Can anyone verify that WJR's CE quit after the recent week of hell at WJR? Can't get ahold of him, and rumor has it he left!
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WJR hits the fan with iBiquity??
- Thread starter JohnnyElectron
- Start date
It wouldn't supprise me. This HD stuff, especially on the AM side, is one step better than vaporware.
All the bugs are at no addtional charge. (iBiquity charges enough for their bunk technology anyway!)
All the bugs are at no addtional charge. (iBiquity charges enough for their bunk technology anyway!)
The Dude said:
It's not generally the engineers' decision to use or not use HD. HD was marketed, over the heads of the engineers, directly to management, so it's their call...and until they are convinced that it's a danger to their bottom line, those that have turned it on will not be turning it off.
K
Kelly
Guest
Wow the anti-IBOC "Choir" has reached new heights with this post! To assume a CE left because of having to run a certain modulation type borders on delusional. Assuming the person did leave, could it be because of issues with management? Or howabout retirement? Or perhaps a better offer somewhere else?
It's hard for me to fathom how someone could actually be so paranoid about something so innocuous as HD Radio. Perhaps all that inhaling of solder fumes building Knight Kits as a youth has finally taken it's toll??
It's hard for me to fathom how someone could actually be so paranoid about something so innocuous as HD Radio. Perhaps all that inhaling of solder fumes building Knight Kits as a youth has finally taken it's toll??
Picture this. You're the engineer at KXXX-AM. You have the station sounding sweet.
Ibiquity sells IBOC to upper echelons at Megalomaniac Broadcasting Conglomerate, who decide to install it in all their AM stations.
Your boss (local GM) gets the order that KXXX has to go IBOC. GM passes on the word to CE.
CE knows what the deal is with IBOC and how it's going to make "his" station sound like garbage. Engineer refuses to install IBOC.
Engineer promptly gets fired.
Either you do what they tell you, or you get your walking papers. Sad, but true. :-[ :-\
Ibiquity sells IBOC to upper echelons at Megalomaniac Broadcasting Conglomerate, who decide to install it in all their AM stations.
Your boss (local GM) gets the order that KXXX has to go IBOC. GM passes on the word to CE.
CE knows what the deal is with IBOC and how it's going to make "his" station sound like garbage. Engineer refuses to install IBOC.
Engineer promptly gets fired.
Either you do what they tell you, or you get your walking papers. Sad, but true. :-[ :-\
Once again, we see pro-IBOCers indulging in attempts to marginalize those with whom they disagree via personal attacks, e.g. the suggestion that anyone who opposes HD-AM is a doddering reactionary uncomfortable with any technology that doesn't employ filaments, screens and plates. If HD-AM didn't have serious problems there wouldn't be such a low implementation rate, and major groups and stations wouldn't be turning it off. And if you'll check it, they ARE. Like the ten Citadel AMs, WHAT Philly, 4 Cox AMs, KFI in LA, etc.
Actually, the subject of the thread was about whether the CE of WJR had left over the IBOC controversy, which the record shows IS causing internal friction at stations between management and engineering. If you have evidence either way, the board would be the vehicle by which you would introduce it, rather than using the opportunity to demean previous posters.
As for being "paranoid," how about somebody imposes a questionable technology on you which also happens to threaten your job, as well as everything you've worked to build for, say, 20 years. Perhaps your perspective might be a little different.
Actually, the subject of the thread was about whether the CE of WJR had left over the IBOC controversy, which the record shows IS causing internal friction at stations between management and engineering. If you have evidence either way, the board would be the vehicle by which you would introduce it, rather than using the opportunity to demean previous posters.
As for being "paranoid," how about somebody imposes a questionable technology on you which also happens to threaten your job, as well as everything you've worked to build for, say, 20 years. Perhaps your perspective might be a little different.
Bob, I just read Cris Alexander's commentary on page 5 of the October 10 issue of Radio World. It would be great if he could meet for a few hours with Barry McLarnon and review these calculations together. Something tells me that Cris may be overlooking some fundamental principles of AM transmission.
Better yet, invite him to Avon, set up a spectrum analyzer and a typical consumer receiver, and let him make firsthand observations.
Better yet, invite him to Avon, set up a spectrum analyzer and a typical consumer receiver, and let him make firsthand observations.
