Please get rid of the NOISE, ASAP!its very annoying!!Who do I call? Noise-busters?

Call the same people for all the miscues, double audio, and outdated reruns on 620.

I don't hear any noise on KEX. Nice quiet and sounds like FM on my radio. Sounds better than any other station on AM except for 1640.

I see that you're not on board with the digital installation plan.

"Who do I call?"

Why don't you start with "anywhere other than this forum"?

...Try the FCC.*

*Only if your complaint is about KEX interfering with other radio stations.

the noise on KEX is interfereing with KEX,no question about itIf any KEX employees read this, the please mention iit to your staff of expert Engineers so that they might investigate and come up with a solution.Please try using the backup transmitter for a few weeks!!????OK???that is my suggestion!!!

There is nothing with the sound on KEX-HD or KEX normal. It sounds just fine and there is no noise on modern receivers. 62, you need to get over it and get a life. They are not going to go back to playing the hits like they did in 1959. If it interferes with other stations on your radio, get a new radio or move away from the towers.

> the noise on KEX is interfereing with KEX,no question about it

Then your complaint is null and void. No radio station can make any guarantees about what they will sound like on your radio. If a station sounds like crap to you and the reasons for this are other than interference from *other* radio stations or from "unintentional radiators," then there is nothing that the FCC can do about this. KEX is under a corporate mandate to broadcast IBOC, and nothing that you or anybody else could say on this board will change that. Whatever it is that people are hearing when they listen to KEX, it is not alienating most of the listeners, as KEX's ratings show. Please stop playing these games; you are smarter than that. Like I have said before, why don't you take the initiative to create something that others might enjoy, instead of writing repeated sarcastic remarks of which most readers of this forum have grown weary?

By the way, if you closely analyze the views that various people on this board have on this subject, you will find that there is a range of opinions. First off, I will come out and say that even in 2008, if I want to spend the money for a high quality tuner, I will save up and get a high quality analog tuner, like a Fanfare FTA-100, that is carefully engineered all the way from where the RF enters the radio to where the audio comes out and that carries some guarantee that I can send it back if it doesn't perform as well as I had hoped.

At this point, I have many reservations about the latest generation of consumer electronics; these typically Chinese-made products are engineered for low cost high volume manufacturing. Performance, longevity, and serviceability are generally not considered as important as they might have been 20+ years ago. I don't know that any currently-available HD radio has front-end and IF stages that are engineered like those in the "super-tuners" of years past or of the Fanfare. However, I would be happy to be proven wrong.

In the other camps, you have at least one person who objects to the ethics of a single company (Ibiquity) holding control over all of the intellectual property of the HD system. Then you have some people who own HD radios and swear by them, based on what they have heard coming out of the speakers. In yet another camp, you have people who claim to be insiders and who support the HD system for corporate/business reasons. That's the way it is on this board, and you don't have to kiss anybody's butt. Just don't expect other people to kiss yours.

I have a 1950 RCA floor standing 3 band radio in the living room. When I tune 1190 I hear some hiss on either side of the carrier, but that's it. The station sounds fine. Rock solid and clear. Booms in beautifully with that 12" speaker in the cabinet. If there was any problem, believe me I'd hear it. In fact ALL the stations on the dial sound absolutely fine if you tune them to the correct frequency. So, who is this clown posting this nonsense, anyway?

This "clown" is an electronics hobbyist who doesn't want to buy into the latest generation of consumer electronics or into the programming philosophies of the major radio conglomerates. I can respect and to a significant degree agree with those viewpoints. The problem is that he thinks that he is going to accomplish something tangible (like getting a radio station to revert to an old format or getting a station to reconsider IBOC operation) if he repeats himself enough times on this board. On top of that, he has never had the guts to show himself in person to any participants of this forum, let alone to people who work in radio and make these types of operational decisions. I suggested some things that he could do, but apparently my suggestions involve too much work.

To: The author of this thread; "Noise-Radio 1190 KEX!!!!"

I have but a single sentence in response to you....

Pot, meet kettle.

Alfredo_t said:

"I don't know that any currently-available HD radio has front-end and IF stages that are engineered like those in the "super-tuners" of years past or of the Fanfare. However, I would be happy to be proven wrong."

You might want to check out what another FM Dxer had to say about the Sangean HDT-1. It is inexpensive and pretty darn good for Dx. it beats my Denon TU1500 for Dx, but overloads more easily than my Yamaha 950 (which I use to Dx stations to the east, which requires pointing my antenna toward the Portland towers). Also linked in this article is a review by K6STI.

http://pages.cthome.net/fmdx/

I am saving my bucks for one of the M-4 Series from Day Sequerra:

http://www.daysequerra.com/

this is the place to post message to feedback to Portland Radiostations and people and other interested.You have option of not reading it and looking at other web sites or hitting the computer OFF switchRadio(including Noise-radio 11-90 consantly repeats messages(commercials, top hits,News,weather, etc.that is to try to make the Message sink in!!I did indeed meet one pdxradio person(Greenway) a couple years ago to provide him a wide" AM radio receiver. RadioProgrammers,hosts also makes great use of jokes,wisecracks and sarcasm,so it should be good here too????

Alfredo_t~

"...[H]e thinks that he is going to accomplish something tangible (like getting a radio station to revert to an old format[)]....On top of that, he has never had the guts to show himself in person to any participants of this forum....."

Your Honour, I can easily attest to having committed such offences more than once, myself........

(Oh God, I'm goin' to jail.....)



62, just FYI, I don't think such "noise" you are hearing on KEX is 100% attributable to IBAC hash. ANY station that makes a format out of Limblah and Dr. Laura could EASILY be considered a source of nuisance RF interference and skywave pollution!!

(Then again, the same thing could have been said about Movin', considering the lack of creativity in its format. But since that was on FM, and VHF FM doesn't have the propagation characteristics or bandwidth issues that mediumwave AM has, that's really a moot point.... ;o)

We have been successfull in the past by repeated posting of messages here that finally convinced some station engineers to clean up their audio!!!If IBAC HD was such an excellent invention, shouldn't all stations be doing it now,instead of just 2???the Hash noise is there all the time, even when Limbaugh and Laura are not there!!!!

