AM HD TURNOFF PACE ACCELERATES

[Zach]

If the FCC is now promoting smaller local stations over the big boys who cover a lot of land why do they allow 50KW stations like WBZ and WINS to hash all over their adjacents?

The question is where geographically is the hash audible....if it's somewhere no one cares about...then it's a non-issue.

In some cases, it's happening on a station's own channel, within their own interference protected contour.  The pipsqueak station you mentioned before DOES have at least SOME expectation of nighttime coverage, even if it doesn't have an endless right to cover a larger market with a secondary signal. 

The problem is, it isn't getting interference from IBOC outside its primary service area — some stations are getting interference within their own service area.

What I fail to understand is how the FCC can work to mitigate Cuban interference (for example, authorizing much higher nighttime power than daytime, or in a few cases, giving AMs a nighttime only FM signal like WJNT in Jackson) but ignore the interference they've created themselves.

I live basically down the street from my town's only station, and they run 43 watts at night on a graveyard channel.  Are you seriously telling me that I should not expect the signal to be clean and noise free here within their protected service area, just because it's a pipsqueak of a signal at night?

If there is an annoying buzz in the background on a particular station, I will tune away from that station. It is psychoacoustically fatiguing to me to listen to that type of noise for any length of time. My hearing is very important in the performance of my job and I treat it with care. Others may not care, or it may not bother them. That is their choice, but I choose not to listen to stations transmitting OFDM subcarriers. The addition of that extra noise ruins my listening experience irrevocably. 

I'm the same way, but I fear we are in the minority.  I am also sensitive to the artifacts of lossy compression, and the first time I abandoned radio it was when all the stations in my town converted over to mp3 playback of audio back in the 90's.  Or maybe it was mp2 then, whatever it was, it sounded horrible.  Even today, I'm driven away from a majority of analog stations in hilly markets because of all the whistling and whining from subcarriers that come through.  WBHM in Birmingham is #1 worst offender.  No HD, no RDS, but get between the stick and a hill and it whistles like crazy.  Yuck.

I didn't come back to radio until I moved to a small town with more modern automation and better encoding.  By then I acclimated to and ran away from satellite radio (XM to be specific) when their audio quality took a dive after getting into the channel count wars with Sirius.

Now I'm in yet another market with old encoding again and painfully low bitrates.  Analog FM sounds like HD and HD sounds like dog squeeze, so I'm "." this close to abandoning radio all over again.  Between the crowded and useless coastal AM band at night and the drop-outy HD and encoding problems, it simply isn't worth it anymore.  And that's on top of poor music selection, too many commercials, asinine talk show hosts and repetitiveness. 

The question isn't "Why are people still listening despite HD?" it's "Why are people still listening, period?"

Okay.    So WHY?   would the FCC do this?   Well, as Big A points out, the Federal Government is not fond of the idea that some "%@!# privately owned station in major city x is strong enough to be heard in major city y.

There are MANY reasons why governments fear the idea that  ANY private voice have that kind of power.
This drags us quickly into kooksville, having tea at the Bilterbergers' conspiracy  convention.

The idea doesn't work because we have the internet.  Anyone can exchange even the kookiest of ideas with anyone else now, they don't need a far-flung AM skywave signal to get that information.

Does the FCC itself want the whole mess to go away?
Would you feel the same if FM were being considered for euthanasia?

FM IS next, it's only a matter of time and whether or not the free market continues to get in the way of itself.

The current FCC crop is full of people who are broadband-broadband-broadband and nothing else.  Not preserving the AM dial, not killing HD, not dealing with nip-slips.  If AM and FM went away tomorrow, that'd just be that many more employees to put into the broadband division.

So, wouldn't the internet be the next place to get shut down, because of free exchange of ideas?

Funny you should mention that. 

The government can't shut it down.  That's against the first amendment.  They can't stiffle it, but they can't promote it either.  That's the tap dance a government plays in a free society.  They don't have to assist and help profit making companies to make money.  So they're looking into regulations to control and TAX the internet. 

Oh really?

The president already has the power to shut down certain forms of communication during the war, and a new bill in the Senate is being passed around that would allow the president to decree a "contain and confine" approach websites that perform cyber attacks online. 

The Customs dept is now taking over sites with alleged illegal media content and shutting them down, regardless of what country they're in. 

