WHISTLING - OR HISSING - PAST THE GRAVEYARD

[Savage]

How do you refute the irrefutable? How do you defend the indefensible? Not even Struble is THAT stupid. Although he's tried mightily.

It's impossible to catalog the endless problems posed by AM-HD without beating the dead horse - quite literally, a DEAD horse in this case. But I do think that if the system had a faint, almost undetectable heartbeat a few months ago, that was snuffed decisively by the discovery that HD probably interferes with Arbitron PPM encoding.

In October 2007 I wrote here that fewer than 300 AM stations had installed HD - and that the number would probably never top 300. Ever. Today the HD-AM pop count remains stuck at about 260, unchanged from a year ago. And as was noted earlier in this thread, there are only 46 signals which are on with reasonably detectable HD digital 24/7 - in the COUNTRY. Serving an audience essentially comprised of radio consultants, engineers, and a tiny handful of lonely hobbyists.

Struble's apparent inability to plumb even his bottomless vat of HD-promoting nonsense when it comes to HD-AM is very telling. Essentially, iBiquity's washed its hands. Or, to use the usual HD chant: "it is what it is."

And, as all the world knows, what it is, is: "over."

 

[Carmine5]

How do you refute the irrefutable? How do you defend the indefensible? Not even Struble is THAT stupid. Although he's tried mightily.


And, as all the world knows, what it is, is: "over."

Of course, you're right. Silly me.

I just find it interesting that there seems to be zero interest, either from iBiquity or anyone else associated with HD Radio, in growing the AM market.

The attitude is clearly one of indifference which leads me to think that they believe it's "over" for HD-AM as well.

On the FM side, Struble was again touting iTunes tagging as a revenue generator for stations to take advantage of "in these tough times for radio". But I can't see a station making much money from that feature (they would be better off putting Google Adsense on their website). If legislators pass this performance royalty for radio (heaven forbid) then side channels with niche format music programming becomes a sudden albatross.

In that situation the best thing is to broker these channels to AM stations and independent music programmers with the clear understanding that all fees are their responsibility. Either that or make the channels news and traffic or talk.

C5

 

[Savage]

Carmine5, I think you're right. HD-AM will eventually just die. It's already happening, with HD operation on even major signals meandering on and off as exciters crash and antenna system, interference and PPM issues crop up. There can't be much (or any detectable) interest in the digital service or the stations operating HD-AM would be more consistent about maintaining reliable operation (also note on Barry McLarnon's site the huge number of HD-AM stations listed as "intermittent operation.")

With HD-FM, we've noted that even the modest improvement made over well-processed analog disappears when the subchannels are activated, because the data stream gets subdivided among three transmission channels. Plus the HD-3 stream only provides approximately AM audio quality (ironic how NPR stations are using the low-fi HD-3 subs for classical music in some markets.) So the most appropriate use for low-fi subs would be indeed brokered, talk or information programming - in an odd way, a replay of how SCA found commercial use in the 1950s and 1960s.

Of course even this narrowly-drawn possible success scenario for HD-FM presupposes enough receivers get into circulation, and work well enough, for even niche listening bases to form. I would say that thus far, that doesn't appear very likely.

In Rochester, we had a full class B FM which until almost 1980 wouldn't go stereo. Under the old rules they could only have an SCA plus a stereo pilot, or two SCAs. They were the local distributor for Muzak plus a rival background music vendor called Beamcast. They didn't want to turn off one of their revenue streams just for that newfangled "stereo" thing.

 

[hipporadio]

Hey Savage... I fondly remember 1340 WMID from my youth! My family and I vacationed on Long Beach Island, NJ [Loveladies] – at the north end of the strand and over 25 miles from Atlantic City, yet WMID was present after sunset – as it was within the far-east Philly metro up the Atlantic City Expressway [despite WHAT].

‘Love those “graveyards that defied common sense” [like the former 1230 WCOL Columbus that routinely got out nearly THIRTY MILES at night].

I remember when the “1kw night power level” was passed and they ran a promo featuring Chicago’s “Feeling’ Stronger Everyday” to promote the quadrupled nighttime power level – it actually DID make a difference thanks to good ground conductivity and a half-wave stick... BUT, the're a failed liberal – then second tier conservative – now second-tier sports station today – DAMN... Bring back Oldies as "The Real WCOL".

 

[hipporadio]

BTW, Mr. Savage, during the same era, I pressed “record” on my simple RCA cassette recorder and captured the early "Rush" on WIXY-1360 at my great uncle Abner’s home in Greensburg, PA... ‘Love hearing him intro “Go Back” by Crabby Appleton as a “hit-bound” on W-I-X-Y—1360!... An old cassette I played for him in 1997 and am saving.

 

[hipporadio]

BTW, Mr. Savage, during the same era, I pressed “record” on my simple RCA cassette recorder and captured the early "Rush" on WIXY-1360 at my great uncle Abner’s home in Greensburg, PA... ‘Love hearing him intro “Go Back” by Crabby Appleton as a “hit-bound” on W-I-X-Y—1360!... An old cassette I played for him in 1997 and am saving.

I just remembered... 1360 in McKeesport, PA was WIXZ ["WIXY-1360"... The original was in Cleveland on 1260, right?]... Shame on me

 

[JohnnyElectron]

Actually, I've found the HD-AM singnal from my single tower 1KW graveyard (about 7 watts HD) to be more robust in the COL than the 5KW (running about 50W HD) with a 3-tower directional at night.
In general, the single tower omni AM antennae seem to do okay with HD-AM (as far as coverage), but he mega-tower directionals are very fussy about coverage and not as good, even with 5x the power.