My radio station is a 500 watt AM at 900 khz. We broadcast in AM Stereo and we are very proud of our fidelity. We play oldies and Beach Music. We are also very involved in our community with lots of local news, community features, events, etc. We exist in a growing, vibrant tourist economy and business has been good to us. We have every intention of continuing to be a strong force in our town and we work hard to be profitable. We also live in today's world and know we must continue to find ways to get people to tune to AM. So, those who are familiar with HD, will it help me? What will I get for investing my financial resources in this new technology?
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Tell me what my station will get from HD radio.
- Thread starter wnmb
- Start date
Bill,
Instead of using an AM transmitter, pretend you were distributing your programming on cassette tapes for many years. Humor me for a moment. Do you think your only option for a technology upgrade would be to add DCC digital compact cassettes? Of course not. Instead, you'd start sending your programming out on CDs and on-demand downloads and podcasts, right? You'd skip the DCCs because nodody bought the players.
Apply that thinking to your radio station. Are you limited to being strictly an AM transmitter operator? Of course not. Get your station out there in every major way that people choose to listen. You have a unique product, right? Some people may not want to or may not be able pick you up on an AM radio day and night. Another method may be more convenient for them now or in the near future. Expand your station brand to be broader than that of just an AM station.
Instead of using an AM transmitter, pretend you were distributing your programming on cassette tapes for many years. Humor me for a moment. Do you think your only option for a technology upgrade would be to add DCC digital compact cassettes? Of course not. Instead, you'd start sending your programming out on CDs and on-demand downloads and podcasts, right? You'd skip the DCCs because nodody bought the players.
Apply that thinking to your radio station. Are you limited to being strictly an AM transmitter operator? Of course not. Get your station out there in every major way that people choose to listen. You have a unique product, right? Some people may not want to or may not be able pick you up on an AM radio day and night. Another method may be more convenient for them now or in the near future. Expand your station brand to be broader than that of just an AM station.
E
ElCheapo
Guest
Bill said:
Bill, if your question is even remotely serious - this forum isn't the place to be asking it.
This forum is made up of three different types of users:
1) DXers - they hate HD Radio because it has the potential to harm their hobby. They refuse to consider that most people don't use radio the way they do and are extremely anti-IBOC. The little group from this board is responsible for most of the anti-HD reviews on retail sites. We're so very proud of them.
2) Webcasters/Streaming Enthusiasts - why they're so anti-IBOC is a mystery. They claim HD Radio will fail, and is no threat to streaming, yet they spend untold amounts of time and effort here bemoaning HD and pushing an anti-HD message. The only logical reason would be that they seem to hate traditional radio period and have simply found kindred spirits in the DXer crowd. vsa fits in this category. He's hoping you'll ask him to elaborate so he can indoctrinate you on the power of streaming.
3) Everyone else - an extremely small minority. The other two groups have pretty much chased off anyone who was either pro-HD or at least had an open mind and wanted to discuss it.
So basically, you won't get anything even resembling objective discussion of HD Radio in this forum. It's pretty much a complete waste of time.
Bill,
I noticed that WNMB is streaming online. Are you proud of the audio quality of your 20k stream? Try 48k or better yet, a 64k Windows Media stream. Think about a 64k or even a 128k mp3 stream too. And don't be afraid to send listeners there. The cost of bandwidth has come down over the years. Shop around.
ElCheapo, who's paycheck depends on the success of HD radio, wants to typecast folks here because he has little of substance to say. I've been a broadcaster for almost 4 decades and work in Los Angeles radio. Build your brand and make it sound as good as possible wherever it's available.
I noticed that WNMB is streaming online. Are you proud of the audio quality of your 20k stream? Try 48k or better yet, a 64k Windows Media stream. Think about a 64k or even a 128k mp3 stream too. And don't be afraid to send listeners there. The cost of bandwidth has come down over the years. Shop around.
ElCheapo, who's paycheck depends on the success of HD radio, wants to typecast folks here because he has little of substance to say. I've been a broadcaster for almost 4 decades and work in Los Angeles radio. Build your brand and make it sound as good as possible wherever it's available.
