WOR interference both IBOC and Cuban

[Play Freebird]

And....this can happen to any one of our stations.  Guess what?  You'll be told you're on your own, too.

I'm looking for other stations who may be experiencing problems from Cuban stations.  By banding together, we can stand a chance to get someone's attention in Congress and maybe get some action taken.

I'm sorry to hear that you're having this problem.   The owner of WAMB in Nashville went through the same ordeal back in the '80s, complained to the FCC and his Congressional rep,  and was granted a waiver to operate a low power FM station at night -- but that's probably not an option in New York.

But when I read about situations like this, the VHF expanded band proposal keeps looking better and better.

What could WOR do with a 20 kW digital signal on 84.6 MHz transmitted from atop the Empire State Building?  With the ability to add co-channel boosters in Connecticut and Central Jersey, and on Long Island?   With enough RF bandwidth for a really nice-sounding codec?

[Tom Wells]

The 1 kw on 710 in Cuba was probably fine before the study was done, there was no nightime iboc.

Perhaps the Cubans were sick of listening to WGN and WLW hissing all over them.

They are entitled to use the power level that will restore their service to the quality they see fit.

We are playing fast and loose with what is and isn't legal/in good taste/moral/can we getawaywith it  here, so why shouldn't they?

[mimo]

The 1 kw on 710 in Cuba was probably fine before the study was done, there was no nightime iboc.

Perhaps the Cubans were sick of listening to WGN and WLW hissing all over them.

They are entitled to use the power level that will restore their service to the quality they see fit.

We are playing fast and loose with what is and isn't legal/in good taste/moral/can we getawaywith it  here, so why shouldn't they?

That's exactly what I meant by my comment on the first page of this thread.  I think they were just lo0king for some relief from the situation and to make sure they were heard in Cuba at night.  When you get down to it, that's all any station wants, to be heard where it's supposed to be heard.  Sometimes the methods may not be scrutinous, and that may be what we're debating here.

[sbe1]

In the mid 80's there were several frequencies being jammed by Cuba.  I recall 610, 620 and 1040 amongst others.  In Tampa, 620 and 1040 was trashed so hard by Radio Moscow coming out of Cuba that 620 got a STA to double their 5kw power up to 10kw which they still operate under.  I remember the two 1040's in Florida going silent for an hour so the Florida FCC monitoring station could get a fix of where in Cuba the interference was coming from.  I dont understand why the US bought time on Miami's 710, they operate a 100kw flamethrower from Marathon in the keys on 1180 aimed at Cuba.  I certainly hope that the high power from Cuba ceases soon and we dont go back to those cold war days.  I'm sure those high power russian transmitters are still in Cuba.  I'm surprised they can come up with the power to run them.

[Savage]

Hi, Tom.  Without getting into the "apples and oranges" argument, which states the obvious truism that international jamming has nothing to do with IBOC, whether or not you care to see it you and I are indeed "brothers from different mothers" when it comes to our interference issues.

So WOR is getting hosed by an uncaring, myopic, arrogant government agency which is provoking co-channel Cuban jamming by buying anti-Castro programming on a station in Miami, then ignoring the resulting interference?  I say: the impetus may be different, but the results are precisely the same.  I would argue that WYSL vs. WBZ is far more outrageous because the FCC actually has power to do something about WBZ but chooses to ignore the situation in violation of its own 2nd Report And Order on Terrestrial Digital Audio Broadcasting (2002.)  If the FCC gets the finger from the Cuban government, they're gonna shrug and say, "next case."

Sorry, Tom.  But "welcome to my world," except my experience is even worse than yours.

Currently, as documented by two exhaustive formal complaints filed with the Enforcement Bureau over a 14-week period last winter, WYSL is being literally blown off the dial at night - on some nights, the station is unlistenable a mile from the transmitter site.  As proven with field-intensity tests, analyzer shots and scores of digital recordings completely documented to the FCC and supported by sworn statements from two qualified consulting engineering firms - including one with two decades of experience in development of digital broadcasting methods - WBZ-HD is regularly invading a WYSL night signal more than two and a half times our NIF, itself a staggeringly high value - 13.687 mv/m.  WBZ can't even keep away from THAT contour.

A few nights ago we had an automation lockup causing dead air, and I drove to the station at 4am, listening to our silent carrier.  Well, it WOULD have been silent, but it was a wall of hiss.  WBZ-HD was invading a coverage lobe which typically runs more than 50 mv/m.

The irresponsible way WBZ has chosen to treat this situation is reprehensible.  Mark Manuelian, Glynn Walden and Paul Donovan snuck up here, did a handful of readings - actually, a total of thirteen - a few audio recordings, drove around the metro, typed up a bunch of anecdotal crap amounting to "sounds fine to us, we don't hear any interference" and filed a "response" hiding behind their Washington ambulance-chasers packed with lies and snide personal attacks aimed at WYSL management.  WBZ's "Response" was so thorough and comprehensive it didn't even get our City Of License correct.  The Walden-Manuelian-Donovan "engineering exhibit" was a POS.  WYSL's engineering data spanned 19 weeks and included scores of measurements over varying weather conditions in two seasons with local temps ranging from 70 to 19 degrees F.  WBZ's "data" was gathered over a single 24-hour period.

