Tag: AM

Amplitude Modulation

Happiness is: An AM directional array at licensed values

Last week I did some repair work at WDDY in Albany NY. It seems the sample line on one of the towers was melted in half by a lightning strike. This station uses sample loops up on the tower for its directional antenna monitoring system.

WDDY antena array, Albany, NY
WDDY antena array, Albany, NY

As it happened, the sample line in question was on the reference tower, which makes everything else meaningless.  Before the meltdown, there were several years’ worth of maintenance logs that showed the previous values for current ratio and phase relationship.

With the transmitter turned off and locked out, I removed the damaged section of the line from the base of the tower to the RF choke coil in the tuning house.  Where the sample line came off of the base of the tower, there was a UHF-type connector that had been improperly applied.  Using spare parts, I fixed that connector, then spliced the line into place.  Upon power-up, the transmitter and antenna readings returned to their previous values, which were slightly out of tolerance.

Thus, some phasor tuning was needed.  There are not too many people left that can properly tune an AM phasor.  All of the control interact with each other; moving the power or phase to one tower will likely affect all of the other towers and possibly the reflected power on the transmitter.  This phasor was made in the 1970s by Multronics with what looks like all RCA parts.  Multronics, I think, was John Mullaney who is more known for the folded unipole antenna.  In any case, after a good few hours of careful hand cranking and a run out to the reference tower to move a coil tap, here are the results:

WDDY tower one, reference
WDDY tower one, reference
WDDY tower two
WDDY tower two
WDDY tower three
WDDY tower three
WDDY forward/reflected power
WDDY forward/reflected power

Not bad for a day’s work.

The FCC: Spectrum management in the public interest

Alternative title: Who will really benefit from all digital AM HD Radio™?

Remember when, at license renewal time, radio and TV stations played this announcement:

On (date of the last renewal grant), (station’s call letters) was granted a license by the Federal Communications Commission to serve the public interest as a public trustee until (license expiration date)…

Emphasis mine.

There seems to be a disassociation between those words and the actions of certain broadcasters who view their licenses as a matter of fact and have little regard for the public interest.  The FCC exacerbates the situation with the attitude that everything, including the entire radio frequency spectrum, is for sale to the highest bidder.  John Anderson (DIY Media) has a great article on how big business interests game federal regulators into doing what they want.  This happens in all sectors; banking, agriculture, energy, health care, media, military and so on.   There are many examples of shoddy regulators and big business gone wild over the last ten years to fully prove this theory.  If you don’t believe me, do a little research.  There is no reason to think that the FCC is different from any other federal regulatory agency.

The vast majority of mass media outlets in the US are owned by just six major corporations (see below).  Radio remains the only piece of the mass media system that has not been completely rolled up in consolidation.  Currently, there is a small number corporate radio owners who own a combined ~2,300 stations and one public broadcasting network that accounts for another ~900 stations. I include public radio here because the majority of those station’s upgrades were footed by the taxpayer though grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That leaves a majority of the approximately 8,500 radio stations that are still owned by a diversified collection of medium and small groups and individuals.

Forcing radio stations to adopt the proprietary, all digital HD Radio™ as the broadcasting standard would, in effect, drive many of those small owners and individuals out of business because of the exorbitant costs for equipment upgrades, antenna modifications, and licensing fees.  This would create a new wave of consolidation as smaller groups and single station owners sold out.  Any remaining small station owners will not have the legal wherewithal to fight against the coming waves of digital interference on both the AM (medium frequency) and FM (VHF) bands.

Therefore, the short answer to the question; who benefits from an all conversion to all digital HD Radio™ is iBquity and its investors, many of whom are found in the list of consolidated media corporations below.  Who looses? Just about everyone else; small and medium group owners, independent radio owners, listeners, communities of license, radio employees, advertisers etc. For those sitting on the fence, thinking “I’ll just do my job any everything will be just fine.”  Full implementation of HD Radio™ will destroy what is left of broadcasting in this country.  Radio is already on shaky ground as a result of product dilution, staff cuts, mediocre programing and competing media systems.  One more step backward, such as adopting a technically flawed digital system that works worse than its analog counterpart, and the remaining listeners may just say “screw this,” and abandon radio altogether.  When the last radio station is turned off, what do you think will happen to your job then?

