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WBEN Noise
- Thread starter Element9
- Start date
A
alw
Guest
Somehow I don't think that folks who have been listening to WBEN for the past 30 years are going to jump ship because of some bacon sizzlin' in the backround for one day.
I heard it too, thought it was just my s#@+ty little AM radio that came with my s#@+ty little car.
I heard it too, thought it was just my s#@+ty little AM radio that came with my s#@+ty little car.
Could have been an STL problem, with a misaligned dish.
Or - dare I venture to ask - is WBEN running IBOC? Sometimes HD exciters go nuts and self-adjust the digital injection level, so the analog noise floor would ramp up dramatically.
There was a station whose iBiquity Decepticon went bonkers and caused the station to splash across multiple frequencies in each direction.
Or - dare I venture to ask - is WBEN running IBOC? Sometimes HD exciters go nuts and self-adjust the digital injection level, so the analog noise floor would ramp up dramatically.
There was a station whose iBiquity Decepticon went bonkers and caused the station to splash across multiple frequencies in each direction.
Savage might be right about IBOC. I looked through the AM Log Book and really nothing should be interfering with WBEN...WEOL in Cleveland is only 1000 watts same with WIZR in Johnstown. Only other thing it could be is the 50kw CFBC in St. John, New Brunswick, but their signal appears to only cover the fish.
If WBEN is (a) running IBOC AND (b) has either a digital injection-level problem, or asymmetrical common point bandwidth in its directional antenna, that can cause the analog signal to have objectionable "pink" noise in back of it as the analog receiver detects the COFDM sidebands along with the desired analog signal.
There are many examples of stations which have had to abandon IBOC because the system demands a highly linear antenna bandwidth - which is often not the case with the prevalence of AM directional systems dating to the 1950s and earlier.
There are many examples of stations which have had to abandon IBOC because the system demands a highly linear antenna bandwidth - which is often not the case with the prevalence of AM directional systems dating to the 1950s and earlier.
B
Bob1370
Guest
Just curious, Bob--what might be going wrong with WBEN's array if it is having IBOC-related noise issues while on nighttime DA? And are situations like this fixable without some really nasty, costly retro-fitting?
I know that Grand Island plant's old (it dates to 1940, when it came on line while WBEN was operating on 900, and had to be retuned 30 kHz up the band just the year after it was built). There are a lot of oldies-but-goodies among the regional AM plants on line right now in upstate NY--ours dates from about 1946, it's been substantially rebuilt twice since then, it's in the process of being spec'd out for an IBOC installation itself, and it's a more complex four tower nighttime array (compared with WBEN's simple two-stick operation). This has me a little worried...
I know that Grand Island plant's old (it dates to 1940, when it came on line while WBEN was operating on 900, and had to be retuned 30 kHz up the band just the year after it was built). There are a lot of oldies-but-goodies among the regional AM plants on line right now in upstate NY--ours dates from about 1946, it's been substantially rebuilt twice since then, it's in the process of being spec'd out for an IBOC installation itself, and it's a more complex four tower nighttime array (compared with WBEN's simple two-stick operation). This has me a little worried...
Len, I'll have to drive west far enough to get away from WBBF (oops, "WROC") on 950 to see wazzup IBOCwise on 940/930/920.
Bob 1370, at the risk of getting pedantic: "Is this situation fixable without really nasty, costly retro-fitting?" The answer to that is "it all depends." The issue is "pattern bandwidth" and related "common point linearity." There doesn't literally have to be anything "wrong" with an AM system in order to have problems with IBOC. Stations with old DAs that have common-point impedance curves that look like pretzels can still sound fine in analog - you might notice, in high signal fields, a kind of "Donald Duck" or single-sideband effect momentarily as you drive through nulls and the carrier drops in relation to the sidebands. This is a minor annoyance in traditional AM listening but can be disastrous with IBOC. If the sidebands and carrier aren't in precise relationship to each other the self-interference problem becomes acute. This is why many stations can't utilize IBOC such as the former WCFL in Chicago on 1000 kHz. "Retrofitting" might require actually tearing the whole array down and starting from scratch, a multimillion-dollar proposition that just isn't worth it.
Would such measures be necessary with Thumpin' 1370? Who knows? Let's see now....as I recall, that array was built by....Gordon P. Brown!! All I can say is: Be Big, Be A Builder!
Bob 1370, at the risk of getting pedantic: "Is this situation fixable without really nasty, costly retro-fitting?" The answer to that is "it all depends." The issue is "pattern bandwidth" and related "common point linearity." There doesn't literally have to be anything "wrong" with an AM system in order to have problems with IBOC. Stations with old DAs that have common-point impedance curves that look like pretzels can still sound fine in analog - you might notice, in high signal fields, a kind of "Donald Duck" or single-sideband effect momentarily as you drive through nulls and the carrier drops in relation to the sidebands. This is a minor annoyance in traditional AM listening but can be disastrous with IBOC. If the sidebands and carrier aren't in precise relationship to each other the self-interference problem becomes acute. This is why many stations can't utilize IBOC such as the former WCFL in Chicago on 1000 kHz. "Retrofitting" might require actually tearing the whole array down and starting from scratch, a multimillion-dollar proposition that just isn't worth it.
Would such measures be necessary with Thumpin' 1370? Who knows? Let's see now....as I recall, that array was built by....Gordon P. Brown!! All I can say is: Be Big, Be A Builder!
Thanks for the tip, Nine. Bob 1370, the original postwar WSAY array you're referring to was built using a three-tower inline configuration (the station was originally 1kw when it moved to 1370.) The four-tower parallelogram that WXXI-AM uses today was built in 1954, when the station cranked up 5kw. The RCA BTA-5H WXXI-AM still uses for a backup was bought by GPB then.
I am told - think it was from Fybush - that you can still see the eastern tower pier from the original 3-tower setup buried in woodsy brush to the east of the French Road facility.
I am told - think it was from Fybush - that you can still see the eastern tower pier from the original 3-tower setup buried in woodsy brush to the east of the French Road facility.
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