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Guy Wire's Internet Mailbag!
Note: If you would like to respond to Guy Wire's most recent
column, or any of earlier columns, by all means fire
away!
Guy’s Split Personality
(These letters published in Radio World Engineering Extra, Dec. 14 2005)
The continuation of Guy Wire to present an argument for digital broadcasting is a study in multiple personality behavior.
There is one side of Guy that is trying to promote HD for obvious reasons. Then there is the other side that will not permit him to tell a lie.
The newest article on defending the thinning of the “heard” is another classic (“The Great AM Debate,” Aug. 24). For the first time I understand the words of my favorite English professor when she declared that great “lit” was written to be digested and dissected. Guy’s comments, if carefully read, would show the inward struggle.
Guy needs to take a travel vacation. HD Radio itself will eliminate first-adjacent contours on FM. HD Radio on AM, using the proposed system owned by the 21 gunners pointed at the head, will eliminate any broadcaster within 20-30 kHz of each side of the HD blaster. Any new FM LPs offered to drop-dead AM guys would get killed by the nearby digital adjacencies. The cost of going digital for the LP guy would be higher than the cost of the LP basic analog gear alone. Perhaps Ibiquity could donate the royalty fees to the little guys.
The adjacent jamming applies to present market conditions, not just small towns of America. The facts are not mine, they are the facts of life as currently playing at the local theatre of the mind (broadcast spectrum).
This is well calculated in Guy’s comments advising the narrow-casters to exit AM via a tax break. The idea is great. It will require power increases for the survivors to restore the contours lost to digital.
I don't expect the extra compressed spare channel idea to fly on FM, given that the blind population, most likely candidates for the secondary channel, also possess the finest hearing in our midst and will not tolerate anything that sounds distorted and irritating, such as the channels proposed in the first and second rounds of the selling of digital stuff to the broadcasters.
As for the idea that HD sounds better on either the FM or AM channels, that too is proving to be a relatively false prophesy.
There just ain’t enough bandwidth on either spectrum (even if you consider the stolen component already in the mix such as the neighbor’s territory on AM and FM) to deliver better audio. The term “amelioration” from Guy’s article is another double-meaning word, normally written suggesting that one find another word to “amend” the real meaning of the discussion.
I submit the entire article is an amelioration of the debate by spinning the blame backwards. He is a smart fella for sure. We kill off the little guys and those religious stations and we wipe out the only remaining locally active broadcasters giving them a real estate sale and a tax certificate and leave the channel space to the 21 players with 100 million investors watching them grow more hard drives.
Fact is, upon closer examination, the heartbeat of real radio is still the small and medium markets where a couple of thousand stations still thrive or struggle in the midst of the Wal-Marting of the spectrum. Another oxymoron for tomorrow’s trivia game: “public airways.”
Perhaps the good part of the latest Guy story is the criticism of the NAB, claiming they want to keep the number of stations high. In fact that is probably a smokescreen, as NAB collects few dues from broadcasters, especially the small folks. NAB enjoys deep pockets from its annual show, and selling ad
space as well. Thus, NAB supports digital stuff and has jumped for a room reservation with the digital stalkers convention long ago.
The first horse out of the chute on digital, if you recall, are the geniuses who live off our tax and donated dollars at NPR with visions of multichannel TV and multichannel FM to add more cap-ex and budget goals to the mix. Then came the NAB with its list of former FCC lawyers and spinoffs funded by those annual radio shows.
Jerry Smith
Terre Haute, Ind.
Spectrum Management
And a Bottle of Booze
I find Guy’s ideas for reducing the number of AM stations licensed quite intriguing. It is not, however, a new idea.
Many years ago, before consolidation, and during the Great AM Stereo Wars, several of us addressed the need to reduce the number of AMs at an informal workshop at one of the SBE conventions.
I’ll name no names save myself, mostly to protect the guilty. The panel consisted of myself, the chief engineer of a highly regarded legacy album rocker, a highly placed bureaucrat and a bottle of fairly good whiskey. There was no audience.