At the big NAB Las Vegas confab, FCC commissioner Ajit Pai and to a lesser extent, Commissioner Rosenworcel, encouraged people to write or email them with their ideas on how to revitalize AM radio.  I suggest we take advantage of that invitation and tell them what HD Radio™ really is.  There is a shrinking window of opportunity to join the discourse and be heard, now is the time.

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. ~John Stuart Mill

What is at stake?  The future of diversified media and radio broadcasting in the US.

Sidebar: Mass Media Consolidation

Can the public trust a mass media that is owned mostly by six mega corporations to honestly and without bias report news, current events, investigate corruption, and be a government watch dog?  History says no.

Who owns the media?

Time Warner

  • Home Box Office (HBO)
  • Time Inc.
  • Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
  • Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
  • CW Network (partial ownership)
  • TMZ
  • New Line Cinema
  • Time Warner Cable (spun off in 2009)
  • Cinemax
  • Cartoon Network
  • TBS
  • TNT
  • CNN
  • HLN
  • MapQuest
  • Moviefone
  • Castle Rock
  • Sports Illustrated
  • Fortune
  • Marie Claire
  • People Magazine

Walt Disney

  • ABC Television Network (8 stations owned, 200 affiliates)
  • Disney Publishing
  • ESPN Inc.
  • Disney Channel
  • Radio Disney (31 stations, 2 affiliates)
  • SOAPnet
  • A&E
  • Lifetime
  • Buena Vista Home Entertainment
  • Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
  • Buena Vista Records
  • Disney Records
  • Hollywood Records
  • Miramax Films
  • Touchstone Pictures
  • Walt Disney Pictures
  • Pixar Animation Studios
  • Buena Vista Games
  • Hyperion Books

Viacom

  • Paramount Pictures
  • Paramount Home Entertainment
  • Black Entertainment Television (BET)
  • Comedy Central
  • Country Music Television (CMT)
  • Logo
  • MTV
  • MTV Canada
  • MTV2
  • Nick Magazine
  • Nick at Nite
  • Nick Jr.
  • Nickelodeon
  • Noggin
  • Spike TV
  • The Movie Channel
  • TV Land
  • VH1

News Corporation

  • Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
  • Fox Television Stations (25 stations)
  • The New York Post
  • Fox Searchlight Pictures
  • Beliefnet
  • Fox Business Network
  • Fox Kids Europe
  • Fox News Channel
  • Fox News Radio
  • Fox Sports Net
  • Fox Television Network (175 affiliates)
  • FX
  • My Network TV
  • MySpace
  • News Limited News
  • Phoenix InfoNews Channel
  • Phoenix Movies Channel
  • Sky PerfecTV
  • Speed Channel
  • STAR TV India
  • STAR TV Taiwan
  • STAR World
  • Times Higher Education Supplement Magazine
  • Times Literary Supplement Magazine
  • Times of London
  • 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
  • 20th Century Fox International
  • 20th Century Fox Studios
  • 20th Century Fox Television
  • BSkyB
  • DIRECTV
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • Fox Broadcasting Company
  • Fox Interactive Media
  • FOXTEL
  • HarperCollins Publishers
  • The National Geographic Channel
  • National Rugby League
  • News Interactive
  • News Outdoor
  • Radio Veronica
  • ReganBooks
  • Sky Italia
  • Sky Radio Denmark
  • Sky Radio Germany
  • Sky Radio Netherlands
  • STAR
  • Zondervan

CBS Corporation

  • CBS News
  • CBS Sports
  • CBS Television Network (16 stations owned, 200 affiliates)
  • CNET
  • Showtime
  • TV.com
  • CBS Radio Inc. (130 stations)
  • CBS Consumer Products
  • CBS Outdoor
  • CW Network (50% ownership)
  • Simon & Schuster (Pocket Books, Scribner)

NBC Universal

  • Bravo
  • CNBC
  • NBC News
  • MSNBC
  • NBC Sports
  • NBC Television Network (10 stations owned, 200 affiliates)
  • Oxygen
  • SciFi Magazine
  • Syfy (Sci Fi Channel)
  • Telemundo
  • USA Network
  • Weather Channel
  • Focus Features
  • NBC Universal Television Distribution
  • NBC Universal Television Studio
  • Paxson Communications (partial ownership)
  • Trio
  • Universal Parks & Resorts
  • Universal Pictures
  • Universal Studio Home Video

Large and medium group radio owners:

Bain Capital Partners, LLC Thomas H Lee Partners, LLC

  • Clear Channel Outdoor
  • Clear Channel Broadcasting (800 stations)
  • Premier Radio Networks
  • Radio Computer Services (RCS)