I was told by an engineer I respect that the receiver is really important. Obviously, processing and signal strength matter a lot too.
My old Jeep Cherokee radio made KEX sound like FM (It did pick up the stereo broadcasts automatically years ago). When I switched to Mazda the AM stations didn't sound as good. My grandfather's old Philco makes AM sound like a concert hall. It's one of the "furniture" floor models. Problem is...how you going to get people to buy new radios? I guess that's the whole HD debate. I've never heard it.

Short of legally forcing the obsolecense of the existing receivers (as is going to happen with television), the way to get consumers to buy large numbers of new radios is with new features. This is why radio stations that broadcast in the "HD" system are boasting that they can multicast (this means that they broadcast bonus programs that can only be heard on the new radios) and that they are doing iTunes tagging (the station's playlist is broadcast to specially equipped radios that put the song titles on the listener's iPod so that (s)he can later buy those songs from iPod, if he so chooses).

With AM radio, the receiver has been a huge variable in determining sound quality for many years. In the early 1990s, there was an attempt to standardize AM radio sound quality to something like what you heard in the old Jeep radio. These enhanced AM radios were to have an "AMAX" logo on them (the acronym stood for AM radio at its MAXimum potential). These efforts were not successful, as few radios were made that met all of the technical requirements, and of those radio models that were compliant, only a small portion had the logo.

Although it may seem like a paradox at first, the KEX hiss *WILL* be heard on AM radios that have good treble response. This includes radios that meet the AMAX specifications. If you can hear the hiss, you have several choices: 1) switch the radio to a narrower bandwidth (if your radio has that feature), 2) listen on a different radio, 3) get used to hearing the hiss.

Clear Channel is not going to give up on IBOC just because some people hear more noise on their radios. On the contrary (this is my own conspiracy theory), IBOC is the friend of Clear Channel because if it becomes something that listeners start to expect, it will become a way to force competitors to spend money. If you look at the Wikipedia article on FM broadcasting, one of the reasons that RCA, which was the parent company of the NBC radio network, opposed FM was that they were afraid that with FM, a radio network could be built cheaply, using over-the-air pickup (instead of leased phone lines) to distribute the programming from one market to another. If this cost barrier were removed, the NBC and RCA execs reasoned, there would be many more radio networks, and a low-budget startup network could give the NBC networks a run for the money.

I think any digital transmissions should be done on frequencies that z tv is leaving!!!!
change format per listener request!!!

"I think any digital transmissions should be done on frequencies that z tv is leaving!!!!"

Huh??

62, I believe you may be confused again.....Ibiquity Hybrid Digital Radio is *N*O*T* the same thing as High Definition television, despite the fact that some will go blue in the face trying to convince others to the contrary!

(At least I think that was what you meant by that..........)

But I still think that auxilarry audio broadcasts (e.g. radio stations) over ATSC audio channels is an excellent idea. Kinda' like what satellite broadcasters have done for years with their audio subcarriers, only more, well, digital. ;o)

Just got to get the "mobile reception" issues worked out............

Just my $2 worth.

I don't think th Medium Wave band540 to 1600 Kilohertz should be used for digital!!!.us it only for AM radio.what aresTV channels 2 6 8 10 going to be used for after analogTV shuts down?How about some reasonable form of digital Radiothere?? It would cover as good as FM does,I think!!??

"I don't think th Medium Wave band540 to 1600 Kilohertz should be used for digital!!!"

Not high-bandwidth digital forms like Ibiquity, anyways. Honestly, it's like trying to achieve a good, steady 4Mbps data throughput using only a 56Kbps dial-up modem over a really noisy telephone line. ;o) (Yes, you can quote me on that.) On the other hand, the band is perfectly suited for low-bandwidth digital systems like RTTY, just as Shortwave is. I have even heard a [presumably local] Navtex TTY transmitter operating around 520 kHz, just right below the lower end of the broadcast band. (Technically the Navtex operates at 518, but my radio doesn't tune that low, so I was really hearing to its sideband.)

Unfortunately, the bandwidth requirement of those formats is way too low to convey an actual DAB stream........

"what aresTV channels 2 6 8 10 going to be used for after analogTV shuts down?"

I don't remember right off-hand what 2 and 6 will be used for here; I think they may be vacant for a period. I have read/participated in discussions on the Internet (http://radio-info.org/smf for one) whereupon the idea for expanding the FM BCB down there has been floated. Reportedly even Dr. Elving (FM Atlas) has been a proponent of this idea as well.

8, 10 and 12 will be where KGW, KOPB and KPTV's ATSC channels reside after next February, so I am told. Currently they physically are broadcast on 40, 27 and 30--that won't be the case next year as NTSC broadcasts are shut down and replaced with digital TV

I keep hearing the idea of expanding the FM broadcast band below 88 MHz, but I don't get how anybody can take this seriously. Doing this would require new radios that are not currently being made for the US market. If this were done, I think that the result would be that the new stations would have a listenership similar to what FM stations had in the late 1940s, after the FCC moved the broadcast band from 42-48 MHz to 88-108 MHz.

what if it were the case that CC was PROMISEDAND GUATENTEED(BY THEIR OWNENGINEERS AND/OR THE IBIQUERTY/EXECUTIVES MANAGERS/SALESPEOPLE 100%THAT ABSOLUTETLLY NOBODY WOULD BE ABLE TO HEAR THE HD NOISES ON ANYEXISTING amRADIOS?LIKE IT WAS TOTALLY TRANSPARENT??NEVER/EVER THEN WHAT WOULD KEX DO IN THOSE CONDITIONS?[REMOVE THE OFFENDING HARDWAREAND GET REFUND??PLEASE READ THE CONTRACT AND LITERATURERAGAIN TO SEE WHAT THE SALESCLAIMS WERE??!! NOwT THAT AT LEAST SOMEBODY IS ACTUALLY BOTHERED BY THE HD NOISE??MSYBE SOMEBODY SHOULD BE SHOWN THE DOOR?-

Quit shouting, I'm trying to sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Folks, you're wasting your time responding to the OP. The only thing that will result in happiness for that person is a return to oldies on 620 am. Nothing else is acceptable.