We developed the following steps for reduction of the number of licenses; and while they are to a degree arbitrary, they would have worked, and probably would work today:
1. Any station license whose antenna array requires more than three towers is revoked;
2. Any license for a power level below 5 kW is revoked.
Should these steps not result in sufficient reduction to overcome interference, the classic Roman decimation would take place, wherein licenses are lined up alphabetically, and every tenth one in the line is revoked.
uccessive passes are made through the line until the desired reduction is achieved.
At this point, the fairly good whiskey gave out and we all retired for the evening.
It would have worked, though, and still would.
Johnny Bridges
Chestnut Mountain, Ga.
Practical Considerations
I read with interest Guy Wire’s thoughts on AM IBOC. While I can’t say I know where AM IBOC is ultimately going, having heard it daily on several of our stations and others in the Denver market for the past few months, I am impressed.
Our AMs really do sound like FMs. But there are limitations and there are problems.
Broadband noise and static crashes kill the digital lock, and in-band, on-channel AM is really in-band, adjacent-channel. The primary digital sidebands are centered at +/- 15 kHz. Fully spaced first-adjacent stations (i.e. no 0.5/0.25 mV overlap) won’t have any issues, but grandfathered first-adjacents may experience some fringe interference.
With the digital sidebands at –30 dBc or so, I don’t see anyone having problems inside their own protected contour, but let’s face it — a lot of stations rely on unprotected coverage beyond the 0.5 mV/m. At the protected contour, the co-channel IBOC interfering signal from a grandfathered first-adjacent channel station (no 0.5/0.5 mV overlap) would be about 15 uV, which is about 4 dB less than the 25 uV that would be permitted at that point by a real co-channel station.
The limitations and issues notwithstanding, Crawford Broadcasting Co. is investing heavily in the Ibiquity system, as are Clear Channel, Entercom, Infinity, Cox, Emmis, ABC/Disney, Cumulus, Univision and others. We see the handwriting on the wall for terrestrial radio, and AM in particular.
If we can’t compete with satellite radio, online streams (particularly with growing wireless Internet coverage), iPod/podcasts and other emerging media, we’re done for in a few more years.
The short-sighted naysayers insist that AM needs to do something different than Ibiquity IBOC, but the truth is, that’s not going to happen; it’s way too late for that. We’re years down the development road on this, and if we change directions now, receiver manufacturers will be twice burned — AM stereo and now IBOC. They’ll kiss AM goodbye and never go out on a limb with another new system again. And who could blame them?
So this company is aboard in a big way, for better or for worse. It’s going to be an interesting ride.
Cris Alexander
Director of Engineering
Crawford Broadcasting Co.
Denver
GUY WIRE AND THE GREAT AM DEBATE
(These letters published in RW Engineering Extra, Oct. 19, 2005)
IBOC is going to go the way of AM stereo anyway, so why let us go through the debacle that AM stereo was, even though it was a much better idea?
Clear Channel is just converting in increments; it will convert all their stations to IBOC when a receiver under 500 bucks becomes available (if one ever does).
It is a complete waste of time.
Why not use some of the band that is soon to be vacated right above the AM band for IBOC? The receivers are going to have to be new anyway. AM radio can sound great in wideband.
I have an IBOC station about 40 miles from me, WBZ 1030. It completely obliterates anything on either side during the day; and I have a very good selective receiver. I can’t imagine what the AM band will be like if IBOC is ever switched on at night; 90 percent of the stations will have to vacate the airwaves.
IBOC is not the answer; anything that forces all AM stations to reduce their bandwidth to 5 kHz is inherently flawed. Any system that causes interference 10 kHz and more on each side of the station itself is flawed and will not work. Ninety percent of AM is talk anyway, who the hell wants to hear windbag Limbaugh in digital?
Give us some wideband receivers with a selectivity switch, which would sound better than any digital IBOC radio ever could; and the stations would not have to change anything.
Bob Young
Millbury, Mass.
Another approach to Guy Wire’s desire to
clean up the AM band, a highly commendable ideal:
Let each of the big radio operators bid at auction for the right to begin accumulating all the AM stations on the same frequency. When this right is acquired, the operators can start trading, accumulating and purchasing signals on the same channel, for instance, all the stations on 1180. When the operators have stations on the same frequency, they create a nationwide audio service, with mostly the same audio on all stations, especially at night. Interference is no longer objectionable, because it’s the same audio slightly out of phase. Night skywave fills gaps in local coverage.