It's a far stretch to see an authoritarian regime amending the rules to extend this to other types of internet activity.  Once they get their paws on some type of regulation, it can only extend its reach unless we stop it. 

(And what this has to do with HD is nothing, but it's an interesting diversion from HD bashing nonetheless.)

[DaveBayArea]

There is no factual basis to believe that anyone except DX-ers and hobbyists are doing so.

This thread centers on AM, so I'll talk about the AM situations we have in the San Francisco Bay Area.  1510, licensed to Piedmont, is quite strong in Walnut Creek and Concord.  So is 1530 from Sacramento.  Those stations are 20 KHz away from each other.  But when 1530 turned on HD the 1510 signal picked up a sort of weird high-pitched noise.  Most people had no idea what it was, but the engineers among us recognize it as a beat between the station's carrier and the ODFM carriers.  The 2nd-adjacent interference is arguably more objectionable than 1st adjacent, because the desired station is still very clear.  In our other big interference case, 910/920, the offending station (910) just drowns out 920 completely.  This one is a bit worse than normal because they tried to shoehorn HD into a directional antenna system that wasn't really broadband enough to do it, so the HD signal doesn't get nulled the way it's supposed to.

FM is even worse in this hilly terrain.  There are many instances of HD interference all over the Bay Area - even within the predicted city-grade contours.  107.5/107.7, 98.9/99.1, 92.1/92.3, and 91.5/91.7 come to mind.  I agree that probably the DX-ers and hobbyists are the ones who know the problem is due to HD - you can add people who work in radio to that list.  But the general public doesn't know any better, and they just switch to something else.

Dave B.

[TheBigA]

But the general public doesn't know any better, and they just switch to something else.

But as I've said, they haven't.  At least not in a statistical way. 

[TheBigA]

It's a far stretch to see an authoritarian regime amending the rules to extend this to other types of internet activity.  Once they get their paws on some type of regulation, it can only extend its reach unless we stop it. 

I think there's a very big difference between shutting down web sites with illegal content, and shutting down the internet period. Just on general principle.  If you read the context of our discussion, you'll understand what it has to do with HD.

BTW, shutting down web sites with illegal content is NOT a 1st amendment issue, as the WikiLeaks guy is about to learn.  But that's not what we were talking about.

[DaveBayArea]

But as I've said, they haven't.  At least not in a statistical way. 

I know of at least two very significant statistics.  Ones that directly affect the bottom line.  KVMR (89.5, Nevada City) used to have a significant number of subscribers (over 20%) in Sacramento.  When KQEI (89.3) turned on their HD that number dropped to less than 5%.  KKUP (91.5, Cupertino) likewise lost almost all of their subscribers in San Mateo county when KALW (91.7) began using HD.  There also used to be a significant number of ads for San Jose businesses on 107.5, but that went away when 107.7 turned on their HD.  I don't have any first-hand knowledge of that situation like I do with the public stations, but it stands to reason that once the station couldn't be heard the businesses weren't buying.

Here in the Bay Area our #1 AM station tried HD for about 2 months.  They were smart enough to turn it off right away.

Dave B.

[TheBigA]

KVMR (89.5, Nevada City) used to have a significant number of subscribers (over 20%) in Sacramento. 

From what I can see, the city of Sacramento is outside the primary coverage area of KVMR, and therefore is not entitled to any subscribers there.

[DaveBayArea]

From what I can see, the city of Sacramento is outside the primary coverage area of KVMR, and therefore is not entitled to any subscribers there.

No argument there, at least when you consider FCC predicted coverage and not Longley-Rice.  That's what happens in areas like California where there are lots of hills.  But as I said before, the general public doesn't understand these things.  All of the KVMR listeners in Sacramento didn't know that they weren't supposed to be listening to that station.  It was just a preset on their radios.  It's easily strong enough to be caught by the "seek" function, and still is.  It's just that it's noisy.

So what's your argument for the areas in the East Bay Hills (Hiller Highlands, Tilden, most of Orinda) where KKDV on 92.1 can't be heard because of HD on 92.3.  Or all of Almaden Valley, Saratoga, Cambrian Park, and a good part of Campbell - where KKUP on 91.5 cannot be received due to HD on 91.7?  Those stations are pretty much non-existent right within their city grade contours.

