• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Uh Oh WDYT problem

Yup...if you're within a mile or so of the 1240 tower on Randolph Rd, you'll hear HD artifacts on 1220. Note that the stations are only 20 khz apart. If you're listening to WAES (630) up near Hwy 16, you'll hear the HD hash from WFNZ at 610...if you're driving out the Brookshire Freeway anywhere near the WGSP tower(s)- 1310?, any AM station you happen to be listening to will get clobbered as you pass by. Typically, you can tune 20 khz either side of any HD AM and you'll hear the HD hash. Some stations are worse than others, tho. Methinks Ibiquity has more homework to do....
 
There's a guy on the Buffalo/Rochester board, named Bob Savage, that owns a suburban AM station near Rochester who's been very active in the fight against IBOC.  Apparently, he's a communications lawyer who operates his station on a daily basis.  He's written articles in Radio World, posted opinions in the appropriate discussion forums and he and some others with engineering backgrounds have even put up an anti-IBOC website.

Here are some of Mr. Savage's thoughts from the Buffalo/Rochester board posted a few weeks back:

"Thank you, gentlemen.  IBOC is bad, but I think it's a wake-up call to everyone - not just radio station owners - to pay attention to the alarming and increasing tendency for the best interests of citizens and the middle class in our country to be steamrolled by government and business elites.

IBOC was snuck through the FCC rulemaking process with utterly no meaningful input from broadcasters who would be hurt by it.  Loud protests about the obvious - and fatal - engineering faults of IBOC were completely ignored.  If small-market adjacent channel stations were hurt by IBOC, so what?  "As long as our stock prices are okay, screw them."  Of course, the system performance concerns have been completely validated by the predictable disaster which has ensued on the AM dial, starkly reinforced by total ambivalence on the part of the listening public which is rejecting HD-AM when it is not ignoring it.

And why did HD-AM happen?  Because Clear Channel, CBS, Disney and others who invested in (read: propped up) iBiquity wanted something "digital."  HD-AM wasn't even subjected to real-world nighttime interference studies.  It was shoved through a corrupt and clueless FCC by moneyed lobbyists without regard for consequences - or even economic reality.  Thank God the FCC is being investigated by Congress.  I'm going to contact Congressman Dingell about the Commission and IBOC.  Everyone else concerned about it should too.

Co-conspirators in the IBOC debacle: the inept, rudderless, weak National Association of Broadcasters, who threw WYSL and similar station operators under the IBOC bus.  The NAB doesn't give a flying rip about 90% of the radio stations operating today - beyond getting an annual membership dues check.  If your last name isn't "Mays" or "Field" the NAB won't take your phone call.  They need a RICO action to shake them up.

Moral of the story, guys: get involved, voice your political concerns, and be sure to vote.  Remember the truism: "we generally get the government we deserve."

Let's all take the FCC and the NAB to the woodshed and beat the living crap out of them".
 
Mike Sheridan said:
WDYT has a bad whistle in their signal.....Thanks to WHVN's HD.

Mike...

I am not a fan of IBOC but I think you are looking in the wrong direction. WFNZ is running 5KW days on 610 KHz. What is the second harmonic of 610 KHz? That's right...1220 KHz.

I bet if you could get WFNZ to sign off the whistle would go away.

I know more than one engineer that told Danny that moving WKMT was a bad idea. He went ahead and did it anyway.

Test123
 
Good point but I'll bet money that it's 1240 not 610 that's causing the problem. I'd have to be really close to 610 for that to happen and I'm not.
 
test123 said:
I know more than one engineer that told Danny that moving WKMT was a bad idea. He went ahead and did it anyway.

Danny Fontana, a guy who refers to himself as "the big top banana" not taking the advice of others? Are you sure about that?
 
I’ve tried listening to WDYT several times on I-77 and the whistle definitely gets worse the closer I get to Randolph Rd. I agree with Mike it seems to be coming from WHVN’s digital sideband trash.
HD Radio what a debacle!

:-[
 
I've heard the whistle and the fact that it goes away when I'm going under a bridge. That tells me the offending signal is somewhat weaker than WDYT. The actual frequency of the whistle may be a clue as to what's going on. One or more of the mentioned stations' transmitters may have a problem.
 
ncradioeng said:
I've heard the whistle and the fact that it goes away when I'm going under a bridge. That tells me the offending signal is somewhat weaker than WDYT.

Ditto...whenever I travel in from Gaston County I start noticing the whistle on WDYT around Freedom Dr (NC Hwy 27). Further NE along I-85 whenever I go under a bridge the whistle goes away, but WDYT remains strong.

Eric
 
I think that is the same Bob Savage that programmed WNBC in the 70s,as well as many others including WNOX at one point. He knows his stuff.
 
Stoker, you're wrong and you're right! He never programmed WNBC, but he did program in Knoxville at WNOX and 13Q in Pittsburgh. Are you thinking of Bob Pittman who went on to MTV, AOL, Century 21 Realty, etc?
 
Getting back to the whistle, the problem may actually be in the car radios. A 5 kHz beat would be produced by a station near the radio's local oscillator frequency when tuned to 1220. That would be either 1220 + 455 or 1220 - 455 depending on which side of the IF the oscillator is running. The frequencies that would cause this beat would be 760 and 770 or 1670 and 1680. This is assuming car radios still use 455 kHz IFs.
 
test123 said:
Mike Sheridan said:
WDYT has a bad whistle in their signal.....Thanks to WHVN's HD.
I know more than one engineer that told Danny that moving WKMT was a bad idea. He went ahead and did it anyway.
Test123

Seems to me that you're implying that Fontana didn't do his homework in pursuing the ol' WKMT signal. From what I gather - having listened to Danny's show - much prayer, preparation, and consultation went into the whole endeavor. I can't imagine that someone with access to as many engineers as Danny probably has would be hasty in giving the go ahead to the station purchase and subsequent move. Do you suppose these "more than one engineer" folks would come out publicly and tell us more about it?
 
the original plan was rumored to be a 10 kw site at the King's Mtn studio. I think some technical type may have talked him out of that...
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom