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Let's Rename This Board

kenglish, maybe we haven't gotten HD taken down entirely by "bitching on this forum." But I hope we've dissuaded uninformed managers and owners who were on the fence, and perhaps used the power of logic and persuasion to get those saddled with IBOC to turn it off. These are all good things.

As far as WYSL goes, our frequency change in 1997 had nothing to do with WBZ, at least not in any direct sense. WYSL signed on as a 500 watt daytimer co-channel with WBZ in 1987, increasing to 1kw ten months after sign-on. We went DA-2 and moved to 1040 ten years later because nighttime service was impossible on 1030. And that served us and our region just fine until nighttime IBOC was deployed in September 2007, and WBZ's upper digital sideband started clobbering us.
 
And while putting an FM translator on was certainly a "wise investment," we would have preferred making that choice on our own timetable insted of having it imposed on us. It was two years between the authorization of nighttime HD-AM in September 2007 and relaxation of the FM translator rules in late summer 2009; after that it took us about five months to acquire the FM translator and move its frequency, COL and TL. It is a testament to the hard work and tenacity of WYSL and our people that we were able to withstand over 2 1/2 years of the destructive interference from Boston. It could have put stations with fewer resources out of business.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSL

"Savage has been a vocal opponent of the new HD Radio technology being used on the AM band, saying that the technology causes undue interference and unnecessary broadcast delay for minimal gain in quality.[1][2]. He has since filed a formal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission over interference caused by WBZ's nighttime HD signal on the adjacent 1030 kHz frequency[3], from which Savage had moved many years earlier to avoid that interference when his station went to a 24-hour broadcast schedule."

That's where I got the impression that you had moved to avoid WBZ, which was on the same frequency.
 
In the latest Radio World yesterday. I noticed that there were renewed calls in several written pieces for AM to go digital only. With all of the problems associated with noisy electronic gadgets and other environmental noise makers maybe the time has come to seriously consider this. Apparently, all digital AM is robust (unlike IBOC) and travels farther than analog. Yes, it would obsolete a lot of radios but perhaps the FCC can step in with DTV-style upgrade voucher program. Yes, Ibiquity sucks badly as a company but such is the hand the FCC has dealt radio broadcasters.

There were also renewed calls in RW for VHF channels 5 & 6 to be handed over to FM. I highly doubt that will happen as the FCC seems determined to make VHF work for DTV (speculation among low power TV broadcasters is that the FCC wants to relegate LPTV to the VHF band and, in fact, the commission has been working with some LPTV stations on VHF with power increases and changes in transmission masks and antenna polarization).
 
I'm missing something. Isn't the "all-digital" scheme being tinkered with, iBiquity without the analog? Won't it still be subject to skywave interference and dropouts? If it's HD digital-only and the analog gets aced, there would be no analog backup. How is that supposed to work during a thunderstorm??
 
Savage said:
I'm missing something. Isn't the "all-digital" scheme being tinkered with, iBiquity without the analog? Won't it still be subject to skywave interference and dropouts? If it's HD digital-only and the analog gets aced, there would be no analog backup. How is that supposed to work during a thunderstorm??
Click to expand...

Well, you have me there, Bob. The RW article on Ben Downs and his small market stations mentioned that digital AM is being experimented with. But the article said nothing about how digital AM reacts to natural phenomena like storms and skywave. Ben is part of the NAB advisory committee on AM. He seems convinced digital AM will save the band. But obviously more trials need to be carried out to see how well digital AM performs under adverse conditions.
 
Yep, the talk of "all-digital" refers to adopting the all-digital AM-HD configuration.

The FM dial seems to be following AM down the garden path. With the advent of LPFM, the convolution of translators now serving as primary broadcast outlets, and the pending proposal to allow booster stations to originate programming (for "ZoneCasting")...
 
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