulcast on FM since so many people in Las Vegas never listen to AM radio to begin with.
Also I should add I do listen to 100.5 on the weekends because they carry Sporting News Radio (it's good to hear Peter Brown again) as well as NFL games. KXNT-AM does not go sports on the weekend. They instead seem to air a lot of dry sounding public affairs type shows.
Speaking of NFL, KDWN now broadcasts Oakland Raiders games.
That's just me though. I still think these 3 statons did the right thing to simulcast on FM since so many people in Las Vegas never listen to AM radio to begin with.
Also I should add I do listen to 100.5 on the weekends because they carry Sporting News Radio (it's good to hear Peter Brown again) as well as NFL games. KXNT-AM does not go sports on the weekend. They instead seem to air a lot of dry sounding public affairs type shows.
Speaking of NFL, KDWN now broadcasts Oakland Raiders games.
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bilco
Guest
I'm the Lotus Chief Engineer who flipped the 98.9 Translator to ESPN to simulcast our 1100 KWWN signal. I feel it's a good decision my bosses made. The 100 watt translator does quite well in competition with the 100KW full power stations. There are big advantages for AM stations that reduce power or have highly directional signals at night. There are a lot of folks out there who think AM is a vastly inferior method of listening to the radio, no matter what format. Until the FCC limited us to 10 Khz bandwidth back 20 years ago, I could make an AM sound as good as an FM with little trouble. Now there's a whole couple of generations of people who think AM is a bad word. THe funniest thing about the switch was the guy who called me saying he listened on the internet and wanted to listen to the FM not the AM signal on the internet. I had a heck of a time convincing him it was the same. He thought that the FM on the internet would be obviously better than the AM!
bilco said:
I remember hooking up an expensive Carver AM Stereo-FM Stereo tuner to a nice system and tuning in AM Stereo 1460 KENO Radio. It was amazing just how close the sound quality was to the FM stations. Very clean with some nice highs and great stereo separation.
A little-known fact: Most of the HD tuners available now will decode the analog Motorola C-QUAM signal. Of course, there are really no stations to tune in that still broadcast in AM Stereo.
Back when AM stereo was expected to take off big I worked with an engineer, Pat O' Gara, who was anti-Motorola and pro-some other brand of AM stereo. He was so technical that I really had no idea what he was talking about but admired how much passion he had about this subject. He could literally talk about it for an hour or longer.
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bilco
Guest
Kahn was a great AM stereo system but they all were pretty good, even Motorola and I can debate this with my good freind Pat Ogara. Motorola had some things people diskiked but they all did. AM stereo failed not be cause they were a bad system, but because the wimps at the FCC would not get off their duffs and endorse one system permanently. (They briefly did but backed down to political pressure).
Kevin Fitzgerald said:
ESPN is still seeking a class B FM in NYC. Their current station, WEPN, has a 50 kW directional signal on 1050 AM that much of the NY market cannot receive, especially at night. WEPN is the Jets' flagship station. Jets' fans are happy with their team's 3-1 start, but many cannot dial in the games! ???
Once HD Radio becomes the norm in our society, folks will learn that AM HD Radio sounds just like FM. The broadcast platform will be the only difference. The question is... will HD Radio catch on? Vegas has a ton of HD channels, so lets not give up on AM yet! AM, FM, XM, and Internet radio.. just the evolution of radio.
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bilco
Guest
Radio Blogger has apparently never listened to AM HD while driving around town. I have a fairly high quality HD radio in my expedition, and listen to two AM talk HD stations on the way to and from work. That takes me from about 7 miles east of the strip to 7 milies west, straight down Flamingo. Neither station is able to hold the HD. They are constantly switching in and out often several times per block. These are both 50 KW days. God knows what a lower power station would do. The AM HD is pretty good when it's working music, but the HD algorithm has some serious artifacts in voice type formats. When it switches out back to analog, it is obvious. It is also extremely irritating. Additionally most if not all of the AM HD stations turn off the HD at night since they are unable to meet the bandwidth requirements and would cause unaccpetable interference to distant stations. As I drive around town and out of town I am further convinced that AM HD is a failure. IMNTBHO it's a case of the designers of the system being FM orieinted and trying to stuff a good thing on FM into an AM system. It doesn't work. The European DRM system on AM is better but not downward compatible. Digital does not automatically mean better, and in fact can often mean worse.
AM HD=FAIL.
FM HD=???
Unless FM HD becomes standard in all new cars, the format is doomed. No one (outside of radio geeks like me) cares enough about HD Radio to go out and buy a new radio. The increase in sound quality is negligible, especially if the station is encoding at 64 kbps or less per channel. And the additional formats are nothing but boring jukeboxes or generic satellite formats. ::SNOOZE:: I'll fire up my iPod and hear the music I want to hear if I'm going to listen to a jukebox.
I understand that no one is going to invest any real money in to the programming on HD. But it then becomes a "chicken or the egg" type scenario. Why buy a new radio if the extra programming sucks. OR why spend money on programming for such a small amount of listeners.
That's why the only hope is to have all new cars come standard with HD.
FM HD=???
Unless FM HD becomes standard in all new cars, the format is doomed. No one (outside of radio geeks like me) cares enough about HD Radio to go out and buy a new radio. The increase in sound quality is negligible, especially if the station is encoding at 64 kbps or less per channel. And the additional formats are nothing but boring jukeboxes or generic satellite formats. ::SNOOZE:: I'll fire up my iPod and hear the music I want to hear if I'm going to listen to a jukebox.
I understand that no one is going to invest any real money in to the programming on HD. But it then becomes a "chicken or the egg" type scenario. Why buy a new radio if the extra programming sucks. OR why spend money on programming for such a small amount of listeners.
That's why the only hope is to have all new cars come standard with HD.
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bilco
Guest
Demo is right but I'll add another way in which HD FM might suceed. IF the HD 2 channels were used like some of the existing AM channels are now used, for talk, play by play, or other low bandwidth consuming formats, they might be a draw for some folks. THe low bandwidth use would still permit good high bandwidth for the music on the main, while providing useable signals for the HD 2, but not music grade. Like using FM for the simultaneous broadcasts we are doing of our AM's where this thread started, there might be some draw. Personally, I don't see it happening. I know some management types who are concerned that HD 2's will just spread the advertising dollar thinner in an already thin market.
The mornings as expected are lame and Alan Stock needs to re-learn how to do afternoons. He is still doing a morning show. Too many soft meaningless interviews. Thats fine in the morning when people are looking for something easy to digest. But in afternoon drive that stuff is snoozeville. Same with the laundry list of up-coming stuff coming out of a break. I just listened to 5 minutes of spots plus a traffic report. Now I gotta listen to you ( Alan ) go on for another minute or two promoting what you have coming up. HELP ! Thats morning show radio not afternoon drive. He's a long time pro so I figure he will get it worked out. As far as the mornings go. I would keep what I have until Mayor Oscar Goodman becomes available. Something tells me he would do really really really well.
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musicman3355
Guest
Why isn't KXNT AM and FM combined together in ratings? Aren't they supposed to be a simulcast? If they aren't a simulcast of each other, then what was the point of all this?
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