Savage said:
C'mon, Savage. Your statement here is just hyperbole at best and WRONG at worst. If you are reading this thread and are seeing the pro side as offensive here you're wearing your Keith Olberman glasses.
EXACTLY. It takes no intellignece to post speculation and inuendo. Things like
with a title of
I don't care what side of any issue you are on this is just junk posting.
Period.
A point well taken, but hardly advanced by your post.
Clouseau
K
Kelly
Guest
Thank you Clouseau! My post was neither pro, nor against IBOC. All my reply did was stir up the paranoia on this board from some of the frequent anti IBOC posters, and point out how silly it sounded to even suggest that a seasoned, professional engineer would quit because of IBOC. Crap, it's hard to even type about such a stupid conspiricy thereoy, let alone buy into it.
Just for the record...I'm a VP of Engineering for a fairly large TV and radio group owner. If one of my CE's was going to quit because of IBOC, AM or FM, I would gladly hold the door open for them on the way out. Oh and just to be clear, none of my radio stations is currently running IBOC, but not because of the potential for noise on the Medium Wave band, it's the lack of ROI.
Just for the record...I'm a VP of Engineering for a fairly large TV and radio group owner. If one of my CE's was going to quit because of IBOC, AM or FM, I would gladly hold the door open for them on the way out. Oh and just to be clear, none of my radio stations is currently running IBOC, but not because of the potential for noise on the Medium Wave band, it's the lack of ROI.
Kelly said:
AM iBOC is anything but innocuous. And if I HAD gone into broadcast engineering AM, this would be enough to make me rend my garments and tear my hair out. While WLS and WGN had iBOC off today I called to let them know how wonderful they sounded 'now that the interference has stopped'.
They both had it back on later in the day. WLS still sounds much crisper than WGN with iBOC on, maybe because their tower is 45 miles from me, while WGN is only 20 miles. The hiss is a good deal lower on 890. WGN still sounds dull, lifeless , hissy and muffly.
The phone-answerer at WGN said the engineers were installing upgrades.. How come it still sounds awful?
K
Kelly
Guest
Well Tom my guess is the digital audio sounded better if you were able to hear it. Analog AM is dead for music anyway, so the argument about a good sounding AM broadcast station is like eating dog food. Sure, you could eat it, but with other choices, why would you??. Received AM analog specifications: 50hZ-3.5kHz frequency response, 40%IMD, and -25dB s/n vs. digital: 20-15kHz and .05% IMD. Gee that's a tough one.
Play Freebird said:
Greetings! Since my name seems to come up now and then, I thought I'd better join the board and say a few words.
Besides which, the folks on the BC and RT mailing lists don't seem to have much taste for discussing this stuff.I'd be very interested in seeing what Cris Alexander has to say, but unfortunately his piece doesn't seem to be posted on the RW website. Maybe I can get somebody at RW to send me an electronic copy (I do get RW in print, but it's the international edition). If what he wrote is along the same lines as he had in the recent Crawford Broadcasting engineering newsletter, then we certainly do have some points of serious disagreement!
Barry, hoping he didn't badly mess up his first post...
Savage said:
Jeeze, I know you are not a proponant of HD, but when you lie about things to make your point, you go too far. Please curb your dog.
KFI is still using its auxiliary tower, two years after a plane hit the half-wave radiator. The backup tower is about 0.125 wave length, has a very low base impedance (around 14 ohms) and a huge capacitive reactance (-j) and, even with a prper ATU, has very poor bandwidth and a fairly high VSWR even at 5 kHz to either side of the carrier. For this reason, they can not even run 50 kw, and have been at 25 kw for two years.... and there is no way to run HD on such a radiator. As soon as the new tower is built, maybe by spring, they will put HD back, just like the other CCU stations.
Ahh, a blast from the cheap seats and another gratuitous insult from Captain Spanglish!
I was not "lying." I was told - from a West Coast CCU management person - that, irrespective of KFI's tower problems, that they had attempted HD-AM and had turned it off because of something like "lackluster performance, limited benefit and reports of significant interference," or something like that, to quote Martin Stabbert.
Obviously since I'm 3000 miles from the coast I have no means of independently verifying this. If it would make Mr. Gleason happier, I retract the mention of KFI which has prompted this angry, personally-directed overreaction. I will concede this point to avoid providing ammo for abuse, however inadvertent it was.