This has been the argument of HD proponents for a long time - that those stations shouldn't have had listeners in those areas.  Yet they did, and the financial consequences of lost coverage are very real to the stations involved.

Dave B.

[Don Juannn]

In some cases, it's happening on a station's own channel, within their own interference protected contour.  The pipsqueak station you mentioned before DOES have at least SOME expectation of nighttime coverage, even if it doesn't have an endless right to cover a larger market with a secondary signal. 

The problem is, it isn't getting interference from IBOC outside its primary service area — some stations are getting interference within their own service area.

I have yet to see any documentation to prove this.  The few cases that get continually brought up more anecdotal than anything else.

But, again, let's deal with facts...present the case where a station is getting trounced on within their protected contours.  In most circumstances these are special cases with an easy explanantion.

I live basically down the street from my town's only station, and they run 43 watts at night on a graveyard channel.  Are you seriously telling me that I should not expect the signal to be clean and noise free here within their protected service area, just because it's a pipsqueak of a signal at night?

In many cases there is no protected contour for these pipsqueaks.  They were given night service with the understanding that they would accept whatever interference they got.

In many cases they are lucky they got ANY nighttime authorixation.

[TheBigA]

This has been the argument of HD proponents for a long time - that those stations shouldn't have had listeners in those areas.  Yet they did, and the financial consequences of lost coverage are very real to the stations involved.

I say to them the same thing the FCC says to all the DXers they screwed when they changed the clear channel rules: That's life.  We have people here who'd like to listen to WBAP in Chicago or WSM in New England, and the answer is: Listen on the internet, because the FCC did away with that kind of radio a long time ago, long before HD.  What do you say to the owner of a radio station who once had to compete with five stations and now has to compete with 25?  He's watched his shares drop from 20 to 5.  You think that had financial consequences?  You want to know why no one's investing in radio?  This is why.

A lot of the stations you're talking about shouldn't have been licensed in the first place.  But the FCC, in an effort to give every citizen their own radio station, over-licensed the spectrum.  And they're not done.  They want to eliminate 3rd adjacents and stick LPFMs in there too.  Can you imagine the interference, between HD and LPFM?  They have studies that say it won't be a problem.  Really?

Meanwhile, by pushing radio stations on to the internet, the FCC is killing off an asset of the American people, namely the airwaves.  The radio industry isn't doing this.  Government policy is.  To me, it seems contradictory for a government agency to degrade the value of a public asset.  Then again, I don't think they're doing it because they want radio to go away, but they want to take the profit motive out of it.  They want these stations to serve their local communities, not big cities 60 miles away.  Unfortunately, taking the profit out of it will make it go away.

So the next great battlefield is the internet.  Broadcasting there takes a lot of bandwidth, and ISPs are talking about different rates for higher bandwidth users.  Sound familiar?  Stations that spent the past 25 years fighting move-ins and HD interference are now going to have to deal with similar issues on the internet.  And guess who wants to be involved?  The FCC.  You think it'll have financial implications?  This is all way more complicated than HD radio.  That train left the building a long time ago.  If the FCC cared, they'd return Savage's phone calls.  But they don't.  So you do what you gotta do.  

[DaveBayArea]

I say to them the same thing the FCC says to all the DXers

Except in this case we're talking distances of less than 20 miles and very strong signals.  Not something that really falls into the "DX" category.

Can you imagine the interference, between HD and LPFM?  They have studies that say it won't be a problem.  Really?

Realistically this probably won't be a problem if you think about it, HD interference on FM is pretty much restricted to 1st adjacent channels.  Here in the Bay Area they allocate 2nd adjacents to San Francisco and San Jose, and the signals from both cities (full class B's - not 100 watt LPFM's) are easily receivable in the other.

the FCC is killing off an asset of the American people, namely the airwaves.  The radio industry isn't doing this.  Government policy is.

However, in another area (the narrowbanding of the land mobile service) they got it right.  It has become apparent that the approval of HD was based more on politics and lobbying than it was on engineering.  I remember when HD first hit, and nobody really believed it would go very far - that the marketplace would decide in a few years, it would go the way of quad FM and color-wheel TV, and normal radio reception would be restored.  I can't disagree with what you say, the government made the rule.  But without a push from the radio industry it would never have happened.

Dave B.