1lossir,
You are correct. I could not figure out what he was saying on that last post. No punctuation, terrible spelling, no sentence construction, etc. I tried three times to figure out what he said.
The best thing to do is just ignore 62 until he can reasonably create a post that is readable and makes sense. Until then, his repeatable and predictable posts are a waste of time.

I used to think 11:16am was a little early to be hitting the sauce. Guess not.

Alfredo_t says:

"I keep hearing the idea of expanding the FM broadcast band below 88 MHz, but I don't get how anybody can take this seriously. Doing this would require new radios that are not currently being made for the US market."

But the AM band has expanded at least two times in the past (1500 to 1600 to 1700 top end) and radios have changed to meet the new requirements.

If TV Ch 5 & 6 frequencies were used to expand the FM band down to around 76 Mhz, I suspect that new radios would quickly appear that would tune this range. Over a period of time, most radios DO get replaced.

If the new FM band extension were used to transition AM stations to the FM band, there should be a period of time where broadcast on both bands would be allowed, with the station owner making a choice at the end of a specified time period.

I think that Andy_brown pointed out in another thread that this would be an unlikely scenario, because the $FCC$ wants to sell these frequencies to other services.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY 62 can you please either learn Engrish or at the very least learn to type. My friggin eyes are bleeding from your posts.

are you sure the noise wasn't George Snoory on C2C ???

Public Service Reminder:

We all get there some day. Some sooner, some later, but everybody in the end.

Give 'em a pass. There are lots of solid contributions in the archives. That's the 62 I remember. Maybe some stuff happened, or is happening.

Carry on.

Alfredo~
>> "I keep hearing the idea of expanding the FM broadcast band below 88 MHz, but I don't get how anybody can take this seriously. Doing this would require new radios that are not currently being made for the US market."

and Jr_tech~
>> "But the AM band has expanded at least two times in the past (1500 to 1600 to 1700 top end) and radios have changed to meet the new requirements.

> "If TV Ch 5 & 6 frequencies were used to expand the FM band down to around 76 Mhz, I suspect that new radios would quickly appear that would tune this range. Over a period of time, most radios DO get replaced.

> "If the new FM band extension were used to transition AM stations to the FM band, there should be a period of time where broadcast on both bands would be allowed, with the station owner making a choice at the end of a specified time period."


But remember, analogue AM/FM/TV radios, exempli gratia my Sony ICF36 and Radioshack 12-456, have been available on the market, in the USA and Canada (and probably elsewhere, but I am not certain) for decades. It really wouldn't be that hard to switch the receiver to the setting where channels 2-6 would have been located, to hear the new "extended" FM BCB.

In fact, when I travelled to Russia in the mid-90s, that was how I listened to stations on the OIRT band (a former Soviet Union broadcast band from about 60-75 MHz--our VHF channels 3, 4 and 5) using a cheap (and easily concealed/smuggled ;o) pocket multiband radio. Same when I went to Japan not even a decade ago, where the FM band runs from 76-98 MHz. I don't see how this wouldn't work on this side of the Atlantic/Pacific, and it it seems to me that this is one way many listeners could be able to enjoy the stations on the "proposed FM-X band" until radios specifically designed for both the X-band and "regular" FM/IBAC band are produced (if such receivers are produced.)

Might be hell when using a digitally-tuned radio with TV audio (would be very dodgy) but a strategy such as this would be perfectly suited for analogue tuners, I think. And there are a *lot* of those out there........ ;o)

OK--I partly take back my previous post for two reasons:

1) In theory, the expansion could be done over a few years. It was about five years between the time that AM radios covering to 1700 kHz showed up on the market and the time that WJDM 1660 went on the air.

2) TV sound portable radios could pick up the new stations, and such portables have been available in the US for the past 25 years if not longer.


I think that I first heard about the 1620-1700 kHz expansion of the AM band was in late 1990. I remember that one summer, most likely 1991, I was re-aligning all of the analog AM radios that I had to cover this new band segment. I was on vacation from high school and had a lot of time on my hands.

I used the local oscillator of another radio as a "marker" to find the top end of the expanded band during the alignment. The procedure went like this:

1) Take an auxiliary radio (i.e. not the one that is being re-aligned) and tune it to 1255 or 1260 kHz. Its local oscillator will then be on 1710 or 1715 kHz (this assumes a 455 kHz IF).

2) Place the radio to be aligned with its antenna very close to the auxiliary radio.

3) Locate the antenna and local oscillator trimmers on the radio to be tuned.

4) Tune the radio to be aligned to the very top of the dial--past 1600.

5) Slowly un-mesh the plates of the oscillator trimmer. Two things are likely to happen: a) the local oscillator of auxiliary radio may be heard or the background noise may fade out. When either of these things happens, go to step 6.

6) Slowly un-mesh the plates of the antenna trimmer until whatever is being heard (noise or local oscillator) reaches a maximum. If noise is being heard, repeat steps 5 and 6 until the local oscillator signal is received.

All of the radios that I re-tuned had enough alignment range allow the entire expanded band to be received. After doing the above procedure, I would go to the low end of the dial to see how the tracking was there. The trimmer capacitors had very little effect at the low end, but since I had the radio open, I figured that it was a good time to check. Low end alignment was done by turning the local oscillator coil slug, which was typically painted red.


What I find most interesting about the old Russian OIRT FM broadcast band is that they had an oddball "polar modulation" stereo broadcast system that is not very well documented. "Polar Modulation" (as opposed to subcarrier) seems to suggest that the amplitude of the FM signal would have been modulated with the L-R or with one of the two stereo channels. This hack would have been relatively simple to implement at the transmitter site, using a modulator cabinet "borrowed" from an AM transmitter (assuming, of course, that this is how the system worked).

Looks like an FM expansion plan is floating around the FCC.......

This from "Chad-Stevens" in the "National TV" forum at Radio Info--scroll down a little bit towards the middle (http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,95117.90.html)~

>> "There is already a proposal before the FCC that would take current channels 5 and 6 (76-88 MHz) and add it to the FM broadcast band. PDF: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-217A1.pdf

"These freqs are the majority of the FM band in Japan, so equipment capable of receiving these freqs is already being produced (if not imported) in vast quantities.