The point here is, and was: many major AMs are turning off HD-AM because of the aforementioned glaring, incurable faults.
I was not "lying." I was told - from a West Coast CCU management person - that, irrespective of KFI's tower problems, that they had attempted HD-AM and had turned it off because of something like "lackluster performance, limited benefit and reports of significant interference," or something like that, to quote Martin Stabbert.
Obviously since I'm 3000 miles from the coast I have no means of independently verifying this. If it would make Mr. Gleason happier, I retract the mention of KFI which has prompted this angry, personally-directed overreaction. I will concede this point to avoid providing ammo for abuse, however inadvertent it was.
The point here is, and was: many major AMs are turning off HD-AM because of the aforementioned glaring, incurable faults.
Someone mentioned that AM is dead as a music band.
That is completely true, and guess what? IBOC will do little to revive it! The only music formats you'll hear on AM are the formats the FM stations didn't want in the first place. You know -- formats such as Adult Standards.
Speaking of Adult Standards, do you think the average blue-haired Adult Standards listener is going to plunk down the change for a new piece of technology?
The first tier formats will be on FM-HD1. The second tier formats will be on FM-HD2 and HD3. The bottom of the barrel music formats with the least desirable demographics will end up on AM.
A lot of medium-size markets have AM stations with 5 kW of power or less or highly directional signals. The coverage area footprints for AM-HD on these stations will be abysmal until something changes.
As far as interference is concerned, I've mentioned before that WDFN at night here in Metro Detroit has become virtually unlistenable in many areas that previously received a rather clean groundwave signal at night.
20 miles north of downtown Detroit, well inside WDFN's major nighttime lobe, you cannot even hear the station's audio at night on a car radio -- just a bunch of IBOC noise from adjacent stations. (KMOX often booms in at night.) 12 - 15 miles north of downtown, you CAN hear WDFN's audio, but only with a bunch of noise underneath it.
Look for them to receive a TON of complaints once the Pistons' regular season gets underway.
Pre-IBOC implementation / bandwidth reduction, WJR's audio was downright glorious. I thought it sounded every bit as good if not better than Windsor's CKLW. Football games sounded amazing. And I'm not even talking about WJR in stereo, I'm talking about WJR in MONO.
Once IBOC was implemented, their analog audio immediately went to hell in a handbasket. High end treble is distorted and the dynamic range in general is miserable. For a while, the station's volume would intermittently sound very low compared to the other stations in town. They seem to have at least resolved that issue. With IBOC turned on, WWJ's audio generally sounds better than WJR's.
That IBOC noise is difficult to eliminate, however, on my clock radio when it's tuned to WWJ -- it's only a minor nuisance, though. I bet it'd be a lot worse if I didn't live so deeply inside WWJ's city grade contour.
I notice a few stations around here turn off IBOC when they air Sports; is this because of delay considerations? I hear the time delay increases appreciably when IBOC is on.
As far as my overall stance on IBOC:
--It has potential on FM and is worth keeping.
--On AM, as currently designed, it is a waste. If anything, it'll speed up the move of things such as major league sports and Division I college sports to FM!
That is completely true, and guess what? IBOC will do little to revive it! The only music formats you'll hear on AM are the formats the FM stations didn't want in the first place. You know -- formats such as Adult Standards.
Speaking of Adult Standards, do you think the average blue-haired Adult Standards listener is going to plunk down the change for a new piece of technology?
The first tier formats will be on FM-HD1. The second tier formats will be on FM-HD2 and HD3. The bottom of the barrel music formats with the least desirable demographics will end up on AM.
A lot of medium-size markets have AM stations with 5 kW of power or less or highly directional signals. The coverage area footprints for AM-HD on these stations will be abysmal until something changes.
As far as interference is concerned, I've mentioned before that WDFN at night here in Metro Detroit has become virtually unlistenable in many areas that previously received a rather clean groundwave signal at night.
20 miles north of downtown Detroit, well inside WDFN's major nighttime lobe, you cannot even hear the station's audio at night on a car radio -- just a bunch of IBOC noise from adjacent stations. (KMOX often booms in at night.) 12 - 15 miles north of downtown, you CAN hear WDFN's audio, but only with a bunch of noise underneath it.
Look for them to receive a TON of complaints once the Pistons' regular season gets underway.
