There's a Celebrity in our Midst...

[clouseau]

The June 10,2009 Radio World "Engineering Extra" features an article by self proclaimed Critic of HD radio shortcomings, Guy Wire. He features an extensive commentary on our own Bob Savage (aka "Phil E. Strand"), who was featured in Radio World earlier.

I would suggest you dig out your copy or borrow one from an associate. Much of the analysis is similar to what has been posted here in months past. It was surprising to me that it was not mentioned in this forum. It's an enlightening read to say the least.

It sure seemed like the 800lb gorilla in the room that it was not mentioned anywhere on this forum. Maybe it just got overlooked. In fairness, I didn't see mention of the original letter on here either.

Now, back to the Countdown.

Clouseau

 

[Savage]

Welcome back, Inspector.

The piece to which you refer is indeed "enlightening." (But not in a way which HD proponents might choose, IMO, when all is said and done.)

Clouseau nails it: the piece I had written criticized the pending HD-FM digital power increase. And yes, "Guy's" response for the most part isn't about HD Radio but about....me. (And my station.)

I think my original piece which prompted "Guy's" 6/10 article actually was referred to here, but that was back in March.

As always, I guess truth exists in the eye of the observer. RW's editor e-mailed me to give me a "heads-up" about the impending publication and invited me to respond. Which I have done.

 

[KB1OKL]

The June 10,2009 Radio World "Engineering Extra" features an article by self proclaimed Critic of HD radio shortcomings, Guy Wire. He features an extensive commentary on our own Bob Savage (aka "Phil E. Strand"), who was featured in Radio World earlier.

I would suggest you dig out your copy or borrow one from an associate. Much of the analysis is similar to what has been posted here in months past. It was surprising to me that it was not mentioned in this forum. It's an enlightening read to say the least.

It sure seemed like the 800lb gorilla in the room that it was not mentioned anywhere on this forum. Maybe it just got overlooked. In fairness, I didn't see mention of the original letter on here either.

Now, back to the Countdown.

Clouseau

Is it online?

 

[SUPERCASTER]

Perhaps Guy Wire has been "in lightning" but never enlightening.
The article seems to be aimed at personally discrediting Savage.

 

[Savage]

If you were Guy Wire, what else would you do? "Attacking the HD Critic" is the response of choice for the pro-HD crowd. What other options are there?

It's not like you can say "it doesn't interfere," because nobody believes that any more.
You can't claim the coverage is sufficient, because it isn't. Or they wouldn't be frantically flogging the digital power increase (which also explains the virulence of GW's attack - my criticisms were obviously hitting home or he wouldn't have bothered. But they're hypersensitive while the digital increase is hanging fire.)

Constant claims for "new receivers in the marketplace" are now routinely greeted with derision. Nobody's buying the old "naysayer" and "DXer" insults. Increasingly the industry has made its decision and is moving on. The digital hike is the hail-Mary pass.

Thus: the ad hominem attack. If you're gonna do that, you've got to do it with finesse - as opposed to GW's ham-fisted, mean-spirited assault. But then finesse was never the HD crowd's strong point.

Nor was logic. Or fairness. Or honesty....

 

[Play Freebird]

It's interesting that Guy Wire denegrates WYSL as a "rimshotter" (presumably because its community of license is Avon, NY) but fails to note that its 5 mV/m "city grade" day contour encompasses the entire city of Rochester and practically all of the suburbs - and then implies that Bob Savage is foolish to think he can compete in the Rochester market with such an outlying "shoehorned" facility.

Yet, later in his commentary, Guy Wire has nice things to say about KROQ, Pasadena, CA (not Los Angeles) -- which by the same definition, would also qualify as a "rimshotter" because it's based outside the central city. And just why is KROQ experimenting with -10 dB digital injection? Apparently, CBS can't cover the entire market with the -20 dB digital power that was supposed to do a satisfactory job, according to iBiquity's original claims. So now, after millions of dollars have been spent by large (and soon to be bankrupt?) companies on their -20 dB digital transmitter installations, they're expected to spend even more money implementing this power increase? And increase interference to their neighbors? Who are the real fools for buying into this scheme?

 

[Savage]

Thanks, Freebird, right you are. BTW, there was hidden in the Guy Wire nasty-gram a rare moment of truth - buried, in true HD-promoter fashion, in careful parsing of language designed to give the opposite impression of what is actually true.

GW, in trying to posit a fantasy outcome to the WYSL v. WBZ-HD adjacent-interference complaints whereby he tries to suggest (falsely, of course) that the FCC has sided with WBZ:

"I am told that WBZ engineers performed the same set of measurements (as did WYSL) and concluded that Savage's data or his measuring methodology was flawed." "Guy" then goes on to suggest that the FCC ruled in favor of WBZ and against us by declaring "the FCC apparently agreed with WBZ and did not grant WYSL any relief."

Here we have a classic case of multiple HD falsehoods combined with a deliberately misleading, but literally true, statement: first, WBZ never came close to duplicating the measurements performed by WYSL. Glynn Walden, Mark Manuelian and Paul Donovan were in Rochester for ONE day and did a whopping total of 13 field measurements over a single 12-hour period (WYSL's data consisted of scores of measurements taken over 19 weeks in all kinds of weather ranging from 20 to 72 degrees in all three patterns.) Second, the FCC has never ruled, pro or con, on any of the several complaints WYSL filed against WBZ. So those are the lies.