"This would of course hinge on the last few remaining DTV stragglers vacating, and whether or not the big money broadcasters would go for it. I don't see those channels being useful for cellular or much else."
(18 May 2008)


And from the above PDF that "Chad" linked to~
>>> " H. Reallocation of TV Channels 5 and 6 for FM Service
100. In its Supplemental Comments, DCS urges the Commission to give a "hard look" to a
proposal advanced by Mullaney Engineering, Inc. ("Mullaney"). Mullaney proposes that the
Commission reallocate TV Channels 5 and 6 for FM broadcasting, thereby creating a 'staggering
expansion of the existing FM band.' We agree with DCS that this proposal could yield tremendous
opportunities for new entrants, and we seek comment on it."

(If you want to look it up, it's Paragraph 100, on page 35.)

Looks like something's happening, or probably starting to happen, to make this official.......Should be interesting to see how it devlops and if/how it's used here.



Alfredo, can the low end of a regular FM radio somehow be "re-aligned" to receive the new band? I imagine the process might be (somewhat) more complicated than that which you described above, particularly because FM radios are more complex, by design, than AM receivers..........

Couple of "off the shelf" radios that tune down to 76 Mhz or below, that I know of:

Kaito KA1102 (goes down to 70 Mhz)
Kaito KA1107
Sony 2010 (ok, not so "off the shelf" anymore )

Communications receivers (such as the Icom 8500) will tune WBFM down to 30 Mhz.

Still reading about Polar Modulation... looks like the cell phone industry is starting to use this method... Seems to me that locations with strong multipath would be a problem, but I need to understand more.

deleted

> Alfredo, can the low end of a regular FM radio somehow be "re-aligned" to receive the new band?

You probably could squeeze in a bit of the new band. You couldn't do several MHz, but you might be able to get down to 87 MHz or 86.something if you're lucky. The procedure would be a little bit different.

You would have to squeeze the local oscillator and front end (the RF preselector) coils to make the radio tune lower and then cruise to the top of the dial and play with the trimmers to make sure that you can still hit 107.9. What will be slightly different--and more challenging--than aligning an AM radio is that the trimmer capacitors will have a non-negligible effect at the low end of the dial, whereas on an AM radio they tend not to. Thus, you will have to go from the bottom to the top of the dial several times to make sure that you are covering the entire band. Most cheap FM radios only have a single-tuned front-end, so there will only be one extra alignment compared to a cheap AM radio (the RF front end coil).

WHENEVER THEY SAY "NEWS-RADIO 11-90", JUST PRETEND IN YOUR MIND THAT THEY SAID "NOISE-RADIO 11 90",iF YOU WANT TO STUDY IT MORE,TRY 1180 OR 1200 IN YOUR CAR RADIO VARIOUS PLACEA AROUND pORTLAND AREA, SEE WHAT YOU GET???

62, meet caps-lock. When you press the caps-lock, it's like holding down the shift key, making everything capitalized. Usually you don't want to do this.

I often use a newish Kloss Model 1with its internal Antenna, the NOISEon KEX NOISE-RADIO 11 90 is totally obvious and annoying.Its not a classic tube set, nor is it a AM Stereo set!!!!!!!!!I is alsonot sitting next to a computer either!!!!
what is the DX best most distant reported digital reception of the HD KEX???do you people get digital lock on KGO HD at nite??????(in car??
Also, I noticed HD car radio/CD player being advertize for sale by that guy at Outrageous Audio on Stark.Will that help the HDsituation?

Aren't all the ABC stations' HD radio signals still off at night?

Tried KEX on my GE III the other day. In the narrow setting, well tuned, it's pretty great. Very little noise overall.

In wide, all bets are off. KXL / KBPS both sound really good though!

Hey 62kgw, maybe you could move to Evanston, Wyoming. There you wouldn't have to hear KEX in beautiful HD sound. But, you could listen to KEVA, which, according to Scott Fybush this weekend, "KEVA is in beautiful-sounding AM stereo". AND, they are using a transmitter with big tubes. Better sound. Your life would be less complicated and you would be in Nirvanna....

That is Correct. AM Stereo

My GE SR III is listenable enough on KKNX 840 (Oldies) once the radio is warmed up and left on a shelf undisturbed. The SR III is more flimsy than it's predecessors and more subject to drift or being bumped off-station. It must be tuned dead center on-station to keep the noise masked under the music.

KKNX doesn't seem to roll off the analog highs at 5KHz as most do, which may help.

It's nice that you actually have someting to listen to on AM. I hope the situation continues.

Well, not to revive that mess, but AM Stereo is still a very reasonable modulation choice. It's compatible with topologies and operating environments where IBOC isn't going to do well.

With the radios made today, it's only a matter of software and ego that keeps it from being used in more places. IMHO, permitting this and encouraging it where it's indicated (and I believe it's indicated for rough topologies and areas where stations are dense, operating close to one another), would just make for a more robust AM band in general.

It wouldn't hurt to do whatever it takes to produce more stereo broadcasts.

Now that the subscription podcast is beginning to really take off (told you guys!) along with audio streaming and HD, it's way past time to start producing more stereo programming.

If we left AM programming just as it is right now, but just made a higher percentage of it stereo, we would see an increase in listeners. Having the material hit the center of your head and be narrow band is tough to listen to for a lot of people, not used to that kind of thing.

So, we fix that, and gain on AM period. Any gain at all speaks to the band being viable and that will drive newcomers wanting to try stuff. And I also believe AM is where we should try stuff. Make it a bit wild, like the frontier. People, when board, if they know this, will tune for the curio factor and that's exactly what is needed.

Could simulcast a bunch of HD2's there too. Given the stereo expectation is reasonably set, there's a good shot at people tuning with their existing radios, hearing something good, maybe something in stereo, getting interested, then upgrading to an HD set.

(Which would also tune the other AM Stereo broadcasts, through software, thus keeping the experience consistent throughout the technology adoption cycle. Why people don't get this is beyond me.)

There is the Myrtle Beach station broadcasting it, and promoting radios too. Nice little story there. And they play oldies, which sound really great on that tech.

