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WLW IBOC Grinder Back ON!
- Thread starter KR4BD
- Start date
I'm glad that WHAS finally got wise and turned theirs off. I don't know of anyone who is listening to radio in HD. I would be willing to bet that nobody missed it when WLW had it turned off.
js said:
Funniest post I've seen here in a long time!
HD on AM is a waste of electricity.
Could someone who's been in the business a little longer than I explain this sentence?ToddyO said:
BobOnTheJob said:
This might be reference to a transmitter, if I might borrow from Fybush.com http://www.fybush.com/site-020109.html:
The old Western Electric transmitter was retired in the 1950s, replaced by a water-cooled Crosley transmitter (seen at left), built on-site in a design known as a "Cathenode." While it offered extremely high audio fidelity, it also consumed an immense amount of power and was later converted to a more standard plate-modulated design.
The Crosley transmitter could proof full 20-20k audio before the redesign. Scott's visit also revealed at the time WLW was using an Omnia FM as it processing.
Growing up back in Springfield during the fifties and sixties there was a time when WLW promoted themselves as "High Fidelity" radio. But during that same time most stations sounded better on AM than now. In fact WBLY used to simulcast on AM and FM and it did not sound so much different.
Now they have limited the AM frequency response to accommodate IBOC so there is less there and the processing that is used further inhibits the range. I was given a tour of the old WBLY studios in the Chamber of Commerce building and also the transmitter on West First Street back when I was in High School. Their only processing was a Gates Level Devil. At that time the FM transmitter was in the studios before they changed the channel to 102.9 and it had no additional processing except for the level control. Sure sounded good on my radio at home.
Now they have limited the AM frequency response to accommodate IBOC so there is less there and the processing that is used further inhibits the range. I was given a tour of the old WBLY studios in the Chamber of Commerce building and also the transmitter on West First Street back when I was in High School. Their only processing was a Gates Level Devil. At that time the FM transmitter was in the studios before they changed the channel to 102.9 and it had no additional processing except for the level control. Sure sounded good on my radio at home.
js said:
Didn't they say the same thing about AM Stereo? :
At least AM Stereo didn't produce the annoying hash sounds that is an automatic turn-off for many people.If AM stations were to utilize FM processing, hire some engineers and spend money on ground systems - basically maintaining the transmitter sites - THAT would extend the life of AM for a few years. If they went further and cut their losses on a subsidized failed technology like HD Radio, AM radio's lifespan would be extended by three or four decades.
I betcha that wireless internet radio will be standard equipment in cars far before HD Radio will.
I thought AM Stereo was a much superior product to HD radio. I don't believe it was not promoted as much as HD radio has.Nathan Obral said:js said:
Didn't they say the same thing about AM Stereo? :
If AM stations were to utilize FM processing, hire some engineers and spend money on ground systems - basically maintaining the transmitter sites - THAT would extend the life of AM for a few years. If they went further and cut their losses on a subsidized failed technology like HD Radio, AM radio's lifespan would be extended by three or four decades.
I betcha that wireless internet radio will be standard equipment in cars far before HD Radio will.
I agree that AM stereo sounded great and it certainly did not create a lot of interfering "Hash" on the AM band. For years, one of the stations I worked for (WCGW-AM) was in stereo and it sounded great on my little Sony Walkman. It was too bad that there were too many competing AM Stereo systems and not enough promotion.
I was in San Francisco about a dozen years back and KFRC-AM sounded GREAT in stereo. Another good sounding AM stereo station I heard was a Canadian Country Music station on 800 KHZ on the Northshore of Lake Ontario. They put a great stereo signal into the Rochester, NY area during daylight hours on the car radio.
It all boils down to....Follow the Money.
I was in San Francisco about a dozen years back and KFRC-AM sounded GREAT in stereo. Another good sounding AM stereo station I heard was a Canadian Country Music station on 800 KHZ on the Northshore of Lake Ontario. They put a great stereo signal into the Rochester, NY area during daylight hours on the car radio.
It all boils down to....Follow the Money.
J
Josh_Cols
Guest
Actually HD is standard equipment on several BMW models, has been since 09. I took delivery of a 2010 5 series last year and when I was getting the tour of the car at delivery the fella who goes over the car with you showed the HD radio and said and I quote "its pretty much useless, you'll hardly use it since you have XM free for a year, but I have to show you the sub channels and how it works and tell you what it is"> He was right, I hardly ventured into the sub channels, and all it did was piss me off when on the fringe and the radio would keep switching back from digital to analog. I have since traded off the aforementioned BMW, didn't really like the car after I had it for a few thousand miles; so I bought a new 2011 Toyota and it DID NOT come with HD, was't even an option.
Is the hash pulled in about 5-7 khz on each side? I can't tell here in Chicago, but WBBM and WSCR got haircuts
on the hash sides to the extent I can now listen to WSM 650, WLW 700, and WJR 760 during reasonable hours.