E
ElCheapo
Guest
vsa said:
vsa - as usual, you're wrong.
My paychecks absolutely do not depend on the success of HD Radio. My involvement with HD Radio initiatives is actually a very, very small part of what I do.
You're an LA broadcaster absolutely obsessed with streaming? I think not. If you were, you'd be the first major market programmer/personality/whatever I've ever seen that was.
More likely, you operate a streaming audio service provider or are a webcaster.
ElCheapo wrote: "...My paychecks absolutely do not depend on the success of HD Radio..."
At Mark Ramsey's blog, you wrote: "...As for me, 13 years in the business...I program a few HD stations in top 10 markets in addition to my engineering duties and work on the development front. Posted by: ElCheapo | January 03, 2007 at 02:28 PM"
http://www.hear2.com/2007/01/the_first_inter.html#comments
I trust you were telling the truth.
My advice is solid advice and I have nothing to sell and nothing to gain from it. I am not a streaming service provider. Also, why would any webcaster invite more competition to the medium?
At Mark Ramsey's blog, you wrote: "...As for me, 13 years in the business...I program a few HD stations in top 10 markets in addition to my engineering duties and work on the development front. Posted by: ElCheapo | January 03, 2007 at 02:28 PM"
http://www.hear2.com/2007/01/the_first_inter.html#comments
I trust you were telling the truth.
My advice is solid advice and I have nothing to sell and nothing to gain from it. I am not a streaming service provider. Also, why would any webcaster invite more competition to the medium?
E
ElCheapo
Guest
vsa said:
That is exactly what I wrote, and it's 100% true.
It's also 100% true that I am a salaried employee with a lot of varied duties. My salary wouldn't be effected at all if the HD2 channels I program ceased to exist tomorrow.
As for you, I can't imagine why a traditional broadcaster in LA would be starting threads like this one: http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,58601.0.html praising the success of a "mom and pop" internet operation on the webcasting/streaming board here.
Best guess? It's your site.
My experience has taught me that anyone, who insists that other people are liars, ought to be suspected of being less than truthful themselves.
I'm having quite a laugh! Why don't you email Bill Goldsmith and ask him if he is me? I'm not him, but I've admired his work ever since his days with KPIG.
I'm having quite a laugh! Why don't you email Bill Goldsmith and ask him if he is me? I'm not him, but I've admired his work ever since his days with KPIG.
E
ElCheapo
Guest
vsa said:
My experience has taught me that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. All of the quacking you've done here has been about streaming, and you also do quite a bit of quacking over on the webcasting/streaming board.
Everything you've posted leads me to believe you're a webcaster - not an LA broadcaster as you claim.
Of course, everyone is more than welcome to read some of your past posts and draw their own conclusion.
ElCheapo wrote: "All of the quacking you've done here has been about streaming, and you also do quite a bit of quacking over on the webcasting/streaming board. Everything you've posted leads me to believe you're a webcaster - not an LA broadcaster as you claim."
I love how you're concerned over who I am, rather than what I have had to say. If you went back far enough through the archives, you'd see that the vast majority of my posts have been about HD radio. I prefer to keep a measure of anonymity here. Let me just say that during my career, I've worked alongside or competed with names who are radio legends. A few of them are also becoming fairly knowledgeable about the importance of streaming on the web. Now go back to programming your HD radio jukeboxes.
I love how you're concerned over who I am, rather than what I have had to say. If you went back far enough through the archives, you'd see that the vast majority of my posts have been about HD radio. I prefer to keep a measure of anonymity here. Let me just say that during my career, I've worked alongside or competed with names who are radio legends. A few of them are also becoming fairly knowledgeable about the importance of streaming on the web. Now go back to programming your HD radio jukeboxes.