(as would most talk / sports / ethnic music programming, dammit!)

That is exactly how it's done on AM. Pick areas where it's gonna matter and do the work, one region at a time.

Randy, I think it does help. I've listened to both and the interesting thing is that having only the 5Khz isn't the biggest loss. It's the changes to the audio that happen because of the aggressive filter that really muddies things up.

I've two AM Stereo capable tuners. One is a car radio that rolls off at 5-6Khz. Frankly, it sounds just great when driving. I don't have it installed right now, for lack of programming. (KBPS and their great Christmas program aside)

The other is a home tuner that rolls off a bit higher.

Both do well on 5Khz stations, but some of those sound pretty muddy and others less so. I don't know why. Wish I did. Wider stations all sound pretty clean, even though the radio does not respond the full way through.

Some are better than others too. I don't know all that much about the filter technology, but clearly it could use some study to find what really sounds clean. Using bandwidth only as a metric falls short, IMHO.

Amen on the drift. It's not as good of a radio in that regard. Still damn good though.

Re: Listening to AM. Well, I was working with some younger people (18 - 24) and radio came up. A fair percentage of them listen to AM. Mostly talk and sports.

The death of AM is only as real as the industry makes it out to be.

If there is programming that is compelling and that has daily relevance, people will listen, period. It's free and there are a ton of radios. That's not going to change anytime soon, leaving us to just get along about AM expectations and manage them as best we can.

Failing in that is a bigger problem than anything else is right now.

Having lots of people continue to pound the drum about "AM Sucks" doesn't help. All I know is that when I have to sell products, I NEVER, EVER say my product sucks. I also NEVER, EVER, say my product is like the other products.

AM does not suck. It's the grandfather of radio. It's still where you can be up late at night, lonely, looking for entertainment, maybe in the woods, maybe in the mountains, maybe just driving your car, board, and tune for interesting news, sports, commentary and music. That just does not suck.

AM isn't like other technologies either. It's real radio in the classic sense. It's additive, meaning there are lots of options for stations to broadcast (AMS, MONO, IBOC), it's got clear channel blowtorch regional stations that keep us informed when times are tough, it's cheap! In fact, it's the cheapest to build and use.

AM radio can be heard, very likely on some combination of crap you have laying around the house!

(we should be saying AM is the wild frontier, where you never know what you are going to find late at night, tuning for people doing radio because they can. Trust me, that will sell.)

Anyway, I could go on, but I won't. For the majority of listeners, a majority of the time, their AM listening experience is good enough to enjoy. We spend too much time focusing on those times when it isn't, instead of promoting when it is!

Oh hell. One more thing on selling. Everybody wants to sell the leading product.

That's easy. List off the differentiators and why they matter and just get the word out and treat people well. Sales will follow. They always do, always will.

Now, what do you do with a lesser product? It's still got to be sold right?

So you compete on your strengths. The winning product is not ideally suited for everybody. It's a winner only because it fits better for more people than the others do.

That does not mean your product sucks. What it does mean is that there are people who will find your product to be a very good fit. This is also always true and it's always true because people are not the same, their needs are not the same and how they do business is not the same.

So, you play to your strengths and play them hard. You spend time doing research and target those people and deliver your product the best way it can be delivered. If you are lucky, you might even get more margin than the leader gets because a very nicely differentiated product that is a good fit, combined with good service and a good sales relationship is WORTH something.

So, that's where I'm coming from on AM.

Another thing you don't do is sell against other products. For whatever industry you are in, that's like pissing in your own pool. Eventually, it comes back to haunt in that the whole industry gets devalued and you, the sales person, end up moving or shifting to another pool to piss in.

This is stupid.

So, radio does not suck period. It all starts there. If it's radio, then it's cool and it's valuable and it's got clear strengths. Let me tell you about them...

(why more people don't get this is also beyond me)

At this moment, I am in a place that 62kgw would consider Hell on earth: Denver. About half of the AM stations here are running IBOC. Nobody is running AM Stereo. There are some spots on the dial where the inter-station hash is almost continuous. Ironically, blowtorch KOA 850 is NOT broadcasting IBOC. It is primarily the smaller stations that are using it. There are religious stations, talk stations, a sports stations, and Spanish language stations using it. For the most part, this seems a waste of the technology's advertised benefits. If the big radio companies really wanted to put their money where their mouths are, why isn't anyone programming one of the various FM style music formats on an AM-HD station (such as soft rock, "alternative," or even smooth jazz)?

Regarding the question of nighttime IBOC on ABC's AM stations, I believe that they announced that they would make this decision on a station-by-station basis. Thus, some stations, such as KDZR, are running IBOC all the time.

"There are religious stations, talk stations, a sports stations, and Spanish language stations using it. For the most part, this seems a waste of the technology's advertised benefits. "
Alfredo, Let's substitute the word IBOC to FM. Because, IBOC just makes things sound better than the standard, whether AM or FM. You say that using the better sound for religious, talk, sports, Spanish stations, etc; is a "waste of the technology". You could say the same thing about using FM technology for those same signals is a waste of the technology. As in 95.5 Stereo FM used for Sports Talk.

Well, there are some, many on this board, that say that Sports Talk in stereo is great and they like it.
Well, the same can be said for those other formats you mentioned to be using IBOC for them on AM. Perhaps Entrecom should put it on their 1080, the Fan.

That is exactly where I was going with the "waste of the technology's advertised benefits" comments. All of these stations spent thousands of dollars to convert to IBOC operation. The Spanish stations might benefit if their programming involves playing music. However, the sports, talk, and religious stations are primarily spoken word formats that ended up on AM because the industry believed that listeners did not care very much about the sound quality or about the availability of stereo. For the most part, I don't see that these stations are using their investment in IBOC to allow them to do new or different things in their programming.