After a period of time, perhaps four years, the big chains could implement their own engineering modifications, and raise their power/direction to whatever levels they want, with the proviso that a) they don’t interfere with other countries, and b) they don’t generate an excessive amount of co-channel interference, unless they own that channel, too. The four-year provision gives incentive to small operators to sell out.
This would generate a lot of new ideas about how to use AM in creative and useful ways. It would give the chains something new to promote, and provide a boost for their stock prices. The consumers are the big winners. They would hear the same service — e.g., sports, business news — on the same frequency wherever they traveled in the U.S., also a big draw and simplification for radio advertisers.
All the locals on 1240 could have a great nationwide “localized” service, the sports powerhouses could take over 850, and so forth.
Let them interfere with themselves!
Michael Lowery
Director of Engineering
Electronic Site Services Inc.
Colorado Springs, Colo.
I enjoyed Guys Wire’s rant on the problems of AM and IBOC.
What a great idea: give AM stations that are eating up AC power and getting very few listeners a crack at incentives to just turn the things off. In the case of my station, WGTO(AM), Cassopolis, Mich., I am running a kilowatt day and 35 watts night. No matter what I do, as many other AM owners have found, you cannot fight FM with music.
My 1 kW regional signal on 910 is much more powerful than my small community of 2,000 people needs for good local coverage. I would gladly turn in my AM kilowatt license for a 100-watt FM mounted on my existing towers. The idea of a point system based on listeners and interference is really great.
I can only pray that Guy Wire’s writings spark some real debate.
Larry Langford
Owner, WGTO(AM)
Cassopolis, Mich.
You can’t put 10 pounds of stuff in a five-pound bag without some of it spilling out!
The digital carriers out 10 kHz, right dab on your first adjacent is no good; worse than that IT IS BAD!
As I look over descriptions of the transmitter plant for IBOC I see a machine that will be demanding and delicate of adjustment, and a system that when put right will not stay right.
One of your columnists recently said that the digital signal was far better than the analog signal he was receiving. But was the analog signal he was looking at a full, unsmashed signal or the squeezed thing that was left over after all the capacity was used for IBOC? An AM signal can sound very good if you do not overburden it.
Lee S. Parr
WAMV(AM)
Amherst, Va.
On Thinning the He(a)rd
Published in Radio World, Sept. 1, 2005
Responding to Guy Wire’s column on the AM band (RW Engineering Extra, June 15):
So let me get this straight, Guy. The problem with AM radio is that America suffers from an excess supply and needs to be saved from it. There are too many AMs? What about FM stations, TV stations, satellite or cable channels? Shouldn’t all of these be reduced to a smaller number so that those remaining would be economically robust and able to do a better job serving the public?
Shouldn’t all marginal businesses be euthanized so that the remaining businesses of every kind will be prosperous and busy serving the public better rather than wasting their resources “competing” with unnecessary enterprises? After all, aren’t there enough voices? For that matter, shouldn’t there be a government or broadcasters committee that would decide when there are enough varieties of music or talk? Aren’t those unnecessary formats the basis for those stations that Guy Wire is sure we don’t need? Since the government has in the past required all sides of every issue to be covered equally, why would we need more than one talk station in each market anyway? Isn’t that the American way, Guy?
Of course it’s not! The American way is freedom to pursue your own enterprise, to fail or succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Of course some will fail. Not every good idea is guaranteed to succeed, even if government- or committee-approved.
What you have failed to address is the obvious bias that your own station and your favorite radio station will be the ones that survive the “thinning of the herd.”
In the early 1990s, when the FCC was touting its interference reduction plan that was going to improve things nationwide, I used to ask from the podium at state broadcasting conventions, “Will everyone who is looking forward to the new lower interference on the AM band please hold up your hand?” Of course most of the hands went up. Then I asked “Will everyone who is going to turn off your station or reduce your power so that someone else would have lower interference please raise your hand?” I never saw one hand raised.
It is the same today. Stations do go dark when no one wants to talk to the people that station covers. However, look at the current auction filing frenzy and tell me with a straight face that there are more stations than anyone wants or needs. There are people standing in line for the chance to serve most communities, whether you think they are viable or not.
