MUST-READS: RADIO WORLD ON IBOC-AM, DECEMBER 5TH ISSUE

[Savage]

Congrats and kudos to Paul McLane and Leslie Stimson for excellent coverage of IBOC-AM in the December 5th RADIO WORLD. It's a courageous response to the oft-repeated and shrill "we must have IBOC at all costs" argument.

Barry McLarnon's "Enough Is Enough" lays out the reasoned and non-emotional facts regarding adjacent channel HD-AM interference, supported by unassailable technical data.

The inside back-page editorial "AM IBOC in Distress? Proponents need to take the concerns of smaller AM operators seriously" is a must-read.

 

[Chuck]

Congrats and kudos to Paul McLane and Leslie Stimson for excellent coverage of IBOC-AM in the December 5th RADIO WORLD. It's a courageous response to the oft-repeated and shrill "we must have IBOC at all costs" argument.

Barry McLarnon's "Enough Is Enough" lays out the reasoned and non-emotional facts regarding adjacent channel HD-AM interference, supported by unassailable technical data.

The inside back-page editorial "AM IBOC in Distress? Proponents need to take the concerns of smaller AM operators seriously" is a must-read.

Mine just came in the mail. It's not a good issue for pro-IBOC fans. Perhaps they won't read it, so it won't matter.

 

[davideduardo]

Mine just came in the mail. It's not a good issue for pro-IBOC fans. Perhaps they won't read it, so it won't matter.

The articles are very favorable to HD, and one reviews the new NAB engineering handbook for HD.

As always, RW has been quite liberal in printing reader opinions and the negative comments are mostly coming from these; some seem to be defenses of the arcane and near-dead hobby of DXing. And there seem to be a few proponants of CQAM AM Stereo, too.

 

[Chuck]

The articles are very favorable to HD, and one reviews the new NAB engineering handbook for HD.

Gee, David. NAB engineering manual aside; I've seen other people accuse you of being the best "spin doctor" in the biz. I'm beginning to believe them if you think that issue "was very favorable to HD." I doubt that other readers will share your opinion.

 

[SUPERCASTER]

Eduardo is invaluable broadcast expert. You can always depend on the opposite of what he says. It works almost every time.

 

[Savage]

Yes, and the typical gratuitous insults accompanying the preposterous and provocative declarations provide much entertainment.

 

[Mike Walker]

I read the Dec 5th issue (did you guys really just get yours???), and considered it to be balanced. There was pro. There was con. There ARE (imho) some SERIOUS unanswered questions (perhaps answered, and many don't like the answers!) about AM HD. But we've got to quit painting with such a broad brush, and complaining about "HD" when what we mean is "AM HD".

 

[Savage]

Okay, everybody: GROUP HUG!!

Not "complaining about HD." It's more like pointing out the faults that are causing chaos and which are actually endangering the survival of AM radio, instead of ensuring it. The voices of those who support IBOC-AM continue their slow and sullen fade.

And, my buddy Mike....re: "broad brush".....now, what was the subject of this thread again??

Merry Christmas to all, by the by.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Eduardo is invaluable broadcast expert. You can always depend on the opposite of what he says. It works almost every time.

Yeah - I learned that when he claimed C-Quam limited station coverage. Careful measurements on my part pretty much busted that myth. How much range do you want in pefect stereo - will 290 miles do? Contrast that to usable IBOC AM range. Not to mention loss in coverage of the ANALOG portion - carefully measured - before and after conversion. I haven't heard him breathe one word about THAT loss of coverage.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

As always, RW has been quite liberal in printing reader opinions and the negative comments are mostly coming from these; some seem to be defenses of the arcane and near-dead hobby of DXing. And there seem to be a few proponants of CQAM AM Stereo, too.

