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Ender3rd
join:2001-07-15
Connecticut
·Frontier FiberOp..

1 recommendation

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Re: AM broadcast band

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It's alive and well up here in New England. A station at every 10KHz increment from top to bottom! I love tuning around and seeing what can be heard but have to admit I'm a big fan of "Zoomer Radio" AM/740 CFZM out of Toronto. They are quite strapping into my location in the evening.

Rob W1AEX

SmokChsr
Who let the magic smoke out?
Premium Member
join:2006-03-17
Saint Augustine, FL

SmokChsr

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Ahh I can see some IBOC digital hash highlighted on 1080.
19579823 (banned)
An Awesome Dude
join:2003-08-04

1 recommendation

19579823 (banned)

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Yes thats WTIC ... its disgusting!!!! (That garbage shouldnt have ever been introduced in an already established analogue band!)

Hank
Searching for a new Frontier
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join:2002-05-21
Burlington, WV

Hank

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Yea, we agree.

DrStrange
Technically feasible
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join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

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Absolutely. I'm about 5 miles from WTIC and everything between 1069 and 1091 here is a big digital mess. IBOC should have had a max bandwidth of 15KHz. In practice, it has 22KHz. There's not enough room on the AM band for wide, sloppy signals like that.

John Galt6
Forward, March
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join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp

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Re: AM broadcast band

Another wire antenna vendor:

»thewireman.com/index.html

Ender3rd
join:2001-07-15
Connecticut
·Frontier FiberOp..

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Yeah, the whole IBOC debacle on the AM broadcast band seems like a big fail. I do have an HD radio and I have to admit that the digital AM stations sound very nice but if there is any noise on the signal due to distance or lightning static crashes it will lose lock and fall back to standard AM. I'm roughly 12 miles from the WTIC transmitter and it obliterates WBAL which sits on 1090. When they take the IBOC streams off the air for maintenance I can copy it beautifully. WTIC runs a full 20 KHz analog plus 5 + 5 for the two digital streams for a whopping 30 KHz swath of the broadcast band.

On the other hand, I really like the digital FM broadcast band transmissions and especially like the multiple programming streams.
silbaco
Premium Member
join:2009-08-03
USA

silbaco

Premium Member

said by Ender3rd:

Yeah, the whole IBOC debacle on the AM broadcast band seems like a big fail. I do have an HD radio and I have to admit that the digital AM stations sound very nice but if there is any noise on the signal due to distance or lightning static crashes it will lose lock and fall back to standard AM. I'm roughly 12 miles from the WTIC transmitter and it obliterates WBAL which sits on 1090. When they take the IBOC streams off the air for maintenance I can copy it beautifully. WTIC runs a full 20 KHz analog plus 5 + 5 for the two digital streams for a whopping 30 KHz swath of the broadcast band.

On the other hand, I really like the digital FM broadcast band transmissions and especially like the multiple programming streams.

Every AM station in my area operating in HD has since turned it off. 2 of them (KGYM/KMRY) bought FM translators with a 3rd (WMT) simulcasting on one of their cluster FMs part of the day. The NPR AM affiliate (WSUI) didn't make any changes when they discontinued HD, but they already simulcast with a powerhouse Class C FM (KUNI) most of the day so they did not need to.

There is still one station that never implemented HD and to my knowledge continues to broadcast in AM Stereo (KCJJ). Unfortunately I no longer have an AM Stereo receiver but when I did I found they sounded better than any of the AM stations broadcasting in HD.
19579823 (banned)
An Awesome Dude
join:2003-08-04

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19579823 (banned) to TheMG

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There are still 2 in my area that have it on!!!!

THEY ARE RUINING THE ANALOGUE AIRWAVES and its sickening!!

SmokChsr
Who let the magic smoke out?
Premium Member
join:2006-03-17
Saint Augustine, FL

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Re: AM broadcast band

said by neonhomer:

nd the one in Jacksonville also took over a rock station. Both were ClearChannel AM stations, and bought up non CC FM stations.

Actually the Jax stations both the AM & FM are and were Cox, not CC.

