WHAM has been shutting IBOC off at night

[KB1OKL]

Did 670 Chicago go to the 'wideband' version of IBOC where the main channel has the old 10KHz audio bandwidth (and only the neighbors get stepped-on)?
What's really tragic is when WFAN would run IBOC at night and trash the mighty AM650 WSM on G.O.O. Saturday Nights

I tuned to 650 at about 8 last night and WFAN's IBOC was off so I listened to WSM like the good old days, 670 was clear also. Turns out WFAN had a baseball game on and they turn off the hisser for it (why only baseball games?) it went right back on after the game though. WTAG 580's was off yesterday during the day also and is still off at this time, good news?

 

[RadeoEngineer]

Did 670 Chicago go to the 'wideband' version of IBOC where the main channel has the old 10KHz audio bandwidth (and only the neighbors get stepped-on)?
What's really tragic is when WFAN would run IBOC at night and trash the mighty AM650 WSM on G.O.O. Saturday Nights

I tuned to 650 at about 8 last night and WFAN's IBOC was off so I listened to WSM like the good old days, 670 was clear also. Turns out WFAN had a baseball game on and they turn off the hisser for it (why only baseball games?)

So people in the park can listen to the game in real time.

 

[Tom Wells]

Did 670 Chicago go to the 'wideband' version of IBOC where the main channel has the old 10KHz audio bandwidth (and only the neighbors get stepped-on)?
What's really tragic is when WFAN would run IBOC at night and trash the mighty AM650 WSM on G.O.O. Saturday Nights

WSCR 670 Chicago? Yes, they did get the "moved out a bit" sidebands. I would not say they've taken advantage of
the ability to put a little peaking at the upper end of their audio. They still have a preponderence of 200-500 hz,
as they have ever since the first implementation. I would not say they only hurt the neighbors, they still (h)iss all
over their ownself. But the hiss is higher in pitch and seems better balanced so as to cancel better with
critical tuning. But my AM radios are mostly capable of 20khz, so it still is pretty bad sounding.
They did away with much of the "rasping" heard riding the audio when iboc is on, but it still there just a bit, on peaks.
Maybe they're actually too loud and exceeeding the -94% modulation.....That might be a side effect of iboc additon,
also why WSCR hasn't been decoding at all anymore in the Kenwood HD radio in my wife's car.

WTMJ 620 Milwaukee still has rev one and sounds awful.
In Chicago I think 1300 , 1390, and 1690 are still the rev one. 670, 780, as CBS stations, got upgraded.

720 WGN, and 890 WLS thankfully came their senses after what was a painful time for myself and other listeners.

 

[Play Freebird]

And until The Great IBOC Killer In The Sky sent a microburst to (tragically) silence WWVA, I can attest firsthand: the IBOC interference from 1170 was killing critical hours and night WHAM coverage in almost every county of the Rochester SMSA except Monroe.

Ummm....I believe WHAM's nighttime protected contour extends a couple hundred miles.

I know, I know. Who cares? They can listen online, right??

But let an IBOC perpetrator get stepped on in the tiniest sense with one teaspoonful of interference, and they scream like bloody murder and get their FCC lackeys to hand them what they want on a silver platter. As in: CBS vs. WNYC's site move recently.

The hypocrisy in HD Radio is knee-deep and piling higher and deeper. And the stupidity of the interference is magnified by the system's utter irrelevance in the marketplace.

WHAM indeed received a lot of interference in the outlying counties of the Rochester metro before the WWVA towers came down. The standard field of WWVA's night pattern in the main lobe (centered east-northeast) exceeds 4300 mV/m/km, more than infamous WBZ produces towards the west.

Running the numbers, I see that WWVA's predicted nighttime 10% field in Rochester would be about 3.825 mV/m. So assuming -16 dB of IBOC noise in the adjacent channel (the ratio typically measured on a field strength meter), WWVA's contribution to the noise floor on 1180 would exceed 0.6 mVm at least 10 percent of the time. That's enough to do some serious damage.

Since the licensee apparently doesn't care, I think it's time to repeal the "critical hours" protection rule -- or least redefine the protected groundwave contour of a Class A AM station from 0.1 mV/m to 0.5 mV/m so they can live like the rest of us.

 

[stacker]

Freebird said:

Since the licensee apparently doesn't care, I think it's time to repeal the "critical hours" protection rule -- or least redefine the protected groundwave contour of a Class A AM station from 0.1 mV/m to 0.5 mV/m so they can live like the rest of us.

Yes...or how about (gasp) critical hours protection for everyone? For instance, class B stations who have been upgraded to 50 kW daytime and cut back drastically to their original night power/pattern wreck havoc on other B's during critical hours. After power change, everything is fine. When they raised the power ceiling on the B's, they should have considered the critical hour skywave situation. But no...

 

[tomservo]

When I used to have work in Senatobia, I was always sad when WEVL faded out about 20 miles north of there.

Is the Como Steakhouse still in business?

It's still there as far as I know. I hope to get up there one day before I move outta this place.

WEVL is special, indeed. I'd listen every time I'm in Memphis but neither my Insignia (overload) or my car radio (dead antenna) can pick it up anywhere in town.

 

[tomservo]

So people in the park can listen to the game in real time.

The solution is simple. Delay the live game play by several seconds to match the HD feed.

*snicker*

 

[Savage]

I think the Royals have already tried that...