Near-dead? I get a continuous stream of questions from people trying to hear IBOC stations. I give them a lesson in the basics of DX'ing. Incidentally - I am not, and never have been, a DX hobbyist. I had no choice but to resort to out of market stations due to an embargo of the format I wanted by local broadcasters. I never got, nor did I care to get, a QSL card. Had streaming audio or satellite been an option 40 years ago, I never would have DX'd a single station. I only tolerated static and poor reception for the programming from distant stations. So do most people who DX - they do it without ever hearing the term nor even knowing what a QSL card is. Whether it is family that moved 500 miles from their home town and wants to hear their team - and to their surprise the radio station from home comes in at night - or it is someone driving on an interstate wanting to hold on to a song they like for a few more miles. Or whether it was a me as a teenager repulsed by hillbilly music, wanting to hear rock and roll from the city. People listen to out of market stations, because they want to hear something they want, not something the local stations try to force feed them because they think listeners want it.

If IBOC is to survive - DX'ing techniques are almost a necessity in the suburbs. You better hope people want HD-2 channels enough to fiddle with DX'ing! Because otherwise - IBOC won't be heard "out there where the rich people live".

As far as C-Quam - it works. IBOC radios decode it. It has a heck of a lot better range than AM IBOC and CAN be used at night. It sounds like a really viable option for AM IBOC stations at night - because the interference levels certainly preclude nighttime IBOC sidebands. The industry better start taking a serious second look C-Quam - because it just may be a reliable fall back option for night! Unless YOU want YOUR stations jammed by IBOC sidebands broadcast by a first adjacent 1000 miles away - the interfence is VERY robust, even though reliable decoding is not.

 

[davideduardo]

Near-dead?

My mistake. I should have said "dead hobby of DXing." With less than a thousand US members of the DX clubs, and bands so congested that a 500 mile catch that would have been a "pest" in the 70's is called DX today. DXing was a consequence of people listening to AM and discovering nght-time skip. So few listen to AM today, and even less at night, that dyine DXers are not being replaced by young DXers.

 

[Mike Walker]

Radio World addressed the claim that only "DXers and Radio Geeks" care about extended coverage, and the dismissal of the concerns of small market (and small-signal) broadcasters.

Would everyone who doesn't care about DX coverage PLEASE turn in your 50kw license, and exchange it for something more local, so someone who DOES care about the biggest advantage of "clear channel" operation...EXTENDED COVERAGE, can use it? Thanks!

 

[R.F. Burns]

Radio World addressed the claim that only "DXers and Radio Geeks" care about extended coverage, and the dismissal of the concerns of small market (and small-signal) broadcasters.

Would everyone who doesn't care about DX coverage PLEASE turn in your 50kw license, and exchange it for something more local, so someone who DOES care about the biggest advantage of "clear channel" operation...EXTENDED COVERAGE, can use it? Thanks!

This was true prior to deregulation Mike. In the 70's I could listen to WOAI from texas every night. Thanks to new rules which basically rid the US of clear channels, I can now hear a station from Virginia every night. WOWO was a constant on 1190 but today thanks to the FCC WOWO is a tough DX catch because they are no longer running 50 KW at night. Today they are runnning 9800 watts ( a power level which in the days of 250, 1 K, 5, 10, 25 & 50 KW signals would not even be considered) The AM band is dead for DX and you can consider those older 50 KW stations to be grandfathered but they no longer have the kind of coverage they once did. The FCC is even allowing 50 KW operation on regional frequencies today. The AM broadcast band is a disaster, the X band is a mess (filled with travelors info low power stations) and to be honest, like the Long Waves in Europe, might be a thing of the past.

 

[Mike Walker]

RF what you say is largely true, and yet I can EASILY pull-in WPTF Raleigh daytime from about 150 miles away, WRVA Richmond from, hell...farther than that, and lots more, which I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO DO with tons of "i-buzz". What "city-folk" call "dx", we in rural areas simply think of as LISTENING TO THE RADIO

 

[DanStrassberg]

Not "complaining about HD." It's more like pointing out the faults that are causing chaos and which are actually endangering the survival of AM radio, instead of ensuring it. The voices of those who support IBOC-AM continue their slow and sullen fade.