But that apparently didn't keep the FCC from buying it wholesale.  What has the FCC done about WYSL's one-hundred pages plus packed with data, audio CDs, and supporting pleadings?

Nothing.  They're ignoring it.  I had e-mail exchanges with Peter Doyle, Mass Media Bureau chief, asking for action.  As if WYSL has never done anything of the kind, he suggested I "put a suggested resolution in writing" and submit it with a copy to WBZ's counsel, which I have done.  This too has been ignored.

WYSL has already lost tens of thousands of dollars of nighttime revenue because of the interference.  Fighting the lying CBS a-holes is a massive distraction and waste of energy.  They're just a bunch of former iBiquity stakeholder-execs trying to save their own butts.  I hope Moonves fires all of them (including Dan Mason - I read somewhere he's a Mormon, but that may have been a typo) over HD, which is nothing less than what they deserve for willfully screwing another innocent broadcaster.

Sorry, Tom - HD-AM is dead, so it's even more pointless to keep allowing FCC-sanctioned deliberate interference.  Nobody cares about HD-AM.  Nobody, present company excepted.

If you still want to meet in Waterloo some time I'd be happy to meet you.  Scott Fybush can come along to keep the peace if he wants.

[Savage]

Darn - wouldn't you know it?  The minute I hit "post," it suddenly occurred to me:  Tom Ray, I have the solution to your Cuban interference problems at WOR!

Just get Rick Buckley to pay somebody at the FCC to rewrite the rules!  I understand that's the way you can magically make interference disappear!!

"There's no interference!  The rules say so!!"  Know what I mean?? 

[KB1OKL]

At the time the Commission did this study, there was nothing listed in Cuba above 1KW on 710.  That is the basis of my information.  Obviously, this has changed - and the database is incorrect based on information from the Commission, as their estimate of power is over 500 kW.

And I never said Savage was misguided.  You just made that statement for me.  Please do not put words in my mouth that I have not spoken.  I have no issues with Savage.  We've made peace amongst ourselves.

Tom Ray
WOR

Yes I realize that, you said to Savage:

"I know you think I am misguided.  I do not feel this way towards you."

It is so obvious that he is not misguided, I wondered why you would have even brought it up as to insinuate that there may be a reason to think that.

Also my WRTV handbook is from 2007, it's not even a new one so it is common knowledge that Cuba has powerful transmitters on 710 and has been for some time. Perhaps you IBOC guys ought to do a little more digging into the other side of the radio fence. See all the harm you're causing, perhaps now even in other countries besides Mexico and Canada?? Looks like you did about as much digging as WBZ did. All I had to do was walk into my radio room and open up a book.

[Savage]

Wait: there's more.  I speak a little Spanglish.  I think that if I ask them really nicely, I could get the Cubans to send some spectrum analyzer screen shots showing that the WOR signal "is really just fine."

You can post the pictures around your office.  When the sales department comes to you to complain that they've lost the big car dealer that used to spend a half-mil or so because the Cuban interference is so bad, you can show them the analyzer displays.  Believe me, Tom - I know from experience - it makes everybody feel MUCH better.

And when Rick comes to you and says he's eliminating every job in the engineering department but yours and - oh, by the way, there's a 30% pay cut for you too - declining revenues, you know - you can think about your wonderful IBOC and how it has impacted stations like WYSL.

Actually, Tom Ray, what goes around comes around.  So go ahead and finesse the issues on message boards.  Make the distinctions between IBOC and jamming.  Enjoy the sophistry and pedantics here and in industry trades.

Or there is an alternative.  You could muster some integrity, honesty and courage and publicly take the stand that HD Radio does indeed impose harmful adjacent-channel skywave interference and that cases like WYSL's need to be addressed promptly and responsibly.  You need to do this before the industry, the NAB and the FCC.  You could call up your buddy Walden and tell him he needs to do the right thing and stop hurting the Rochester people, or you're gonna publicly call on him to do it.

If you insist on stubbornly being part of the problem rather than the solution, the WOR doomsday scenario is my fervent wish for you.  Because, as you so eloquently took credit in August 2007, "you started it."

May ye reap as ye sow.  Hope you make the right choices this time.

[KB1OKL]

¿Como esta usted, Señor Castro? ¿WOR radio hecho mucho ruido en su pais? No puede eschucha Radio Rebelde? Si, si, acá es terrible tambien. ¿Un milliones de watts de poder? ¡Que Bien!

[KB1OKL]

If anyone cares, i turned on the ol' R390A tonight and tuned to 710 and phased out WOR as best as I could with my 160M dipole and 400' LW and Misek phaser and guess what was under WOR? Yup Spanish, but that is nothing new with my equipment, that is nowhere near a half a megawatt station, whoever said obviously doesn't DX very often. I can get SS under a lot of stations when the main one is phased out. This is just normal Cuban reception here in MA. There are auroral nights when they actually predominate some channels up here during the winter time.
The reason I am putting this info in here is because Tom said his station was getting bombarded by Cuba in NJ or something like that by a former 1 KW station that went wild! When was this? My 2007 WRTV handbook lists 4 stations in Cuba on that frequency, the most powerful is a 150KW station and another 50 KW, they have been there for at least a year, probably longer and I see nothing out of the ordinary on the band.