I would agree to a lesser degree with the view that it is a waste to run Sports Talk on 95.5 and Talk of the Nation and other NPR/APR/PRI spoken word programs on 91.5. There is slightly more merit, in my opinion, to having these spoken word formats on FM because the shorter wavelengths of the FM broadcast band penetrate better than AM into office and commercial buildings.

remind me not to go to Denver!!!! How many of the HD AM stations there are doing music formats?? Wasn't HD supposed to make MUSic Formats re-appear on AM?Wasn't that one of the Promises??What Percent of People in Denver have HD Radios (Home, Car?)is it a "planned"test Market" or was it all RandomKOA850 is one of those long time clear 50KW with Multi-state coverage at night,If they don't do it, then perhaps it is poor idea after all???

Driving out of Denver, I did hear music playing on two of the religious stations (contemporary Christian on 560 and Classical on 910) and on one of the Spanish stations. One of the sports HD stations, 950 is being simulcast on FM. There was an announcement that the sports format would only be available on FM after Friday. I'm curious what will end up on the 950 frequency after this change.

I think part of the problem with stations doing new and different things is the quality crutch. It's easier and cheaper overall to spend on the tech and ignore the lack of innovation that's causing trouble.

If there are two stations, one very good quality and the other not so good quality, and the really interesting programming is on the not so good quality station, will you listen to lousy programming on a quality station, just because?

For a lot of people, the answer is no.

way back when, when many AM and FM's simulcasted alot, did the fm side allways get better ratings?Or did AM win mostly because more car radios then were AM only,plus it did not really sound allthat bad on AMusually,unlrss you were near Power wires or something

I would imagine the AM side would have gotten better ratings then, for the reason you indicated. That, and by my understanding of that particular time period (I assume you are referring to the mid 1960s-mid 1970s period) FM radios in general weren't too incredibly widespread.........

> way back when, when many AM and FM's simulcasted
> alot, did the fm side allways get better ratings?

What time frame are you talking about? In the 1960s/1970s period, the AM would most likely have gotten the better ratings, due to the relative lack of availability of FM portables and car radios. However, in the 1980s, the FM side would have had most of the listeners.

I suspect that the motivations for simulcasting changed over time.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the motivations for simulcasting were likely one or more of the following: (1) The station owners couldn't come up with independent programming that would earn its keep on the FM side (2) The FM was used to provide bonus nighttime service to a daytime only AM (3) The FM was used to provide hi-fi service to hi-fi enthusiasts--primarily in the case of classical and "fine arts" music stations (4) The FM was used as part of a regional distribution network to relay sports or other live programs to other radio stations. KPAM/KPFM and WRNY AM&FM (Rochester, NY) were examples of scenarios 2 and 3. WCLT AM&FM (Newark, OH) was an example of scenario 4.

For a while in the 1970s, the FCC enacted restrictions on how many hours AM/FM combos were allowed to simulcast. Market size and possibly other factors were taken into account. In the case of KPAM/KPFM, the 1410 AM signal was briefly programmed with its own format (automated oldies KLSC). Maybe Craig can help us out on this one. By the late 1970s, when 97.1 and 1410 were simulcasting again, I suspect that the motivation for simulcasting was that the owners knew that the listeners would eventually migrate to FM. Of course at that time, 1410 was still a daytime only signal, so the only way to hear "The Soundship" at night was to listen to 97.1.

In the 1980s, the situation had reversed, and there were a lot of AM stations that had lost much of their listenership, leaving the owners not knowing what they could program there that would earn its keep. At that time, there wasn't much in the way of syndicated talk shows or complete satellite-delivered formats available for stations like these. As such options started to become available in the late 1980s and 1990s, these stations flipped to talk radio, Z-Rock, Solid Gold Soul, The Oldies Channel, etc.

By the way, don't go to Denver. Go to Evanston, WY instead and listen to KEVA 1240. They have a very nice sounding AM Stereo signal. It has a punchy sound that is not grating on the ears (the modulation levels are good, but it does not sound excessively processed), and the stereo imaging is excellent. According to what I have read in the past, this station is using an old McMartin tube transmitter, which is driven from a stereo exciter.

FM caught up with AM in 1978 and just kept going. Before about 1972, there was no contest. At about that time, certain FMs were starting to pull good numbers in the evenings.

Alfredo: KPFM was unique in Portland FM History. All other Portland FM's were built by full-time AM stations in the 1940's:

KEX - KEX-FM
KGW - KGW-FM
KOIN - KOIN-FM
KPOJ - KPOJ-FM
KWJJ - KPRA(FM)

When it became obvious KPFM couldn't support itself, the station applied for an AM frequency. All full-time channels were taken, KPFM was left to seek a daytime frequency. The C.P. was granted in 1949, KPAM beginning on September 20, 1951.

Here how simulcasting restrictions came about:

"Effective October 15, 1965, which limited "the extent to which FM stations in cities of more than 100,000 population may duplicate the programs of commonly owned AM stations in the same local area. The limitation was set at 50%. The non-duplication percentage was gradually raised to 75% for markets over 100,000 population and 50% for markets between 25,000 and 100,000 effective May 1, 1977; and to 100% for markets over 100,000 and 75% for markets between 25,000 and 100,000 effective May 1, 1979."

Here's the site where this information came from:

http://list.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9604a&L=aejmc&P=52

Early stereo broadcasting placed one channel on FM and the other on AM, so for a while "simulcasting" was used for that purpose, until multiplex FM arrived.

In Portland there was nearly a decade of mixed AM/FM stereo broadcasting...

First Stereo (AM-FM Mode)... KPAM/KPFM, Feb. 8, 1953 at 12:30pm+

First Stereo FM (Multiplex)... KPFM, Dec. 16, 1961 at 12:00pm

Thanks for the link to that study, Craig! I had heard 1978 cited before as the year that FM achieved 50% listenership, but this is the most detailed breakdown of that data that I have seen.

Speaking specifically about the 97.1/1410 simulcast in the late 1970s, how much of the broadcast day was simulcast? Since the 1410 signal was daytime-only, were the rules different for combos such as KPAM?

Alfredo: That's a question only a DJ from KPAM could answer. Where's Steve Naganuma when you need him!

As I recall, they discovered that by simulcasting all the time, they came up slightly long and corrected it by rearranging the Sunday morning religious and public affairs programming on the other band.

Clever!!!

Yo, Craig. I found that Web page does not cut and paste well (the paragraph breaks get dropped). I made a .txt file of it, if you need a one.

Yes, Thanks!

