KRKO/KKXA To Test All Digital AM Broadcasting

In a move guaranteed to give our DXers fits, KRKO 1380 and KKXA 1520 will begin testing All Digital AM Broadcasting from Oct. 2nd - 5th......

I saw that as well. So the signals will be off completely?

Analog ones likely.

fordranger797 said:

I saw that as well. So the signals will be off completely?

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If you have an HD Radio, you can receive all digital signals.

Interesting...

I'm assuming that CAAM broadcasting knows that the vast majority of their listeners do not have HD radios, nor will they upgrade.

I have a HD radio in my VW Passat and was scanning my AM band it had to be at least a year ago and those signals were coming in as HD so Im not sure what there is to test- I too was surprised to see this- but I guess it works just fine on AM too. It sounded great.

fordranger797 said:

Interesting...

I'm assuming that CAAM broadcasting knows that the vast majority of their listeners do not have HD radios, nor will they upgrade.

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It is quite interesting. But remember, they're TESTING. Likely picking overnights and hours when no one is really listening. But that NOISE is going to be hard to live down if anyone hears it. They don't plan any immediate abandonment of analog, but when it's "economically feasible", likely when there are more people with HD radios.

Could take a while. Maybe even a government sponsored conversion plan and cut-off date for analog AM, a'la DTV (and WATCH all those anti-gubbermint right wing AM radio hosts try and spin THAT around.) So I wouldn't worry too much...

RE: What they're going to test... AM HD like the FM counterpart puts the digital signal in the sidebands at the edges of the analog signal. However in AM the sidebands (as well as the carrier) occupy a much smaller footpring (bandwidth.) This makes it only possible to broadcast a digital stereo signal of 32kbps. Which is not sufficient to make it exactly "FM" or "CD" quality.

Without the AM analog carrier occupying most of the signal they can increase the bandwidth to broadcast a higher quality digital stream.

The same can be done on FM but FM already is capable of broadcasting a digital signal with enough quality that audio artifacts are hardly noticeable to the average listener while still broadcasting a normal analog signal.

Full digital AM has been done on shortwave and in other countries with other systems (other than IBOC) already... Just not on AM in North America.

Considering that nobody listens to either of those stations in analog in significant numbers, the possibility exists that more people now have HD radios in their cars than listen to these analog stations.

The test will be to see how it sounds and how it propagates.

Hmm, so if the government does a federal mandate shutdown for AM, we can try for rare Canada, Mexico and Europe! I've got so many Mexicans to pick up still...
But that probably won't happen for quite a few years at least.
Digital TV is still flawed in many locations - many people still can't get the signals like the analog days. I think the DT transition could have been done much better. There WERE a few poor people that couldn't afford cable...and now they have to pay for a digital box to receive limited basic! WTH?

crainbebo said:

Hmm, so if the government does a federal mandate shutdown for AM, we can try for rare Canada, Mexico and Europe! I've got so many Mexicans to pick up still...
But that probably won't happen for quite a few years at least.
Digital TV is still flawed in many locations - many people still can't get the signals like the analog days. I think the DT transition could have been done much better. There WERE a few poor people that couldn't afford cable...and now they have to pay for a digital box to receive limited basic! WTH?

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DTV is a worthless joke. With analog television, the signal never was crystal clear, but it was always watchable, if not very good. With DTV the only channel I can pick up is KCPQ (and no, not with a flimsy indoor antenna).

Its not just poor people who don't have cable. There were/are TONS of people who don't care about cable channels and only wanted to watch local tv (but can no longer do so; thanks DTV)

AM signals are what many people who live far from metropolitan areas rely on. Id LOVE to see what kind of worthless reception they get!

crainbebo said:

Hmm, so if the government does a federal mandate shutdown for AM, we can try for rare Canada, Mexico and Europe! I've got so many Mexicans to pick up still...
But that probably won't happen for quite a few years at least.
Digital TV is still flawed in many locations - many people still can't get the signals like the analog days. I think the DT transition could have been done much better. There WERE a few poor people that couldn't afford cable...and now they have to pay for a digital box to receive limited basic! WTH?

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All the major Portland TV stations have several translators all over Oregon and Southwest Washington. On the coast, mountain communities. They had them even back in the analog days. I wonder why the Seattle stations never did this way back before the digital transition. They are needed even more now.