The amount of power you could use for HD radio 500 watt AM station, would get you a very tiny coverage area, and no building penetration. HD radio is not for small stations, but the adjacent channel jamming is a threat to small stations. If you are not 5,000 watts or more HD radio has nothing to offer. Even if you have a flamethrower signal, HD radio is still problematic, and does more harm then good.Bill said:
In order to transmit HD radio on AM, fidelity has to be reduced by half to 5,000 Hz by a brick wall filter. This makes music sound as if it is coming over a telephone, and voices nasal. HD radio is incompatible with AM stereo, so you would have to drop that as well.
HD radio has nothing to offer you but high cost, AM fidelity degradation, and loss of your satisfied listeners.
Beware of those who will say anything in order to sell a destructive, defective, expensive, problematic product such as HD radio, they are just hypeing snake oil. The AM version is even worse then the FM, and both do much more harm then any possible good.
With worldwide internet broadcasting and podcasts, tourists and locals can keep in touch with what's happening there, and continue to enjoy your information and entertainment.
Best wishes for continued and expanding success for your station.
ElCheapo said:
3) Broadcast engineers and other professionals with decades of experience - who know a scam when they see it. They are dismayed at the way a private company has begun charging extortionate licensing fees for their questionable technology, with the blessing of a federal regulatory agency which is supposed to be regulating in the name of the people, not just handing broadcasting standards over to private interests. They are also appalled at the way this technology, on the AM band, destroys the band's usability because it causes massive, documented interference on adjacent channels. You need to hope and pray that a station on a channel adjacent to yours doesn't light up HD Radio. If they do, you might as well go silent and turn in your license, because no one will be able to listen to your station.
4) Those station owners who have bought into the hype, which was targeted directly at them by that private company I mentioned, without questioning it in the least. Those are the people I feel the most sorry for. They're being played and they aren't even aware of it. At least Bill took the time and trouble to ask about it before buying into it.
For AM-
You gain the ability for some people to listen to a "stream" with varying success, while adding noise to your
existing signal which can only be cancelled by perfect center tuning. You will need to muffle your sibilants to avoid confusing the codec
in the receiver, as the ibiquity system cannot distingiush data (square waves) from sine waves if they fall into the passband the digital is decoding. And the chance that an "over mod event" resulting in a clipped output, would DEFINITELY confuse digital decoding,
so controlling the peaks is critical with HD AM. Most stations running HD seem to have dropped the +125% mod peaks down to
just above 100, to avoid this, so they've lost the "punch" in the analog.
No one at the beach will appreciate the HD, and music on analog radios will sound about like an old drive-in movie speaker on a post.
I still hope that the day will come that ibiquity loses the "attitude", and can defend their position in a public forum,
here ideally, and face critique from the industry.
I have at present no reason to beleive anything other than they feel entitiled to cause interference because the FCC specifically
permitted the experiment, even while the original description in ibquity's white papers IS the very definition of AM interference.
It's like writing a business plan that details theft as the modus, then getting a special business permit to go nationwide.
It's still doesn't take laws for theft off the state and local books, and doesn't redefine theft for people who know already understand the concept. It's just means you've got special permission to steal in your special mode.
I beleive the reason ibiquity is not defending the AM mode is that it is indefensible. Better not to say anything.
The FM works but is at best a super-duper-complicated way to do SCA.
You gain the ability for some people to listen to a "stream" with varying success, while adding noise to your
existing signal which can only be cancelled by perfect center tuning. You will need to muffle your sibilants to avoid confusing the codec
in the receiver, as the ibiquity system cannot distingiush data (square waves) from sine waves if they fall into the passband the digital is decoding. And the chance that an "over mod event" resulting in a clipped output, would DEFINITELY confuse digital decoding,
so controlling the peaks is critical with HD AM. Most stations running HD seem to have dropped the +125% mod peaks down to
just above 100, to avoid this, so they've lost the "punch" in the analog.
No one at the beach will appreciate the HD, and music on analog radios will sound about like an old drive-in movie speaker on a post.
I still hope that the day will come that ibiquity loses the "attitude", and can defend their position in a public forum,
here ideally, and face critique from the industry.
I have at present no reason to beleive anything other than they feel entitiled to cause interference because the FCC specifically
permitted the experiment, even while the original description in ibquity's white papers IS the very definition of AM interference.