Pre-IBOC implementation / bandwidth reduction, WJR's audio was downright glorious. I thought it sounded every bit as good if not better than Windsor's CKLW. Football games sounded amazing. And I'm not even talking about WJR in stereo, I'm talking about WJR in MONO.
Once IBOC was implemented, their analog audio immediately went to hell in a handbasket. High end treble is distorted and the dynamic range in general is miserable. For a while, the station's volume would intermittently sound very low compared to the other stations in town. They seem to have at least resolved that issue. With IBOC turned on, WWJ's audio generally sounds better than WJR's.
That IBOC noise is difficult to eliminate, however, on my clock radio when it's tuned to WWJ -- it's only a minor nuisance, though. I bet it'd be a lot worse if I didn't live so deeply inside WWJ's city grade contour.
I notice a few stations around here turn off IBOC when they air Sports; is this because of delay considerations? I hear the time delay increases appreciably when IBOC is on.
As far as my overall stance on IBOC:
--It has potential on FM and is worth keeping.
--On AM, as currently designed, it is a waste. If anything, it'll speed up the move of things such as major league sports and Division I college sports to FM!
ve3jf said:
Barry,
Welcome to the board! This link should open a flash viewer, allowing you to read the US "print version" of October 10 Radio World:
http://mag1.olivesoftware.com/activemagazine/welcome/RWM/RWM_Oct10-2007.asp
Cris' guest commentary is on Page 5, I'm interested to know your thoughts.
Barry,
I heartily second the welcome, and hope you have a high tolerance for the dogfight that often erupts here.
You have my appreciation and applause for your HD radio engineering investigations and reporting.
I heartily second the welcome, and hope you have a high tolerance for the dogfight that often erupts here.
You have my appreciation and applause for your HD radio engineering investigations and reporting.
Kelly said about HD Radio:
Let's see.
No ROI with HD.
Greater expense with HD.
No extra "stations between the stations" with AM HD.
Virtually no additional listeners with HD.
Smaller coverage area with HD.
More analog interference and noise with HD.
Half the analog fidelity with HD.
Almost total lack of listener interest in HD. (See the second quote above).
The opportunity to drive away your listeners with HD.
Long delay and rebuffering with HD.
More phasey analog selective fadeing and noisy incoherent digital adjacent channel saddlebags with HD.
Poor HD building penetration.
Poor HD noise immunity causing annoying analog/digital rollbacks and rebuffering.
HD radio digital self noise further limiting reception.
Necessity of frequently adjusting annoying, problematic, inconvenient, unsightly, (sometimes) elaborate and expensive external antennas for HD.
No portable or pocket HD.
Etc., etc.
Then you said:
To quote a favorite phrase of some HD supporters "It's a real no brainer. Duh."
and:
Let's see.
No ROI with HD.
Greater expense with HD.
No extra "stations between the stations" with AM HD.
Virtually no additional listeners with HD.
Smaller coverage area with HD.
More analog interference and noise with HD.
Half the analog fidelity with HD.
Almost total lack of listener interest in HD. (See the second quote above).
The opportunity to drive away your listeners with HD.
Long delay and rebuffering with HD.
More phasey analog selective fadeing and noisy incoherent digital adjacent channel saddlebags with HD.
Poor HD building penetration.
Poor HD noise immunity causing annoying analog/digital rollbacks and rebuffering.
HD radio digital self noise further limiting reception.
Necessity of frequently adjusting annoying, problematic, inconvenient, unsightly, (sometimes) elaborate and expensive external antennas for HD.
No portable or pocket HD.
Etc., etc.
Then you said:
To quote a favorite phrase of some HD supporters "It's a real no brainer. Duh."
Play Freebird said:
Thanks for the welcome, and the pointer to the online edition of RW. As I suspected, it's just an edited version of the piece that appeared in the Crawford newsletter. The original is here: http://tinyurl.com/2567qw,
I posted some comments about this article on the Broadcast mailing list about a month ago... see:
http://lists.radiolists.net/pipermail/broadcast/2007-September/059699.html
In a nutshell, I think he used incorrect numbers in his calculations, along with an approach that does not address the real interference problem. I may submit a counterpoint piece to RW, but in the final analysis, a healthy dose of reality should prove who's right, and that reality seems to be dawning on more than a few people these days!
Barry
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