The arguments about how AM-band IBOC increases NIF levels and thereby reduces AMs' IN-MARKET GROUNDWAVE coverage at night seem irrefutable to me. No amount of wishful thinking or invective by Mr Gleason or hand waving by Mr Roy or anyone else can change that. Nevertheless, although IBOC's effect on DXing is undeniable, bringing this increasingly arcane hobby into the discussion is a red herring and is counterproductive for those of us on the technically correct side of this war. By allowing the discussion to stray into DX, we give the heads-in-the-sand bunch an open invitation to change the subject from the creation of interference that destroys AMs' nighttime primary groundwave service in their home markets (A MATTER OF VITAL IMPORTANCE TO BOTH STATION OPERATORS AND LISTENERS) to the interests of a handful of hobbyists. We may sympathize with the DXers; some of us may even BE DXers, but if DXers even still have a dog in this fight, that dog is long dead.

The REAL killer for AM-band IBOC will be economics. For decades, most receiver manufacturers have refused to market even half-decent AM receivers because "the public won't pay the price premium." (Decent analog AM receivers--probably even ones that support C-QUAM stereo--can be made to sell for about $35 more than lousy ones.) Why should anyone now believe that the introduction of a new technology (IBOC), which is so seriously flawed in so many respects that I can't even recount them all, will tempt the public to spend $200 or even $100 for HD receivers that simply don't work acceptably on the AM band? For $15, these listeners can buy workable, albeit very mediocre, receivers whose less exotic--but less obvious--problems have been tolerated by millions of buyers for decades. And the cheap receivers offer benefits that the IBOC receivers don't--small size, light weight, and the ability to operate from batteries for long periods.

 

[Savage]

Excellent and concisely presented arguments, Dan!

From my experience, the response of pro-IBOCers when confronted with the overwhelming (and mounting) technical evidence that IBOC-AM is an engineering disaster of massive irrelevance to AM broadcasting, falls into four main categories.

a. Personally attack the IBOC critic, his station or his experience
b. Denigrate the "dead hobby" of DXing, as if that had any relevance to received IBOC interference with local groundwave service
c. Bemoan the licensing of relatively new "interference-generator" local AM stations
d. Chant the "AM is dead anyway" defeatist mantra over and over (while missing the point about the relevance of IBOC, assuming that were true for the sake of argument. Why apply a defibrillator - albeit a digital one - to a dead body??)

There is never a response to detailed technical evidence against IBOC-AM. There is never a challenge to actual field measurements or recordings, nor plausible refutation of the enormous opposition to the system throughout the industry nor any nods to the hard and pesky track record of immense marketplace failure of HD-AM. Just a lot of shrill and nasty rhetoric from people without a dog in this fight, who generally like to argue for the sake of arguing.

The good news: there are about six or eight of them.

 

[calstymes]

Savage aptly summarized:

From my experience, the response of pro-IBOCers when confronted with the overwhelming (and mounting) technical evidence that IBOC-AM is an engineering disaster of massive irrelevance to AM broadcasting, falls into four main categories.

a. Personally attack the IBOC critic, his station or his experience
b. Denigrate the "dead hobby" of DXing, as if that had any relevance to received IBOC interference with local groundwave service
c. Bemoan the licensing of relatively new "interference-generator" local AM stations
d. Chant the "AM is dead anyway" defeatist mantra over and over (while missing the point about the relevance of IBOC, assuming that were true for the sake of argument. Why apply a defibrillator - albeit a digital one - to a dead body??)

There is never a response to detailed technical evidence against IBOC-AM. There is never a challenge to actual field measurements or recordings, nor plausible refutation of the enormous opposition to the system throughout the industry nor any nods to the hard and pesky track record of immense marketplace failure of HD-AM. Just a lot of shrill and nasty rhetoric from people without a dog in this fight, who generally like to argue for the sake of arguing.

The good news: there are about six or eight of them.

Now how about matching up the names with the four categories? You have to give those AM IBOC proponents one thing: They ARE consistent in the positions they take even if they never actually address the mounting technical evidence against it.

Then again, I guess we are consistent too. We all have our mantras.

 

[Dighton Rockhead]

Megawatt Kudos (or at least Kilowatt kudos, anyway) to the tag team of Mr. Strassberg and Mr. Savage for bringing crystal clarity (HD-like clarity?) to the IBOC AM issue.

