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WFNX sound quality

J

Jacko

Maybe an engineer could help me with this one. Several miles from the Boston transmitter site, WFNX's audio chain has issues, primarily that of clipping in and out of stereo and mono, kind of like when you're trying to listen to a Boston station in the Worcester area. The thing that puzzles me is that it seems to be too close to the transmitter site for this to even be occurring (meaning I'm in the Weston/Newton/Wellesley area) and this is happening. I've tried comparing WFNX's sound quality with that of WHRB's, which both have Providence-area class Bs that are .2 MHz away from their respective frequencies, and WHRB sounds much better than WFNX. Is WFNX doing something in their own audio processing that is causing its less than stellar audio quality only a few miles away from its transmitter? Are there other sources of interference that I am missing (iPods and satellites not included)?

Jacko
 
Jacko said:
Maybe an engineer could help me with this one. Several miles from the Boston transmitter site, WFNX's audio chain has issues, primarily that of clipping in and out of stereo and mono, kind of like when you're trying to listen to a Boston station in the Worcester area. The thing that puzzles me is that it seems to be too close to the transmitter site for this to even be occurring (meaning I'm in the Weston/Newton/Wellesley area) and this is happening.
Click to expand...

If you're in the Weston/Newton/Wellesley area, that means that you're near the FM-128 tower at the Newton Upper Falls/Needham line, also near the Wellesley line and just a couple of miles from Weston. What I believe is happening is your tuner is being desensitized by all the 50 kW (equivalent) stations coming from FM-128: WBUR, WJMN, WBMX, and especially WCRB and WODS, because those two are near WFNX on the dial.

Though you're not actually hearing interference on top of WFNX from those stations, the strength of their combined signals so close by is creating somewhat of a blanketing effect as your tuner is being overloaded on other nearby parts of the dial. Many digital tuners have an automatic attenuation feature that reduces the sensitivity when nearby signals are very strong (it replaces the old manual "Local/DX" switches that older tuners used to have), which is causing your tuner to receive WFNX with less sensitivity in that area, resulting in not enough signal strength for consistent stereo reception.

I'll bet that if you go farther west, like out to Natick or Framingham, you'll find that WFNX will come in well again and in steady stereo even though you're farther from their Boston transmitter, because you're farther from the overload and blanketing of your tuner coming from all the stations on the FM-128 tower.
 
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