It's like writing a business plan that details theft as the modus, then getting a special business permit to go nationwide.
It's still doesn't take laws for theft off the state and local books, and doesn't redefine theft for people who know already understand the concept. It's just means you've got special permission to steal in your special mode.
I beleive the reason ibiquity is not defending the AM mode is that it is indefensible. Better not to say anything.
The FM works but is at best a super-duper-complicated way to do SCA.
Hey Bill, are you still here? 
Now that the entrenched forum argue-ers have had their say, I'll put my 2¢ in as a non-broadcast person who's just watching from the outside.
Being that you're on the low power side of things, and considering your beach-going target audience, I'd have to say shy away from HD for the forseeable future. I don't think it would give you anything good in trade for much crap. There just aren't enough radios out there to justify the switch for a real "hometown" station like yours. And all those analog radios will sound worse, even if many people won't notice the thin layer of sizzle over the dull audio.
In radio, isn't the name of the game getting as many listeners as possible? With a smaller signal, I'm sure you want to do everything you can to maximize your audience... HD radio will make a few people's listening experience better, but it may alienate some folks, too... I doubt you'd get new listeners for upgrading. And that cost of upgrading! Ouch.
At least with AM stereo, you're not hurting everyone's listening experience for the benefit of a precious few. (Of which I would be, if I brought my Sony Walkman to your area...)
So, why waste the money now? When every other station receivable in your area is HD and they finally sell HD portables that don't make Sirius satellite units look petite, then you can upgrade.
(On a personal note) I given up on listening to any AM station if I hear that fuzz over the audio. It's just too annoying. The rest of the interference issues that AM has are aggrivating enough. The other morning I was in Hernando, Mississippi, right outside of Memphis. I wanted to hear the news, so I flipped from XM to WREC 600. The otherwise strong and quiet signal I had whilst driving up the new stretch of I-69 was completely wasted with a sssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh over the audio. As soon as the first part of the newscast/related host banter was up, I flipped to WDIA 1070... Music, with sssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh over it. Yech. It was back to XM. I can't believe more people aren't bothered by that noise!
Now that the entrenched forum argue-ers have had their say, I'll put my 2¢ in as a non-broadcast person who's just watching from the outside.
Being that you're on the low power side of things, and considering your beach-going target audience, I'd have to say shy away from HD for the forseeable future. I don't think it would give you anything good in trade for much crap. There just aren't enough radios out there to justify the switch for a real "hometown" station like yours. And all those analog radios will sound worse, even if many people won't notice the thin layer of sizzle over the dull audio.
In radio, isn't the name of the game getting as many listeners as possible? With a smaller signal, I'm sure you want to do everything you can to maximize your audience... HD radio will make a few people's listening experience better, but it may alienate some folks, too... I doubt you'd get new listeners for upgrading. And that cost of upgrading! Ouch.
At least with AM stereo, you're not hurting everyone's listening experience for the benefit of a precious few. (Of which I would be, if I brought my Sony Walkman to your area...)
So, why waste the money now? When every other station receivable in your area is HD and they finally sell HD portables that don't make Sirius satellite units look petite, then you can upgrade.
(On a personal note) I given up on listening to any AM station if I hear that fuzz over the audio. It's just too annoying. The rest of the interference issues that AM has are aggrivating enough. The other morning I was in Hernando, Mississippi, right outside of Memphis. I wanted to hear the news, so I flipped from XM to WREC 600. The otherwise strong and quiet signal I had whilst driving up the new stretch of I-69 was completely wasted with a sssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh over the audio. As soon as the first part of the newscast/related host banter was up, I flipped to WDIA 1070... Music, with sssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh over it. Yech. It was back to XM. I can't believe more people aren't bothered by that noise!
D
dbdigital
Guest
Tom Wells said:
On a similar note, Sen. Sununu has introduced a bill that would prevent the FCC from imposing technology mandates on the communications industry. If it were to pass it would mean, among other things, that the agency will not be able to dictate a particular standard for digital broadcasting.
http://www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0102/t.666.html
While I believe the battle is over for FM it is just beginning for AM with very few stations converting to IBOC; certainly no mom and pop operations are doing so.