It seem obvious to me that the AM version of IBOC will only be around as long as the Alliance keeps pumping life support into the chronically ill patient. At some point, you've got to wonder when even the stubborness of the Alliance will give way to the pragmatic realization that the $$$ devoted to AM IBOC have more or less been wasted.

Too bad. Those $$$ could have been directed toward coming up with something that might have had a chance to stop (or at least slow down) the shortwaving of the AM band.

As for mantras, I think it's already been established that the mantra for IBOC AM is:
"S - S - S - S - S - S - S - S - S - S - S - S."

 

[JohnnyElectron]

I would still love to see if there is a way to take those digital noise boxes and change them into something that will work on AM. Is it possible to reprogram them for C-Quam, or ISB, or CAM-D? Can they be used to only transmit the phase modulated data on their home bandwidth and switch-off the sidebands?

And the question I've always wondered - the extra 'jack' on the HD radios - can you download a firmware update to 'fix' HD radios so that they can receive a different form of AM enhancement?

 

[LinoNYC]

Excellent and concisely presented arguments, Dan!

From my experience, the response of pro-IBOCers when confronted with the overwhelming (and mounting) technical evidence that IBOC-AM is an engineering disaster of massive irrelevance to AM broadcasting, falls into four main categories.

a. Personally attack the IBOC critic, his station or his experience
b. Denigrate the "dead hobby" of DXing, as if that had any relevance to received IBOC interference with local groundwave service
c. Bemoan the licensing of relatively new "interference-generator" local AM stations
d. Chant the "AM is dead anyway" defeatist mantra over and over (while missing the point about the relevance of IBOC, assuming that were true for the sake of argument. Why apply a defibrillator - albeit a digital one - to a dead body??)

There is never a response to detailed technical evidence against IBOC-AM. There is never a challenge to actual field measurements or recordings, nor plausible refutation of the enormous opposition to the system throughout the industry nor any nods to the hard and pesky track record of immense marketplace failure of HD-AM. Just a lot of shrill and nasty rhetoric from people without a dog in this fight, who generally like to argue for the sake of arguing.

The good news: there are about six or eight of them.

I see you are getting back to self-righteousness and since I'am likely one of the "six or eight" -I'll take scalpel inhand and dissect.

a. Personally attack the IBOC critic, his station or his experience

Time and again you have derailed discussion with self-serving mocking and derision of anyone whom has expressed even qualified support of this system. You put yourself on the bad side of people and then whine "attack".

These two might aswell be answered together:

b. Denigrate the "dead hobby" of DXing, as if that had any relevance to received IBOC interference with local groundwave service
c. Bemoan the licensing of relatively new "interference-generator" local AM stations

Up 'till approx 15 years ago I reliably received; WHAS,WBAL, WTOP,WOWO,WCAU(thenWOGL), WPGR,WWKB several Canadians and a few more transient domestic.

I realize my listenership was of no interest to these stations but I enjoyed the out-of-town flavor.

During the nineties the AM band gradually became a porridge of fading, birdies and only 740 CHWO regularly makes it through. Given the fact that most AM's have dropped live/local at night in favor of net feeds, it probably doesn't matter, you can get the same stuff locally w/out the fading.

d. Chant the "AM is dead anyway" defeatist mantra over and over (while missing the point about the relevance of IBOC, assuming that were true for the sake of argument........

I listen to AM daily, WNYC and WCBS. It's far from "dead" for me..but it is dying.

Here in market #1, with the exception of WNYC-am,all of the under-50K's have given way to "religion" and whoring. Even three of the 50K's are now vanity w/little or no measured listenership.

Take an honest look at your own facility. You own a 20.000 watt (daytime) signal, 30+ years ago you would have had a full staff a real news team and ratings. A signal like that would have been mostly live-local.

Today, your program schedule reads like most other marginal AM's, paid access (to put it kindly) bird-feed and a farcical news attempt.

What you are arguing for is to simply make a buck, what I am arguing for, probably against the wind, it to make AM viable again.

Whether it's iboc, a return to C-Quam or Symphony, I don't give a damn.

Lino