Re: Stereo for voice (was RE: Dr. Laura anywhere in New England?)

["Peter Q. George" <radiojunkie3@yahoo.com>]

     Even though most FM talk stations mono-down their
audio except for commercials, music beds and special
programs, turning off the Stereo pilot/generator is
ill-advised in this writers' opinion.  First,
switching to mono (sans pilot) does not really gain
much in coverage.  Most FM Stereo radios come with a
"blend circuit" which will improve fringe area
reception (to a point) by squelching out the "Stereo
hiss" (that was common in older car radios toward the
end of the coverage area).  But the blend circuit does
also get rid of ANY possible available Stereo
separation.  Secondly, a true mono FM signal (sans
pilot) sounds very flat, lifeless.  There is no
"depth" in the actual sound.  I'm not talking about
left and right, but rather the ambience of the sound.

     WTKK does use a lot of Stereo music material in
their programming (commercials, bumpers what-not).
When WBUR goes Stereo during "Con Salsa" and their
Sunday NPR news block and "Marsh Chapel", the station
sounds rather good and cleaner than when they run
their typical "in mono" material. WSKO, same thing,
flat lifeless mono.
     Also, stations that don't broadcast a pilot tone
"look" kinda "cheap" to some listeners. Someone once
wrote, "there are some people out there who simply
will not listen to an FM station that's not in
Stereo".  I personally engineer some college FM'ers. 
All of them are in the 10 or 200 watt range.  All of
them are in Stereo.  All have fairly good coverages. 
For the heck of it, I have tested them in mono and
Stereo using both addressable transmitters and
receivers.  I saw no appreciable change in coverage
when I switched between modes.  There is really no
reason for any station to be "Stereo Challenged" in
this day and age. It would be like operating a TV
station totally in black and white and in mono.

"That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it." 73!

Peter Q. George (K1XRB)
Whitman, Massachusetts



  --- Peter Murray <pete@partnercomm.com> wrote:
> Why don't stations like WVOM, WTKK, WBUR and others
> on the FM dial that
> program mostly talk programming switch off the
> stereo generator for those 
> voice-only (stereo-irrelevant) programs? It is not
> that difficult to 
> disable that pilot tone - is it simply impractical?
> As noticed by Rod, it 
> makes a marked difference in Signal to noise ratio,
> dB of quieting 
> required, etc, effectively increasing the range of
> the station.
> 
> WITF 89.5 in Harrisburg, PA used to do that when
> they switched from their 
> classical programming to Morning Edition or All
> Things Considered years 
> ago - though I don't notice them doing that now -
> nor does WDUQ 90.5 here 
> in Pittsburgh.
> 
> -Peter Murray
> Pittsburgh, PA
> 
> 
> On Tue, 15 Jul 2003, Rod O'Connor wrote:
> 
> (snipped)
> > I have noticed that WVOM has recently started
> broadcasting in stereo,
> > even though I don't think they have any musical
> programming. The
> > reception down here among the mountains on Mount
> Desert Island is
> > noticeably worse, than when they were mono. The
> multipath is quite
> > pronounced.
> 


=====
Peter Q. George (K1XRB)
Whitman, Massachusetts
                           "Scanning the bands since 1967"
radiojunkie1@yahoo.com
radiojunkie3@yahoo.com
***********************************************************

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