This was not possible a month or so ago....not with an non-directional whip antenna on a car.
The improvement to the host's analog is perhaps the ever-so slightest reduction in hiss and gain in apparent audio density.
Seems less "misty" but overall spectral balance of the hiss, the same.
Both Chicago AMs got an audio punch boost and they really hit whatever their maximum audio frequency is HARD now,
to the point that intelligibility and distinction of vowel sounds is improved without being grating.
on the hash sides to the extent I can now listen to WSM 650, WLW 700, and WJR 760 during reasonable hours.
This was not possible a month or so ago....not with an non-directional whip antenna on a car.
The improvement to the host's analog is perhaps the ever-so slightest reduction in hiss and gain in apparent audio density.
Seems less "misty" but overall spectral balance of the hiss, the same.
Both Chicago AMs got an audio punch boost and they really hit whatever their maximum audio frequency is HARD now,
to the point that intelligibility and distinction of vowel sounds is improved without being grating.
Tom, Your comment about being able to pick out the DX stations in between the locals validates the point I've always made about the "hash" myth --that it only matters to us radio geeks, the general publiic doesn't even notice. If they did, there would have been Arbitron data out the wazoo about "turned off" listeners when they implemented IBOC. I have a dozen or so radios in my home and car of various age and bandwidths and there is only one that I can think of that exhibits any trace of "hash" and that's only when I'm tuning it from another station. Once on WLW we don't notice it at all. Once we accept the fact that the majority of of listeners are no longer "AM DXing" this becomes a non-issue.
glieb said:
Tell that to Bob Savage, whose radio station WYSL in Rochester gets interference from WBZ's hash at night within his listening area.
Even if the hash is a non-issue for most people, I think we can all agree that it's a big waste of money to buy and operate the HD transmitting equipment when there are probably 8 people with HD radios in Cincinnati.
glieb said:
How strange you should consider this dx. I'm specifically NOT talking about dx.
A real radio geek knows dx is not something you can choose to hear pretty much every day reliably, regardless of geography.
DX is that special thing where Lawrence Kansas is heard in Bangor Maine, once in a hundred blue moons.
Normal reliable reception is just that, and is radio working normally and in accord with natural law.
I agree that there are precious few who would listen, marvelling over sheer expanse and distance today, as compared to those who
knew radio when it was truly a magic, a mastery of distance and time thorough an unseen, unknowable dimension.
To take such knowledge and pervert law of nature into one where only commercialism may use use the dimension,
and then nature of the medium itself becomes problematic to the ravenous commercial thirst of the system...
it would almost seem radio is so very rapidly devaluing the medium itself, with statements that would really lead us
to wifi hot spot delivery of content. OK. I accept that's where we're aimed. I like Broadcast, wide area coverage for so many
useful reasons. Is it neccessary to destroy or devalue any technolgy, unless we have personal gain or something BETTER to offer?
I don't thnk so, and highly value that which works, and works well. I have collected much useful junk including radios.....
I have many radios spanning 1926 to the present.
Of maybe 3 dozen ready to run radios, only about 4 or 5 are so bandwidth challenged that iboc hiss is not evident when center tuned.
These separate in three camps 1. old/limited response 2. Communications receivers with narrow bw 3. new radios intended to be muffled on AM.
1926 Atwater Kent mod 35 with Goose-neck horn -- NO hiss from a steel plate!
1930 Majextic model 30 (weighs a ton) big on bass super muffly- the big radio hit of 1930.
1942 GE console ? no cabinet, no RF preselector but 3 IFs, so really dull at best.
1941 Philco console with mystery control--neat for the remote control stepper relay but muffly.
195? Collins 390A UR with every gov mod. can hear hiss in widest bw setting when center tuned.
Sangean 803 ATS too narrow even on wide to hear much hiss but the radio generates enough of its own internally....
new Kenwood auto stereo- can't hear hiss but only center tunes anyway, VERY muffled by design and deafer than the average post on AM.
No AMs will decode in HD at home, 7 miles n of downtown Chicago, in the city limits.
RS Accurian- Also designed to have no hi-frequency info. Only one AM here in Chicago decodes in HD anymore.
It's about 12 miles away and 50 kw.
The other (ahem) CBS station doing this is 1100 khz lower, about 6 miles farther away, also 50 kw,
and I cannot get it to decode no matter what I do. I look for the peak response on the loop, then make REAL sure I'm aiming it directly AT
the compass heding for WSCR. I have next to no local noise. I have tried coupling in a tuned loop.
I know how it's supposed to work, I'm pulling every old dxer's trick out, and I can't get something 18 miles away to decode?
And I have a radio degree?
Point I was making is they HAVE figured out how to make the sidebands a lot less shaggy.
I hope WLW also makes this step, to at least help the 2nd adjacents.
It IS of some value to local listeners.
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