(This is a similar tactic to the falsehood constantly chanted by HD-pushers that stations are ONLY entitled to coverage within their interference-free contours. This is another fantasy "FCC rule" which doesn't exist.) Of course interference-free contours have been rendered meaningless anyway because the Commission isn't enforcing its own rules pertaining to adjacent-channel HD noise.

The more interesting statement is GW's sneaky comment quoted above. It is significant to note: Guy does NOT claim that harmful interference from WBZ didn't exist....just that "measuring methodology was flawed."

HD people: Can't trust 'em. Can't shoot 'em.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Hey - if "Guy Wire" doesn't have the guts to come out and identify himself, thus opening a true dialog with dissenting opinion, then his opinions aren't worth the paper they are printed on. An anonymous pro-IBOC'er comes out in print with ad-hominen arguments, and hides behind anonymity. I have no respect for him.

 

[davideduardo]

It's interesting that Guy Wire denegrates WYSL as a "rimshotter" (presumably because its community of license is Avon, NY) but fails to note that its 5 mV/m "city grade" day contour encompasses the entire city of Rochester and practically all of the suburbs - and then implies that Bob Savage is foolish to think he can compete in the Rochester market with such an outlying "shoehorned" facility.

WYSL daytime covers 800,000 of 1.1 million in the market, per DataWorld. It's a 6 county metro, not just the city of Rochester.

 

[Play Freebird]

It's interesting that Guy Wire denegrates WYSL as a "rimshotter" (presumably because its community of license is Avon, NY) but fails to note that its 5 mV/m "city grade" day contour encompasses the entire city of Rochester and practically all of the suburbs - and then implies that Bob Savage is foolish to think he can compete in the Rochester market with such an outlying "shoehorned" facility.

WYSL daytime covers 800,000 of 1.1 million in the market, per DataWorld. It's a 6 county metro, not just the city of Rochester.

How does that compare with the population coverage of Class A FMs WDKX (which has ranked in the top 5 for many years) or up-and-coming WLGZ? I would think WYSL also beats the rest of the AMs other than WHAM.

Much of the Rochester "metro" is still very rural, I consider it a good example of a market that hasn't seen much exurban sprawl. WYSL's northern daytime lobe does a fine job in Monroe County, which by far is where the population is concentrated.

 

[Savage]

Yes, David, we cover 800,000....with a 5 mv signal. That's not the end of the coverage. And because of our location south of the City, much of the more-populated metro - Livingston and Ontario Counties - actually get more signal than the City of Rochester does.

On the average car radio, you can drive anywhere in Western New York in the daytime with the exception of Niagara and Orleans Counties and get constant reliable reception from five signals: WHAM 1180, WYSL 1040, WBEN 930, WGR 550 AND WWKB 1520. I proved this while driving all over Western New York and the Southern Tier accumulating almost 3000 field measurements for our CP application for 1220 back in late 2007. Basically, wherever you went daytime, we were there, often with a "local" quality signal. In the main southern lobe in the Southern Tier we were better than WHAM (they have suffered considerable coverage loss outside of Monroe County because of IBOC.)

In Allegany, parts of Cattaraugus and Steuben and Wayne Counties, WYSL is like a local (and yes, I know they're outside the Rochester SMSA.)

 

[mimo]

If you want to go with some really useless out of market info. Up here in downtown Ottawa, WYSL comes in better daytime than WHAM. I couldn't even hear WHAM in the day on my CC Radio plus until CJRC signed off the air. The combined splatter with CFGO 1200 made daytime reception on 1180 impossible. This proves that going towards the north country area of New York state, you're more likely to hold onto WYSL than WHAM.

 

[Savage]

Funny story about that, mimo....I vacationed in your beautiful city back in 2001 spending the better part of a week there. At the end of the week we checked out and drove out of the underground parking garage in our downtown hotel. Since it was a weekday and morning drivetime, I turned on the radio to try to catch some local traffic info so we didn't get stuck in a delay.

The radio preset was WYSL - which came in like a local in downtown Ottawa, 6:30am in August!

And this was back when the station was running 2500 watts daytime! You guys are right in our northern lobe.

 

[KB1OKL]

I did another AM IBOC seach today at noontime with my XDR-F1HD with stock antenna, around and around it goes, when it stops is when the power is shut off. ;D I also read the CBS WYSL debacle and the FCC should have thrown out their flawed data, was ridiculous.
Every radio made since the 40's has a ferrite loop in it for AM and they are inherantly directional, that's a cure for IBOC interference, turn the radio?? How stupid is that? And how stupid is the FCC to allow that one to get by them?

 

[everydayguy]

Getting back to "Guy Wire" and Radio World -- they have NO integrity and have always been shills for the HD radio industry that advertises in their pages -- totally biased in favor of HD because that's where their ad dollars come from -- I have no respect for them.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Getting back to "Guy Wire" and Radio World -- they have NO integrity and have always been shills for the HD radio industry that advertises in their pages -- totally biased in favor of HD because that's where their ad dollars come from -- I have no respect for them.

At least Guy Wire has stopped his sad devotion to the failed AM HD technology and is acknowledging that it will probably fail. Now if he will just re-examine bad ideas like FM HD, the 10 DB power increase jamming, HD-2's that go silent when signal drops, and selective availability, maybe I'll have some faith in his engineering judgement.