DrStrange
Technically feasible
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join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

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Yuck! I could set up a Realistic Navaho TRC-30A with a speech compressor and a 1KW sweep-tube amp, bridge the clipper pot, crank the gain on a D104 and still have a cleaner [and 'leaner'] signal.

If either of our stations transmitted a signal that even remotely resembled that, we'd be getting buff-colored postcards in the mail and a visit from Boston.

I'd be overjoyed to get rid of the splatter from 1080 and hear WBAL etc. again. Does anybody know if CBA from Moncton, NB is still on 1070?
Gamemaster
join:2014-08-01
Anita, PA

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The reason why the AM broadcasters stays on the air is due to the fact that they feel that someone might come along and buy their station for big bucks, so they are just camped out on their frequency waiting.
Most IBOC stations has turned off their IBOC signal - I hope it dies a quick death.
Most AM stations buys their programming as opposed to having someone read announcements and play music.
The only station left that still plays music is WSN - home of The Grand Ole Opry.

Ender3rd
join:2001-07-15
Connecticut
·Frontier FiberOp..

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DrStrange - Definitely agree that you and I would be in big trouble with a signal that looked remotely like WTIC. I suspect that they pay big bucks for the "clear channel" privilege and suspect the federal government was offering heavy subsidies to stations that "upgraded" to AM and FM IBOC streams. I am an acquaintance of the station engineer at WTIC and he has mentioned that with the ever-growing residential interference to the AM BCB from consumer electronics (typically stuff made offshore where compliance is rarely adhered to) that the simulcast on one of the FM band IBOC multi-channel streams is the only way fringe listeners can hear the WTIC AM programming.

Gamemaster - I also question the usefulness of the IBOC format on the AM band and wish it would simply go away. On the other hand, the FM band IBOC format seems to be pretty useful as far as adding access to additional content, much like what has happened with over-the-air HDTV. When listening to the AM broadcast band I avoid the syndicated radio personality talk shows and usually find myself parked on the all news format stations like 880 WBCS and 1030 WBZ. It would be nice if CT had a local broadcaster in my area that was all news, but no such luck.

When propagation supports it, I listen to Zoomer Radio on 740 out of Toronto. They are one of the few AM broadcasters with clean audio and a wide variety of music content. Don't know about CBA, but I will listen for it next time the IBOC streams are silenced for maintenance.

DrStrange
Technically feasible
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join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

DrStrange

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RE: CBA 1070:
I'm on vacation right now looking at really tall corn in IL, so I had time to research this. Apparently CBA left the air in 2008.

»americanbandscan.blogspo ··· nce.html

FWIW the few times when WTIC was off the air while CBA was on the air [and propagation permitting], CBA's 50KW signal was fairly good in CT.
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd

Premium Member

while its not AM I remember when I lived in CT the most powerful station always seemed like WRKI Brookfield/Danbury. I could get that station as far as Southbury without the antenna hooked up to the car radio.

DrStrange
Technically feasible
Premium Member
join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

DrStrange

Premium Member

Not sure what happened to that one, but I could hear it fairly well in the Hartford area, so it must have had a lot of power or a good antenna or a good location or all of the above.
TheMG
Premium Member
join:2007-09-04
Canada
MikroTik RB450G
Cisco DPC3008
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TheMG

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Well, drove 12 hours today returning home from vacation. Didn't bring along any music for the car (big mistake!), leaving radio as the only option for entertainment.

With AM virtually gone in this part of Canada, I will honestly say that radio broadcast coverage in northern Canada SUCKS BIG TIME!!! Most of the FM stations around here are medium or low power stations with relatively low antennas and you're lucky if you can get a listenable signal any further than 50km outside of town. Since towns are far and few between in this part of Canada, the result is many hours of absolutely NOTHING to listen to.

I miss the AM band. Much better coverage, without the requirement for ABSURD power levels that FM broadcast requires to get any decent range.

DrStrange
Technically feasible
Premium Member
join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

DrStrange

Premium Member

Either they need to resurrect CBC Northern Service [but where would they transmit from now?] or somebody needs to set up some AM pirates and Industry Canada needs to look the other way.

