KSOP makes a MAJOR change

[Timmy]

Make there be less channels with further separation and wider response... This 5khz max is horrid.

[michaeljwyo]

Actually Timmy, it's 10khz.....which isn't too bad. I ought to aircheck some of KEVA's audio for you guys and put it up somewhere so you can listen. When you hear what it REALLY sounds like (10khz audio.....which most radios won't pick up) it's actually pretty nice! Add stereo to that and really it IS almost as good as FM. 5khz is the limit for IBOC stations. They can't widen more than that or it will interfere with the digital carriers. There are some stations that do it or did it (I remember clearchannel requiring it a while back for all their stations) several years back just to do it saying "well nobody has AM radios with frequency response higher than 5khz anyway so we're gonna do it to try to reduce interference. Not that it really mattered. KANN 1120 is a good example of that...theirs is DEFINITELY limited to 5khz....and actually I think it's lower than that. However, there are numerous others out there that don't. KSOP is one of them. I can tell...they are at the full 10khz. I bet IN THEIR STUDIO on the off-air monitor it sounds great. Not in stereo, but still pretty crisp clear mono. AM was ALWAYS at least 10khz (it became limited to 10khz in the early 90s by the FCC. Before that it was whatever...12khz...15khz..whatever your transmitter could handle)....it was the RADIOS that didn't pick it up that high and made it sound muddy. People always said "AM sounds like $#!+" AM doesn't sound like crap, AM radios do. I have a few in my collection....including a Sony SRF-A100 where the AM sounds as good as FM.

Michael n Wyo

[CAwasinNJ]

May 7, 2010 0:21:00 GMT -6 dxstuboy said:

Remove IBOC and you've solved half of the problem.

I think "half" is being generous. A quarter, maybe. The FCC insists on shoehorning stations into every nook and cranny and that creates a mess at night. Daytime, fine. Night, not. If the Funny Cookie Company insists on licensing new stations they should start doing daytime only again. They're just killing the band that much faster otherwise.

[dxstuboy]

It was kind of a joke relating to the sidebands that IBOC destroys on an AM station, but I agree, too many stations also makes things worse.

[kenglish]

IBOC hasn't really bothered me much...I've never really paid much attention to 900, 920, 1150 or 1170 stations.
But, the noisy TV sets, the switch-mode power supplies, the fluorescent lights, the lamp dimmers, the under-voltage/under-pressurized neon lighting tubes, the arcing power lines, the computer RFI, etc, have really made AM listening difficult.