I can only dimly remember the semi-wasteland of pre-1969 FM. My parents didn't have an FM set, though my grandparents (otherwise virtually 19th-century people) did, for KLIQ after sunset. I think other than that, the only compelling reason to have FM here was among jazz fans (for KPFM after dark).

I got a pocket AM/FM set at Wards for $16.95 in 1967, a lot of money then for a junior high kid (about $100 in today's bucks) so I could explore what was then kind of a mystery band. (It was well-made, but ate a 69-cent 9v battery every 12 hours of operation.)

My friends thought it was silly; my neighbor asserted that once his radio was tuned to KISN, he might as well remove the knob.

The simulcasting rule really changed the landscape. KINK finally went on the air after King had extended their CP so many times (as Calhoun joked to me) the application had been mimeographed, with a two-man staff, the balky KINK-a-lodeon, and a remarkable, experimental playlist.

FM became my best friend and constant companion from then on, which it remained until, oh, about 1993.

> my neighbor asserted that once his radio was tuned to KISN, he might as well remove the knob.

That's amusing--"Why would anybody want to listen to any station other than KISN?" Of course, today there are people who feel the same way about OPB.

> FM became my best friend and constant companion from then on, which it remained until, oh,
> about 1993.

What happened in 1993?

EDIT: This thread has meandered off topic, so I'd like to continue the FM discussion in a separate thread.

"What happened in 1993?"

KGW began a simulcast of Kink-FM 102 was KINK(AM).

KXL-FM "K-95.5" became "The new Star 95.5".

KMXI "Oldies 106.7" became KKBK "K-Bach".

For several years, in most of the metro area, KISN was the only source of rock music! After KYMN changed format, there wasn't any other choice and I never missed it!

I was gonna say, "like NOISE-RADIO had a topic to begin with," but on reviewing the thread, I am impressed that our posters struggled valiantly to make a coherent one of it.

Meanwhile, unless someone starts a thread called Geezer Rants, I don't really have one to post in at the moment...

Yep, squeaky ninety-wonderful was IT in this burg, mopping up the boomer demo, until KPAM went rock, KGAR opened another window right across the street, KINK appeared, and the even more deliciously subversive KVAN went pre-chart prog, and Q4 made its tilt at the windmill. So, from about '65 to 68-69, Burden did have it all to himself.

(Hindsight musing: I wonder if he'd secured an FM app before the band filled up, instead of threatening to jump in just as it was slamming shut, if the whole denouement might have been avoided...)

My disconnect was geographical in origin as well as the shift in eras: I was heartbroken when Bellevue's KZAM went top-40 (Ok, AC, whatever), so I switched to the intriguing, quirky early MTV and USA Network's Night Flight, and then became disoriented when I returned home in the mid-80s to once-familiar radio bands that I just couldn't recognize any more.

Going back to the subject of HD-Radio, I read the reviews of the Sangean HDT-1 and HDT-1X that Brian Beezley K6STI wrote. These are the direct links to these reviews:

HDT-1: http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/hdt-1.htm
HDT-1X: http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/hdt-1x.htm

I would love to visit this guy's test laboratory:

http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/lab.txt

These reviews are very detailed and represent a very thorough characterization of these tuners. Photos of the innards of these tuners show that most of the front-end components are contained inside a shielded module made by LG. Decoding of the analog and HD modulation is done in an ASIC made by Texas Instruments.

Both the HDT-1 and HDT-1X will decode C-QUAM, and they algorithmically adjust the AM audio response based on noise level and on the modulation characteristics of the received signal. The HDT-1 has high-end response to about 4.5 kHz and roll-off on the low end. The HDT-1X extends the low end to about 30 Hz and the high end near 8khz, depending on signal conditions. Unfortunately, the high end response of the HDT-1X does not follow the NRSC spec, causing a 4 dB peak in the audio response at 4kHz.

At the end of the review, Brian talks about his overall impression of HD-Radio reception on both bands. On FM, he stated that the HD sound was surprisingly artifact-free, especially considering the low bitrate. However, digital-to-analog comparisons on various FM stations did not yield consistent results. He concluded that this was likely the result of stations setting their digital and analog audio processing chains differently. The AM HD, on every station that he heard, had encoding artifacts that he considered to sound very unnatural.

Did you see his review of the new Sony XDR-F1 HD tuner...this little $100 wonder is HOT (in more ways than one). Selectivity, sensitivity and overload resistance would seem to indicate that this would be a fine DX tuner:

http://www.ham-radio.com/k6sti/xdr-f1hd.htm

I just finished reading through the Sony review. What I'm finding interesting is that all of these radios seem to rely heavily on pre-assembled modules that are made elsewhere. I was surprised to see single-sided boards with through-hole parts in the Sony.

It appears that the Sony's main strength is the dynamic range of its front end. A big weakness seems to be the design of the power supply. Brian pointed out that the power transformer gets VERY hot!

It's nice that they did a true balanced feed into the AM loop, but the software for analog AM demodulation was a minimal complexity design that doesn't have adaptive noise filtering and instead is designed to have a midrangey sound.

The analog FM has clever adaptive noise filtering, but if I understood the review correctly, lab measurements showed that high quality analog tuners still perform better in terms of signal-to-noise.

Since these things are so modularized, it's too bad that there isn't a radio with the Sangean HDT-1X's demodulator and the Sony XDR-F1's front-end. This leaves me wondering, which parts of these radios were actually designed at Sangean and Sony? The relatively low price of the XDR-F1 does make it somewhat tempting, as it is about 1/18th the price of a Fanfare FTA-100.

By the way, what happened to ol' 62? Did we piss him off or something?

Well, for sure it is not as pretty inside as the Fanfare, Magnum Dynalab or even the Dennon tuners, but if it does the job DX wise, I will stick a little fan inside and stack it on top of my Icom.

This is true--the power supply issue can be fixed in a variety of ways. Some time ago, after a lengthy discussion on another message board about what features a radio should have, I came to the conclusion that radios are like tools. In other words, it is OK to have several radios, each with its own strengths for use in different situations. Since I don't have a wife or live-in girlfriend, there is virtually no way that I can have too many radios!!!

