1410 vs WKOX 1430 AM HD intereference

[Rob Landry]

On Sat, 20 Jun 2015, John Mullaney wrote:

> Again you guys are old school AM listeners and those days are gone. 
> Skywave is a waste of money and time. Today these stations only matter 
> in the local markets they serve regularly.

Skywave is a necessary consequence of medium wave broadcasting. Local 
stations will get skywave interference, both from stations in other 
markets and from their own skywave. A modulation scheme that can't 
tolerate skywave doesn't belong on medium wave.

Moreover, one of the few advantages medium wave has over FM is its ability 
to be heard at a distance. The AM band should properly be used for 
regional services; local services belong on FM, where skywave isn't an 
issue and lots of local stations can be accommodated without the 
directional antenna patterns that are so common n AM.

> AM stations are in big trouble. Many make fractions of the income they 
> used to make and their value is at an all time low. The only hope is to 
> make them sound as close to FM in their market areas as possible. I 
> agree HD radio may not be best digital technology for AM but right now 
> it is the easiest way an owner can make his AM sound much better on many 
> car radios. And more and more cars are getting them.

One of the reasons AM stations are in trouble is the vastly greater 
amounts of noise and interference on the band. IBOC exacerbates that 
problem. I was listening to WTSN yesterday morning driving south on I-95 
from Portland to Dover. The IBOC noise from 1260 in Boston is audible even 
in Portland. IBOC is a counterproductive technology; it interferes with 
stations far beyond the areas it's intended to serve. If WTSN added IBOC, 
you can be sure 1260 would lose a lot of its digital coverage.

The FCC has seriously mismanaged the AM band over the years. IBOC is only 
the latest of myriad wrong-headed and short-signted FCC decisions 
affecting AM. Lawyers and lobbyists should not be managing radio spectrum.


Rob