Guy, I think exposure to the early IBOC system must have a side effect that is just now being discovered in addition to undesirable interference. IBOC radio apparently causes nearsightedness with possible complications from the uncontrollable desire to force your vision of “The Public Good” on others who are not as enlightened as you are.
Tim Cutforth
President
Vir James Engineers
Denver, Colo.
Received September 2005
The single best proposal I've heard thus far is to offer AM stations a comparable coverage license in the Channel 6 spectrum.
This would be done on the condition that their AM license is surrendered within 3-5 years and go silent.
By comparable coverage, I don't mean full Class B or Class C coverage like existing FM's, but something that approximates their current daytime coverage except without nulls from directional antennas.
Obviously at this time the 87.9 or 87.7 frequencies are the most valuable since many existing FM radios can now pick up Channel 6 sound. The FCC could open a window for all existing AM stations to apply, perhaps a few states at a time, and starting in areas where there is not a current Channel 6 TV operation. In most areas, everybody would apply for 87.9 or 87.7 if it is allocated. Although AM station licensees should not have to pay to get these new expanded FM band licenses, where there are multiple applicants the FCC could move to an auction system for these more desirable allocations.
Perhaps a bidding preference could be given to minority owners, those promising a unique format (on condition that it remain for a minimum of x years and that they not sell the license), or those willing to turn off their AM station sooner.
You know that with the analog to digital TV conversions and new channels being assigned to permit a few years of operating both analog and digital TV stations, realignment to get every TV broadcaster off Channel 6 shouldn't be all that difficult.
Anonymous
Guy Wire Stirs Debate
Published in RW Engineering Extra, Aug. 24 2005
I don’t disagree with Guy’s assessment (RW Engineering Extra, June 15) that running a small-market AM as a going concern is, at best, a challenge. And he’s right that many operators have permitted directional antennas to deteriorate or have even taken to operating with day facilities at night. This isn’t limited to just the small markets, either.
For that matter, the FCC has willingly facilitated interference levels that make night service on the former Class IV frequencies (1230, 1240, 1340, 1400, 1450, 1490 — now Class C) virtually useless.
Tune your FM to one of these frequencies that isn’t assigned in your town. Typically there is a millivolt of skywave interference. This means nighttime “interference-free” service exists only inside the 20 millivolt contour. For a Class IV, this is about as far as you can see the top of the tower. So I agree there is a significant problem. Enforcement might get some of it but most is systemic.
The good news is that almost all of the solution ideas Guy suggests already exist. AM is and has always been a “demand-allocation” service. If desired, an AM licensee can turn in his license and it no longer needs to be protected from interference. Absent “demand,” the FCC presumes no service is needed, so even if it is the last station allotted to a particular community, it can be turned off and disappear.
The rules also give wide latitude to so-called “interference-reduction agreements” between stations. These usually mean station A pulls in so station B can expand. The sale or modification of unproductive, interfering AMs is already possible. Generally, it’s only a question of money.
And there’s the rub. Guy says that licensees seeking to improve “shouldn’t be held up for inflated prices by owners who sense a captive opportunity.” While I appreciate the sentiment, Guy earlier says that these marginal AMs “get full-time life support from sister FM stations.” So one man’s “inflated price” is another man’s payback for all those years of keeping an AM’s heat and lights on.
And the idea that the Federal Treasury might be brought in will simply raise the price for cooperation and have all taxpayers footing the bill, whether it is cash payments, tax forgiveness or other free stuff for AM licensees.
I realize that since AM stereo we’ve all been a bit gun-shy about a “market-based” decisional process (though I would characterize the Motorola-Kahn fistfight as more “lawyer-based” than “market-based”).
But for AM, since the trend lines are headed the right way anyway, I say let’s adopt a hands-off approach and let technical and market nature take its course.
What should happen is what has been happening for years. AM stations disappear. They lose their licenses because they are dark beyond the one-year statutory limit of time. They lose their sites because development has made the tower land worth more than the license. The advent of HD will accelerate the process. A combination of the interference received and the investment required will spell the end for some more AMs.
