620's IBLOC

[TerryKay]

It's been off since at least last Saturday. I can actually hear WIOD and the Rebelde outlet out of Cuba on 610 daytime now.

 

[MsMusicRadio]

I like to compliment people on cool names. I really like Goat Rodeo Cowboy, but Terry Kay has got a real 60's Top 40 night jock ring to it!

 

[TerryKay]

It was the air name I used at WUCF-FM in the early 80's. My last name starts with a K so I just made it Kay.

Now if 970 would just kill their IBLOC so I could DX 950 after 7:30 am.

 

[sbe1]

They should turn off those imitation Russian jamming machines for good.

 

[rfrus]

If 970 turns of their HD I'll stop listening. The AM sounds so bad I cant handle it. The HD makes it listenable. Hey guys DXing is NOT a reason to turn off HD. I wish 820 would turn their HD back on.

 

[NewsStud]

If 970 turns of their HD I'll stop listening. The AM sounds so bad I cant handle it. The HD makes it listenable. Hey guys DXing is NOT a reason to turn off HD. I wish 820 would turn their HD back on.

Couldn't one wishing to "DX" just put on the webstream of the distant station?

You can "DX" a whole lot more via the internet. You can even "DX" stations from the other side of the planet, even if they're not on shortwave!

 

[pqgeorge]

If 970 turns of their HD I'll stop listening. The AM sounds so bad I cant handle it. The HD makes it listenable. Hey guys DXing is NOT a reason to turn off HD. I wish 820 would turn their HD back on.

Couldn't one wishing to "DX" just put on the webstream of the distant station?

You can "DX" a whole lot more via the internet. You can even "DX" stations from the other side of the planet, even if they're not on shortwave!

That's all fine and dandy, but it's just NOT the same. Hearing a real "DX" station, atmospherics and all, is the real thing. Hearing a stream of a station on-line, you're subject to the blocking of the local ads and most of the local flavor that makes a station unique. I do listen to some of the live streams regularly (i.e.- WLS-FM, KRTH HD1 and 2, WCBS-FM, WXRB and so on). But when it comes to trying to scan the bands (AM and FM), I like to "work" for my DX, not to have it put in front of me on a silver platter.

I do think that IBOC has no place on the AM band (never mind the FM band). It's very clanky, causes undue interference to several frequencies several channels up and down the dial and is not stable. It simply doesn't work. It's not helping AM's cause in any way. In fact it's hurting the band. In my neck of the woods (Boston), we have a couple of AM IBOC's who sound horrible. Thanks to the brick wall filtering (designed to "protect" the digital carriers), what used to be a clean wideband signal now sounds like the best POTS line (dial-up). The digital hiss is always there. IBOC on AM is a lost cause and should be discontinued. As for FM, they should have used FMeXtra (digital SCA) for DAB, not cluttering the first and second adjacents of the host station like the IBOC ("HD Radio") system does. Considering the comparatively few HD radios out there, they ought to scrap HD and go with FMeXtra. The band would clean up. People would have their subchannels as they have now with HD1 and HD2 and the coverage would be almost equal to that of standard FM Stereo. But in the real world, it ain't gonna happen.

 

[NewsStud]

That's all fine and dandy, but it's just NOT the same.

If the purpose of a station in Dubuque is to serve the community of Dubuque, why is it such a sin that someone in Buffalo can't hear it because of IBOC? I'm sure it's a fun hobby, but the purpose of a station isn't to attract distant listeners. The mandate for digital broadcasting should be for it enhance the radio station's ability to serve it's local community.

And I don't think your average listener, on a car radio where speakers are pointed towards the drivers knees, can hear the adverse IBOC things you can hear.

While I think HD Radio is a lost cause because no broadcaster pushed any car manufacturers to have HD Radio installed as a standard car radio (hell, I don't think it's even an option)... nobody except us geeks know it's there. My Boston Acoustics HD Receptor works pretty well, but I haven't met any normal person who wants to spend that kind of money on a table-top radio.

 

[sbe1]

That's all fine and dandy, but it's just NOT the same.

If the purpose of a station in Dubuque is to serve the community of Dubuque, why is it such a sin that someone in Buffalo can't hear it because of IBOC? I'm sure it's a fun hobby, but the purpose of a station isn't to attract distant listeners.

Tell that to WSM in Nashville or any of the other Class A Clear Channel (not the company) stations. If that were the case we could lower their class to class B and eliminate the special protections they get

 

[NewsStud]

Tell that to WSM in Nashville or any of the other Class A Clear Channel (not the company) stations. If that were the case we could lower their class to class B and eliminate the special protections they get

Yeah, but isn't that attributable to a bygone era, when those clear channels (not the company) were a necessity for mass communication?

Besides... I would think WSM (Or any other Class A for that matter) would be more interested in the ease of listeners being able to find their programming, rather than having to try and use an AM radio to "DX" it from thousands of miles away. Most people are not going to spend lots of money on a fine-crafted AM receiver that could allow them to DX with ease. And most people don't wanna go outside, at night, on the front porch tilting a tiny transistor radio in hopes of hearing a liner cart from a station in a far off land. (Notice I said, "most people" - that excludes us. Personally, I think it's a hoot).

But it's not hard for most people to find WSM's web site, click on the stream, turn the speakers up, and listen.

If I were the FCC (and I'm not), I would argue that IBOC is meant to enhance the experience of the local listening community. (Whether or not it actually does is debatable) DX'ers would not be the priority here.

 

[badjef]

620's iBoc was delayed from the analogue signal making it difficult to follow the program when it would switch between them due to signal changes. There is no way to force most radios into analogue only mode.

970 doesn't seem to have the same problem.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!