... or you need co-phased deep-fringe TV antennas with a couple of low-noise preamps in line, mounted in the center of your car roof

Hmm... Maybe the pirates could get DJs from PEI or Cape Breton?
TheMG
Premium Member
join:2007-09-04
Canada
MikroTik RB450G
Cisco DPC3008
Cisco SPA112

TheMG

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said by DrStrange:

Either they need to resurrect CBC Northern Service [but where would they transmit from now?]

Sure doesn't help that the current government keeps axing millions from the CBC's budget every year.

Private/commercial broadcasters? Well, they're all about the profits and the numbers simply aren't there to justify expanded coverage.

I guess there's satellite radio but I haven't bought into that yet. Truth be told I don't think I ever will.

Meh, lesson learned, never forget to bring the music when going on a road trip. I had just added new tracks to the SD card I use in the car but then stupidly forgot it in the card reader at home.
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

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I think once you hit rural areas I bet the communications people do not even monitor, I remember once on a family vacation to AZ that when we got out on the middle of nowhere areas between tourist traps and reservations we got some AM and FM pirates. Honestly they were quite entertaining. To this day I never honestly saw them as doing any harm at all, We had no stations in range and they filled the gap where a commercial operator did not.

DaveRickmers
join:2011-07-19
Canyon Country, CA

DaveRickmers to neonhomer

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So the right wing radio is on 2 stations in every market and there is no room for dissenting opinion? There used to be a law that you couldn't do that. That putting the same show on 2 channels at the same time is a waste of spectrum and not as diverse as possible.
DaveRickmers

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said by SmokChsr:

said by neonhomer:

nd the one in Jacksonville also took over a rock station. Both were ClearChannel AM stations, and bought up non CC FM stations.

Actually the Jax stations both the AM & FM are and were Cox, not CC.

Cox is part of Clear Channel. KFI is Cox.

DrStrange
Technically feasible
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join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

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Reagan's FCC killed the Fairness Doctrine. I guess he thought it wasn't fair. President Obama's FCC put the final nail in the coffin a couple of years ago. Liberal media? Yeah, right.

If you're going to broadcast propaganda, at least broadcast the propaganda from both sides. :-|

I guess if you want real left-wing talk in FL, there's always R. Reloj Nacional. I can hear that here at night on several frequencies. At least we don't jam it.

SmokChsr
Who let the magic smoke out?
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join:2006-03-17
Saint Augustine, FL

SmokChsr to DaveRickmers

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said by DaveRickmers:

Cox is part of Clear Channel.

No.. Clear Channel (now known as "IHeart Media") and Cox are 2 very separate companies.

Not sure how KFI came into this, but it's owned by Capstar, which may have been associated with CC previously. Since the sale of CC I don't think that's in the mix anymore.
silbaco
Premium Member
join:2009-08-03
USA

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said by DaveRickmers:

So the right wing radio is on 2 stations in every market and there is no room for dissenting opinion? There used to be a law that you couldn't do that. That putting the same show on 2 channels at the same time is a waste of spectrum and not as diverse as possible.

Most shows are only licensed to 1 station per market.

Left Wing radio could very easily exist. There are plenty of radio stations that would air the content if there was enough demand to make it profitable. Anyone could buy up a station and make it a Left Wing outlet. Radio station prices are at record lows. AMs come up for sale regularly. Buying up an AM in a top market isn't very hard anymore. In small markets they can be had for next to nothing.

OldCableGuy3
@207.191.193.x

OldCableGuy3

Anon

No group would finance someone to start a left leaning AM radio station. For one, the demographics don't line up. Left leaning people tend to skew younger. I am in my 30s. The only "broadcast band AM radio" I own is in my car. I am a HAM so I own a HF rig as well, but most people my age do not. The vast majority of left leaning people are not going to listen to radio -- let alone AM radio -- because it simply doesn't fit their lifestyle. Left leaning people get information from podcasts, the internet, and in some cases FM radio such as NPR (but increasingly through streaming these stations on their mobile device instead of tuning in)

DrStrange
Technically feasible
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join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

DrStrange

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Actually, they tried it several times.As you predicted, it didn't turn out so well. I think you're right about progressives [especially younger progressives] not having a use for AM radio.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai ··· twork%29

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No ··· _M_Radio