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Post by David on Apr 28, 2021 9:06:10 GMT -6
Is it just me, or does the audio on KNRS's AM frequency sound really bad? I first noticed it last night, and it sounds very fuzzy and distorted. I'm also hearing an audible 60 cycle hum in the background, particularly during station breaks when there's a cut over to commercials. It sounds like there's some capacitors in the power supply that are going bad, or an issue with the AM audio processing.
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Terry
Silver Level Member
Posts: 489
Usual Listening Area: east Murray
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Post by Terry on Apr 28, 2021 22:46:55 GMT -6
I hear a very pronounced 60 Hertz hum. The audio doesn't seem fuzzy or distorted to me. The RF signal strength seems low. I usually can hear KNRS bleeding over onto 560 and 580, but not tonight. Something is wrong.
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Terry
Silver Level Member
Posts: 489
Usual Listening Area: east Murray
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Post by Terry on Apr 29, 2021 10:50:02 GMT -6
Fuzzy and distorted, yes! It wasn’t so bad last night when I was listening but today it’s horrible- unlistenable.
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Post by David on Apr 29, 2021 11:25:35 GMT -6
Fuzzy and distorted, yes! It wasn’t so bad last night when I was listening but today it’s horrible- unlistenable. Thanks Terry, it's good to know that I'm not hearing things that aren't there. 😀Yes, it definitely sounds like the capacitors in the transmitter power supply are shot. The 60 cycle hum is almost overriding the program audio now. If anyone knows how to contact iHeart's engineering department, it would be a good idea to let them know what's going on before the transmitter implodes beyond repair. |
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Post by CAwasinNJ on Apr 29, 2021 21:45:16 GMT -6
David, I'm curious why you often seem to assume that the engineering departments don't know when there's a problem that's audible on air? I could see making that assumption with stations that are little more than a satellite receiver hooked up to a transmitter, but a major operation like iHeart?
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Post by kenglish on Apr 29, 2021 22:51:46 GMT -6
Does anyone listen to AM...except in high-latitude DX cabins? The FM and the stream are probably OK.😉
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Post by David on Apr 30, 2021 1:14:25 GMT -6
David, I'm curious why you often seem to assume that the engineering departments don't know when there's a problem that's audible on air? I could see making that assumption with stations that are little more than a satellite receiver hooked up to a transmitter, but a major operation like iHeart? In this case, I made my comment about iHeart's engineering dept. based on two observations: 1) When AM and FM stations are co-owned, the AM is generally neglected in favor of the FM, because that's where most of the listeners are. 2) iHeart has laid off a lot of employees lately, so they may not even have an engineer in the Salt Lake City area now. And let's face it, with the exception of Rod Arquett's show and Abby Bonnel's news reports weekday afternoons, the vast majority of KNRS's programming is "off the bird". |
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Post by amanuensis on Apr 30, 2021 10:51:32 GMT -6
I was not impressed with iHeart's attention paying on the night of Biden's national address. I was listening to his address on a stream of 99.1 because I had been curious how Bloomberg (being pro-business) would view Biden's corporate tax proposals. (In the pre-speech analysis, not kindly.)
Anyhow, so I was listening to Biden on 99.1 and Otto Mation cut in at least twice with ~two-minute blocks of advertising. So that tells me that no one locally at iHeart was paying attention.
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Post by drpepper on Apr 30, 2021 11:37:06 GMT -6
I've wondered about the automation process with adds on iheart. i listen to a show on KOA from 9-12 sometimes, and they have a break at 9:27 with adds, then news, then adds and back to the show. Well a couple times last week the adds kept running on the stream for like 25 minutes or so. No news break. I would check in every couple minutes and adds just kept playing.
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Post by christopherjohn on Apr 30, 2021 11:58:06 GMT -6
I love seeing the speculation here. Their engineering staff is aware and working on it. 🙂
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Post by David on Apr 30, 2021 14:07:18 GMT -6
I love seeing the speculation here. Their engineering staff is aware and working on it. 🙂 Good to know. I listen to KNRS and KSL on their AM frequencies, because I live in an area where good FM reception is very difficult unless I'm in a specific spot in my house. |
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Post by CAwasinNJ on May 2, 2021 1:52:17 GMT -6
amanuensis, the key in your observation is that you were listening to the stream. It's very likely that the interruptions you heard were not on the air signal. There are legal and technical reasons for that which we can go into in a new thread if you want to.
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