If I were to set the money aside to buy a radio for high quality reception of local stations and a DX radio, I'm leaning towards a Fanfare FTA-100 and the Sony XDR-F1. Even if HD-Radio ends up being a flash in the pan, the Sony would continue to be useful as an FM DX tuner.

Of course, if I were to buy a Fanfare, I would want to locate K6STI and take the radio to him so that he could test it in his lab. 62 would be welcome to come and watch. I would consider this a fun vacation (and the fact that I would consider that fun probably explains a lot of other stuff about me--heh, heh, heh!)

"too many radios!"

That is a concept that makes no sense to me

That also does not make sense to me either. I have lots of receivers and transceivers including a multi mode one for the 10 meter band and an FM only one for the 2 meter band along with several broadcast band receivers and a rather expensive communications receiver that even has computer control.

Alfredo~
"....I came to the conclusion that radios are like tools. In other words, it is OK to have several radios, each with its own strengths for use in different situations."

Very, very true. That's just like accusing someone of having "too many" satellite receivers. My Mum thinks my Pansat, my Fortec, my Canon, my "hacked" E-Star Dishpro 500 and old-skool analogue Toshiba and Houston Tracker (both currently sitting in the closet collecting dust for lack of a decent dish to use with them) somehow constitutes "too many" receivers.

And of course, I usually come back stating that she doesn't appear to have any problem owning literally 28 pairs of shoes whereas I have been wearing the same kicks for almost the past 3 1/2 years now........

The Degen DE-1103 is not particularly reknowned as a MW DX set, but it is double-conversion, and (rare for a PLL set) tunes MW in 1kHz increments (which can be useful when fishing something out of QRM).

I'd be glad to hear from anyone who gets an opportunity to compare one of the new Tecsun PL-600s to an 1103, before I splurge another hundred bucks.

I'd be interested in hearing a review of the PL-600 myself because this radio reminds me very much of the Radio Shack DX-390 that I bought used at a Hamfest. I bought the DX-390 primarily to listen to single-sideband transmissions. It was an improvement over the only other SSB capable radio that I had at the time, an old Lafayette tube radio that was very drifty due to its use of tubes and lack of a regulated power supply.

The DX-390 is a dual conversion design with a 1st IF of about 55.1 MHz and a second IF of about 450 kHz; I would have to dig out the manual to get the exact frequencies. Coverage is continuous from 150 kHz to 29.999 MHz. However the RF routing inside the radio changes depending on whether it is tuned to 150-519 kHz, 520-1710 kHz, or 1711-29999 kHz. The former two ranges cause the default signal source to be the built-in ferrite rod antenna. The latter range causes the telescoping whip to be the default signal source. Plugging in an external antenna overrides all of these default sources, and the ring connection of the antenna plug is used as a sense mechanism in a way that is not documented in the instruction manual. In practice, I have found that the ring must be shorted to the sleeve--i.e. use a mono plug--or else an overload-prone preamp stage gets switched in that results in intermod garbage all over the medium and longwave bands as well as decreased sensitivity on shortwave.

I have found a few shortcomings in the DX-390 that would be worth looking out for in the Tecsun:

1) Sensitivity on mediumwave (AM broadcast band) is poor, and sensitivity on the longwave band is very poor when the internal ferrite rod antenna is used. The sensitivity figures in the owners manual are roughly the same as those in the Tecsun description that I saw on Ebay. From my inspection of the inside of the radio, I suspect that the ferrite rod is not tuned and instead feeds a preamplifier to make up for the low signal levels.

2) The BFO control is a low-quality potentiometer. The BFO pitch adjustment will get touchy as this pot wears out or gets dirty.

3) The AM demodulator seems to have a problem with the asymmetrical style of modulation that US AM radio stations tend to use. On heavily processed stations like KEX, KCMD, or KPOJ, a very noticeable and annoying type of distortion is heard on modulation peaks.

4) The audio section of the radio is designed to cut out the bass, and there is no way to defeat this. Although this may help the intelligibility of speech on AM and shortwave, FM stations end up sounding very tinny and unpleasant.

Could a transmitter processor be created that would counteract and undo the typical AM=demodulator distortion?

Because there are so many different variations on AM detectors, there is nothing that can be done at the transmitter end that will be effective 100% of the time. Sometimes, engineers will set the processing to try to avoid provoking design characteristics of some radios that lead to distortion. Here are some examples:

1) Bass may be attenuated to avoid distortion in radios that have a fast AGC response time. Radios with fast AGCs tend to "chew up" waveforms at some frequencies, leading to audible distortion.

2) Higher frequencies may be attenuated because the IF filters in some radios cause a lot of phase shift to frequencies at the edges of the passband. A typical envelope detector produces distortion under these conditions.

Note that both of the above strategies are tradeoffs. As they say, "your mileage may vary."

One sony pocket size radio that I experimented with awhile back, the Audio waveform (mostly Bass could be seen on O'scope connected to AGC buss.Increasing the agc capacitor value got rid of the audio bass AAGCwaveform and also deasticly reduced the audible distortion!!!!!!Cleaner audio!!!They probably choose to use the smaller caps to save a few cents(?) per radio,their priorities being improper!!!!!

Maybe...maybe not. Unless the new capacitor was much larger than the original (like 10x), the cost is likely the same. Most likely, the designers just didn't characterize and test this very thoroughly.

If a radio has a very large AGC capacitor, this can make the radio difficult to tune. What would happen in that scenario, if you were to spin the dial quickly is that strong signals would blast your ears and weak signals would be hard to hear. If you were to quickly tune the radio off of a strong signal, you would hear silence for a while, until the AGC released.

It was also noticable when turning the radio , the slow agcavc changing the volume as signal got stronger or weaker depending which way the loopstick antenna was oriented the tuning was digitl so I did not notice it while tuning,like I would if it was analog tuningI don't remember the values of the capacitor(before or after my mod???dot think it was 10x but it could have been????Perhaps 4x or 5x approx or just 2x???

recent observation:when my radio is set to KEX,itsounds like its rainning outside or someone left the faucet running in the Kitchen or Bathroom!!!!!???
Your source for noise, wheather and traffic?!!!!!