Those AMs that survive at the margins will discover new things to do with a 50 kilobit forward delivery stream, even if it only works in the daytime. Don’t you suppose a car parked for hours while the owner is at his desk represents an exciting delivery target for a podcasting-type technology? Our drive-time commuter might have his playback device loaded overnight in the garage from the wireless LAN for the morning commute, then again for the PM commute while it’s parked in the employee lot. Hey, who knows? It could happen. If it gains traction, there’ll be money to buy off some more marginal AMs. But I believe the likelihood of such innovation is reduced, not increased, by an intervention of the kind proposed by Guy.
Frank McCoy
American Media Services
Chicago, Ill.
So I guess we have come full circle.
It turns out that there really isn’t room for all those AMs that were shoe-horned in over the previous decades after all ... particularly with the out-of-band products that will be generated by so-called in-band, on-channel transmissions.
And what is Mr. Wire’s solution? Simple: sweep away all those “useless” chattering voices of small broadcasters so that the corporate owners of the “big time” stations can maximize their profits without interference.
After all, the public has become used to corporate pabulum. Local service is no longer required. None of those diverse voices will be missed.
Mr. Wire, I got the message: Money talks, diversity walks.
John Higdon
Chief Engineer
Coast Radio Co.
KKIQ(FM)/KUIC(FM)/KKDV(FM)
Vacaville, Calif.
I agree that AM radio is worth saving,
and that IBOC means nothing but trouble for small AMs. I’d go so far as to say that IBOC is bad news for almost all small broadcasters.
It’s not that I’m opposed to digital radio. But a digital system that has a side effect of obliterating your neighbors hardly seems like a good idea. On the other hand, it is a great way for large, well-financed stations to eliminate smaller competition. A broadcaster’s viewpoint about IBOC may depend on which side of the fence he is standing.
In no case will improved technology cure what ails radio. The problem is content, not technology. As a result of programming that ignores the taste and needs of their communities, lots of people don’t listen to the radio at all.
I almost fell out of my chair when I read Guy’s comment that the solution to a cluttered band is to give small AM community broadcasters a nice shiny LPFM license, in exchange for surrendering their AM ticket. Where does he propose to put them? This is the writer who denounced the original idea of LPFM stations, claiming that the FM band was too crowded. That was five years ago.
In case he hasn’t noticed, it’s even more crowded today. And now there are IBOC sidebands to contend with.
When LPFM was proposed, there was adequate space to support more small stations, especially if the FCC’s concept of second-adjacent-channel protection was to be made the law of the land. But the Radio Preservation Act of 2001 changed all that. Third-adjacent channel protection was made the rule and thousands of possible channels vanished. Even so, nearly 1,000 LPFM applicants have made it on the air or have CPs.
Although interference complaints have been practically non-existent, available space is getting smaller. Let’s not forget about all those translator applications from the “Great Translator Invasion.”
So is Guy suggesting that maybe we should change spacing requirements to accommodate displaced AMs? I’d think you’d have to; otherwise, “there is no room at the inn,” unless you are willing to swap your AM license for a low-power FM in rural Wyoming.
Most AMs rely on commercial advertising, while LPFMs are prohibited from running commercials, though “Enhanced Underwriting” is OK. That’s going to be a tough sell for many AM owners. They are used to selling commercials, complete with comparative statements, a call to action and pricing information. That’s prohibited on LPFM. Maybe we could change that too. I’d be all for it, as long as it applied to all LPFM stations.
LPFMs and small AMs have a lot in common. They are not enemies, despite what they’ve had drilled into them by various trade associations. With the exception of the 50 kW clear channel stations, most AM broadcasters are decidedly local operations. Or they were; these days they are more likely to be relaying a signal from a bartered satellite network, running brokered foreign-language programming or playing Bible-thumping religious programming piped in from some distant city.
That’s too bad, because with a little effort they could once again become valuable assets. The concept of “community” broadcasting was one of the ideas behind LPFM. In fact, the FCC has used LPFM as a way to restore a little localism to the dial. It seems that this new generation of low-power stations is taking up where traditional small-town AM broadcasters left off.
Maybe it’s time for some kind of national alliance of small broadcasters. Many of these people may have a lot more in common than they suspect. Now if we could only figure out how to make those IBOC sidebands go away, broadcasting might be fun again.
Chuck Conrad
General Manager
KZQX(LP)
Kilgore, Texas
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