Ratings - WHYY Now 3rd 25-54

[DToTheJ]

According to the May PPM's, the public broadcasting station finished third in the money demo in morning drive, behind P&S on WMMR and B101.

More from Michael Klein:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/48407317.html

 

[Interstate 78]

I live a good bit out from the city and I did buy a different used vehicle in the past several months which could have a crappier AM tuner than the last, but nevertheless, KYW's signal seems to have more and more annoying interference than it used to. Is it just me? Am I crazy or did I twenty years ago get KYW better going distances from Philly than I'm getting now? Could this be part of WHYY's success? I personally enjoy listening to WHYY because I can listen to a clearer FM signal and because they do as decently as anyone else with news. We're all talking about the future of WYSP. Why not put KYW on WYSP? And don't tell me about the HD-2 station. That doesn't count. No one cares about that.

 

[aindik]

This doesn't explain any recent surge, but it is easier to get higher TSL when you don't run commercials.

 

[Play Freebird]

I live a good bit out from the city and I did buy a different used vehicle in the past several months which could have a crappier AM tuner than the last, but nevertheless, KYW's signal seems to have more and more annoying interference than it used to. Is it just me? Am I crazy or did I twenty years ago get KYW better going distances from Philly than I'm getting now?

No, you're not crazy. The noise floor on the medium wave band continues to climb due to RFI from power line hash, LED traffic signals and microprocessors.

In recent years, electric utilities have adopted higher distribution voltages to increase efficiency while keeping up with demand. On some major roads (for example, Rt 252 between Paoli and Newtown Square) you'll see a recently-installed 66 kV line running above the 13.2 kV line that feeds "pole pigs" of the local customers. Of course, the line voltage into houses is still only 120/240 (some small business might take 480) but it's the HV lines which are usually the culprit. As insulators and other hardware deteriorate, the HV lines will begin to generate broadband noise which can be carried for miles along the road. Part 15 of the FCC Rules has something to say about this, but enforcement is lax to non-existent.

Also, you may be hearing spillover from HD sidebands. I have a 1988 Mazda pickup (essentially a Ranger, built by Ford) with the factory installed Visteon radio. Like most American-made car radios of that vintage, its AM audio bandwidth is above-average so I enjoy the audio on strong non-IBOC stations that don't filter the analog at 5 kHz. With a field strength of at least 2 mV/m, I have no complaints (unless I'm driving along a noisy power line), but on KYW, WPHT, WPEN, WIP, etc. I hear constant IBOC hiss below the audio, about 30-35 dB down, regardless of RF signal strength. I'm not a regular listener to 860 WWDB, but they have a BIG problem in certain directions due to a tight pattern.

The claimed ability of HD to "eliminate" power line interference has proven very disappointing. My other vehicle has an aftermarket JVC HD receiver and I've found that it simply can't decode a digital AM signal while passing noisy power lines or LED traffic signals. And during a thunderstorm, forget about it!

 

[rtetro]

Is it just me? Am I crazy or did I twenty years ago get KYW better going distances from Philly than I'm getting now?

You're not crazy. The entire AM band is suffering from increased noise levels - largely from dirty power lines, and multitudinous electronic devices that create noise on the AM band. Years ago when a radio station talked about its listenable coverage area we would use the station's 0.5 mV/m contour. Today - except in the quietest rural areas - that is no longer a reasonable figure. Figures from 2 to 5 mV/m are more realistic. If you're talking center city Philly the figures are even higher. I used to have no problems listening to most of the major Philly AMs static free in center city, now in many areas its almost impossible to do that.

So your observations are indeed correct. KYW, as well as other AMs, are not adequately covering the areas they did twenty years ago. In most cases, this is not the fault of the radio station but the high noise level that overrides an AM station's signal.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

You make a good point. If you look at an historic record of the original power of Philly's and Wilmington's AM stations back in the 1920's and 30's ( I forget what site I found that stuff on, but it is available), they were far lower and as interference came along the power had to be increased.

I was stationed 30 miles East of Fairbanks AK at Eielson AFB and worked on the Armed Forces Radio Network station there in 1972. We had a 50w transmitter with a copper wire running up a telephone pole. They could pick AFRN clearly 30 miles away in Fairbanks. The AM dial back in 1972, when I was there, had 5 AM stations on the dial, counting our AFRN station at 1490. The AM dial had no static, like an FM dial. Speaking of FM, they had only 1 FM station (non-comm) from the U of Alaska - Fairbanks. Today there still the intown AM stations and plenty of FM stations in the Fairbanks market. Of course the AFRN station is no longer there at Eielson, but even if it was, you might not even be able to pick it up all over the base area with that 50w signal. Unfortunately, AM is fighting a losing battle due to the increased noise in the atmosphere. So it is no surprise that AM stations in metro areas like Philly and Wilmington have become harder to get a clear signal. Wilmington's WDEL has a construction permit (see on Radio Locator) to go from 5000w daytime to 10,000w daytime so it isn't only in Philly AM is having that problem.