The FCC's seeming reluctance to address the issue of nighttime AM IBOC transmission tells me that the agency is unsure about the future of digital for AM and are not as enthusiastic about IBOC-AM as they intially were. That a couple of HD receivers will decode C-Quam (are their more?) also indicates that CE manufacturers are hedging their bets on AM. Plus we know that there will be no battery-powered HD radios, so that takes care of your sunbather crowd.
So, what is the future for digital on AM? We won't know for a very long time. As my grandfather used to say, "Don't be the first or last to adopt new technology."
You've got a great-sounding AM station, just keep it that way, continue webstreaming and sit tight.
db
Yes, guys, I am still here. I was indeed serious in posting my topic. I do have my own opinions of IBOC for AM and they are not good ones, HOWEVER, I have learned I don't know everything. One can always pick up something by listening to others or reading what they have written. The most profound thing that has been posted here about IBOC in my situation is the small amount of HD coverage I would get. It's truly depressing. With my AM Stereo, I am getting a really good stereo signal over virtually all of my service area. This is a forum section pertaining to HD, so I am going to refrain from more comments about the Stereo. Let me just say I am becoming more convinced all the time that IBOC is a further problem, not a solution for AM. The real problem is that unless my fellow AM owners invest in their stations and stop making excuses for some programming, then we may go the way of the Pony Express sooner than later.
El Cheapo said:
Prove it.
I'm sure you have not convinced anyone that you can mind read the intentions of people you don't know and have never met.
Is that what your HD radio programs are about, your mind reading?
Prove it.
I'm sure you have not convinced anyone that you can mind read the intentions of people you don't know and have never met.
Is that what your HD radio programs are about, your mind reading?
good quality programming based on the art of radio (audio) works.......intergrate your content into as many platforms you can...embrace the public where they are, honestly.build your quality content brand
I would avoid launching hd broadcast for the next couple of year's.till more factual information surfaces based on the public perception along with usage and uptake history/rates
even as late as yesterday, the ad buyers along with the wallstreet partners are pushing to launch commercials for free on the side channels.
as a investor in and around broadcasting, imho hd has failed in what it offers. in its current form but suspect it was part of the planned concept to begin with..to force further consolidation on broadcasters via a backdoor.
M
Mike Walker
Guest
Hi Bill. I am known here as being very pro-hd...at least the fm system. But I am also a realist, and a dedicated AM dxer and listener. It is my opinion that you would gain absolutely nothing by going HD now, and could perhaps lose not just money, but listeners from the increased interference. You sure as hell wouldn't make any friends by spewing digital noise several stations above and below 900.
I truly don't believe the Ibiquity HD system for AM will become standardized. Even trade publications like Radio World, which have been hugely pro-HD, are urging a different path for AM. AM stereo both works well, and is receivable IN STEREO on the new radios. Plus, you already have the gear, and there are no regular payments to Ibiquity which I KNOW you'd truly enjoy sending. For small market stations, and particularly for small market AM stations, HD is perhaps the biggest money pit of our lifetime. Dying to deplete your bank account to the tune of a hundred grand or more? FIND A WORTHY CHARITY!
My opinion only, your mileage may very!
I truly don't believe the Ibiquity HD system for AM will become standardized. Even trade publications like Radio World, which have been hugely pro-HD, are urging a different path for AM. AM stereo both works well, and is receivable IN STEREO on the new radios. Plus, you already have the gear, and there are no regular payments to Ibiquity which I KNOW you'd truly enjoy sending. For small market stations, and particularly for small market AM stations, HD is perhaps the biggest money pit of our lifetime. Dying to deplete your bank account to the tune of a hundred grand or more? FIND A WORTHY CHARITY!
My opinion only, your mileage may very!
7
700WLW
Guest
Mike Walker said:
Looks like Sununu, will put an end to the FCC declaring any sort of broadcast standards, which includes HD Radio/IBOC:
http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,60416.0.html
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