Cumulus Media (public)

  • Cumulus Broadcasting (550 stations)
  • Cumulus networks (formerly ABC Radio networks)
  • Broadcast Software International

Townsquare Media (220 stations)

Entercom (109 stations)

Salem Communications (97 stations)

Saga Communications (88 stations)

Univision (69 radio, 42 television stations)

Radio one (69 stations)

Family Broadcasting (63 stations)

Beasley Broadcast Group (47 stations)

Moody Radio (36 stations)

 

Suppression of ideas

I found this video called Empire of Noise about broadcast radio jamming. It seems to be about ten years old and is a post-cold War documentary about the jamming of radio signals by the USSR, Warsaw Pact counties, and China.  It is an interesting look into the extent and expense that governments will go to suppress counter thoughts and ideas.

The video is quite long, and there are stretches of jamming noise that can be annoying, but perhaps that is the point.  It is worth the time if interested in history and radio broadcasting.  You know what they say about history; those that do not understand history are destined to repeat it.

A few of the highlights:

  • The former Soviet Union had the most extensive jamming network of anyone on Earth.  There were groundwave jamming centers in eighty-one Soviet cities which consisted of approximately 10-15 transmitters each in the 5 KW covering the medium and shortwave frequencies.
  • Each groundwave jamming station consisted of a transmitter site and a receiver/control site.  The receiver site possessed lists of frequencies to monitor, when objectionable material was heard, the jamming transmitters were turned on.
  • There was a skywave jamming network consisting of 13 jamming stations with 10 or more 100-200 KW transmitters in each.  There were some transmitters in the 1,000 KW power range.  These were located in Krasnodar, Lvov, Nikolaev, Yerevan, Alma-Ata, Grigoriopol, Sovieck, Novosibrisk, Tashkent, Khanbarovsk, Servdlosk and Moscow (some of these names may have changed).  These operated in a similar fashion to the groundwave jammers.
  • After the sign-off of government stations, Soviet jammers sent a blanketing signal on the IF frequency (most likely 455 KHz) of receivers to effectively block them from receiving any station while USSR government stations were off the air.
  • Baltic states had 11 jamming stations with approximately 140 transmitters
  • Ukraine had approximately 300 Jamming transmitters.
  • Warsaw Pact countries had extensive medium-frequency jamming networks.
  • It is estimated it takes about 20 times the transmitted power to jam any one signal.

The entire jamming network was hugely expensive to equip and operate, costing several tens of millions of dollars per year.

It is interesting that the US position in all of this was:

Everyone has the right to seek, receive and impart information through any media and regardless of frontiers.   Jamming of radio broadcasts is condemned as the denial of the right of persons to be fully informed concerning news, opinions and ideas.

Sounds perfectly reasonable.  The free exchange of ideas and information over the internet is something that should be guarded carefully and should not be restricted or censored.  Perhaps somebody should inform Congress.

WBCN All digital field test results

When I said the WBCN test data may not see the light of day, perhaps I spoke too soon.  For your viewing pleasure, here are the results of the WBCN all-digital HD Radio tests:

WBCN All-digital AM IBOC Field Test Project (link has been broken, this may have been released by accident)

Well, that will teach me, won’t it.

I have given it a summary read and my first impressions were correct; from a technical standpoint (antenna, ATU)  this is a very favorable test configuration.  The results look pretty good on the surface, although they appear to have had some nighttime interference problems, go figure.  I’ll update this post when I have time to fully read the whole paper.

Update: The link I provided earlier has been taken down.  It may be that the information was not supposed to be released to the general public.  Several people have asked me to upload the report to my own server so that they can download it and read it themselves.  This leaves me in a bit of a quandary; the report itself is important information and its implications for the future of broadcasting are huge.  On the other hand, it is the work of a private organization and not the public domain, thus if released by accident, then it should not be shared.

This story from Inside Radio is more or less accurate as to what the report contains, although it paints a somewhat favorable picture.  There appear to be some issues meeting the NRSC5C mask for the MA3 (all digital) mode.  That seems to be fine, however, as the NRSC5C mask can be modified to meet field conditions.  How convenient is that?  The information about the number of AM HD Radio stations seems a bit off, latest I have is 207 AM daytime, and 66 AM nighttime stations out of 4,659 transmitting hybrid digital-analog HD Radio, or 4% daytime and 1% nighttime respectively.

When I have time, I will do some more analysis and post my own conclusions.