JakeMott said:

All the major Portland TV stations have several translators all over Oregon and Southwest Washington. On the coast, mountain communities. They had them even back in the analog days. I wonder why the Seattle stations never did this way back before the digital transition. They are needed even more now.

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Interesting fact: I live well within the contour for all of the Seattle signals but none of the channels produce a watchable signal anymore. With all of the translators needed to fill in the holes left by DTV it turns into a big mess.

Olympia and Mount Vernon once were also in the signal path. Not no more my friends.

While we're on the subject of KKXA, it's almost impossible to hear down in North Tacoma due to being overwhelmed by a Spanish station at the same frequency. The problem is there are no licensed stations in the Seattle region broadcasting Spanish language music at 1520 AM. So where is the signal coming from?

installLSC said:

While we're on the subject of KKXA, it's almost impossible to hear down in North Tacoma due to being overwhelmed by a Spanish station at the same frequency. The problem is there are no licensed stations in the Seattle region broadcasting Spanish language music at 1520 AM. So where is the signal coming from?

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It's a Portland area station.

installLSC said:

While we're on the subject of KKXA, it's almost impossible to hear down in North Tacoma due to being overwhelmed by a Spanish station at the same frequency. The problem is there are no licensed stations in the Seattle region broadcasting Spanish language music at 1520 AM. So where is the signal coming from?

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I second that. 1520 and 1130 (both out of Portland) are extremely strong up here. I cant say much about 1130, but it seems like the spacing isn't quite adequate between KKXA and that Portland station with their power level.

During daylight hours? 1520 Portland was barely audible during the day when I was down there (but during the winter, most Portland stations put in a fair signal during the day, 620, 750 and 1190 being the loudest.) But at night, they damn near caused smoke to come out of my radio.

KKXA is directional N-NE at night to protect Portland.

Bongwater said:

During daylight hours? 1520 Portland was barely audible during the day when I was down there (but during the winter, most Portland stations put in a fair signal during the day, 620, 750 and 1190 being the loudest.) But at night, they damn near caused smoke to come out of my radio.

KKXA is directional N-NE at night to protect Portland.

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Let me correct myself. 1520 from Portland drowns out KKXA at sunset (you're right, sorry for the misunderstanding). As for 1130, take your chances.

fordranger797 said:

Let me correct myself. 1520 from Portland drowns out KKXA at sunset (you're right, sorry for the misunderstanding). As for 1130, take your chances.

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That's OK, at least you were paying attention to the actual radio signal (than the next big groveler who made it to the top INSIDE the biz.)

You're only as good as....

I've had a good experience with OTA DTV. With analog TV, I was lucky if I got Channel 7 clearly. The other three Seattle stations were a toss up, usually unviewable. 13 & 11? Forget it.

As soon as DTV kicked in, and I got an amplified antenna that sits on the top of the TV (and, of course, the DTV converter box, which one can still get for $40), I have about 10+ channels, most of them very watchable. 5 doesn't come in at all, neither does 11. 4, 4.1, 7, 7.1, 13, JoeTV, Ion, IonLife, Univision, and about three shopping channels, and the odd religious station all come in. The picture, compared to the analog pictures on the same exact TV, is terrific.

Fordranger, maybe you're just in a worse area than I'm in.

RE: AM going digital: I agree with Fordranger here -- if AM goes all digital it could cause a lot of stations to lose some audience. A lot of the stations may also have to boost the power if they do go all digital, to keep their present listening range.

Not having an HD radio, I have no clue if KXA's HD is readable south of Seattle where I live. But I can hear their analog signal o.k.

And being that they're the only local classic country AM station (unless there's an FM HD I don't know about), I wonder why they would want to go all digital and lose so much of their potential audience?

One big problem with AM going all digital is who'll buy the radios? The industry would have to to a pretty good sell job (or Congress would have to write legislation mandating the AM band to be included in automobile radios) for all digital AM to succeed.

Even a DXer should know that HD FM's cover roughly the same area with 1% of the power of the analog. Digital broadcasting is a huge money saver when it comes to the power bill. On a 50kw AM that is significant. TV and AM station's digital transmitters also use much less power to cover the same area.

As for AM's losing audience... Have you looked at the ratings lately? They have no audience. Just you DXers.

If you were a serious broadcast geek you would get a digital radio and DX those signals as well...

But then again, maybe you can learn Morse Code and focus on DX'ing telegraph.