Re: [IRCA] Wince-worthy IBOC praise article

[Scott Fybush <scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Lee Reynolds wrote:
> Gentlemen.
> 
> Ira Wilner *is* a real person, he works up here in the NH/New England region
> and he is a conscientious and hard working engineer.
> 
> He is also a licensed ham and radio-in-general enthusiast.
> 
> His opinions about radio, its utility and future may differ from many of
> ours, but to accuse him of being a shill, a nonexistent front OR a taker of
> bribes is unconscionable and unworthy of those of you that have suggested
> so.
> 
> As far as I recall, holding a different opinion to another person is not yet
> a crime in this country.
> 
> Lee (who is now, no doubt, in the direct pay of Ibiquity too...)

I guess I must be in the direct pay of Ibiquity, too, then, since I have 
to concur with Lee on many of these points.

Ira is indeed a well-respected engineer who's had a hand in pretty much 
every station in the Connecticut River Valley area of New Hampshire and 
Vermont. He does a lot of the transmitter work for Vermont Public Radio, 
and his "day job" is as chief of the Saga group in Keene, New Hampshire.

In that role, he has been a strong supporter of HD Radio, particularly 
where Saga's FM signals are concerned. WKNE-FM 103.7 in Keene, a big 
regional class B signal, was one of the first HD stations in the region. 
He's since converted the other FMs in that cluster to HD, as well as (if 
memory serves) the two AMs - WKBK 1290 Keene, a 5 kw DA-2, and WZBK 1220 
Keene, which runs 1 kw D, 146 watts N, ND-U.

 From Ira's perspective in Keene, there are indeed some pluses to HD - 
the WKNE-FM signal has been plagued by multipath in that mountainous 
area, which HD helps to clean up quite nicely. I would suspect that WKBK 
does pretty well with its HD coverage, since there's not much on 1280 or 
1300 to get in its way (or, given where its night pattern is aimed, vice 
versa). I'd love to know whether WZBK is suffering interference from 
WPHT's IBOC on 1210 at night. I'd guess the answer is probably yes, and 
I wonder what Ira's reaction to that might be. (In his article, he was 
quick to simply dismiss skywave as outmoded and irrelevant; I don't 
believe it's possible to simply write off skywave that easily, of course!)

That said, I'm somewhat appalled by how quickly and venomously some here 
reacted to the posting of this fairly innocuous commentary piece that 
was written close to a year and a half ago.

Is it no longer possible for us to disagree with someone else's opinion 
without immediately becoming the subject of personal attack and 
innuendo? Or, if we disagree, to address that disagreement purely on the 
merits of an issue without immediately looking for personal (and 
ultimately irrelevant) reasons to dismiss the conflicting opinion?

And, given that AM IBOC is doing a fine job of self-destructing on its 
own, are we truly so very threatened as a hobby that we feel the need to 
react this strongly to one bit of writing that (from the industry's 
perspective) came and went more than a year ago, probably changing no 
minds in the process? As I've noted a few times on this and other lists, 
the broadcast equipment manufacturers have pretty much stopped rolling 
out new AM HD products, which should be construed as a pretty direct 
reflection of the level of demand from their customer bases.

As for the points that several, including Craig Healy, have made about 
the self-destruction of the AM HD system, I'd just add one note: Patrick 
Martin is quite correct that much of the ongoing support for HD in 
general is coming from the public radio community. But I'd emphasize, 
strongly, that there's really one and only one big reason for that 
support, which is the multicasting capability of the FM HD system.

With one small exception, which I'll address in a moment, there's 
essentially no momentum for HD on the AM side of the public radio world. 
I know of only two AM public radio stations - WNYC 820 and WBUR 1240 - 
that installed HD gear, and I don't think WNYC is running its HD now. My 
part-time employers at WXXI in Rochester, to offer another example, were 
quick to adopt HD on WXXI-FM, but there are no plans at present to put 
HD on WXXI 1370 (and nothing at all to be gained by doing so!)

The one small exception, interestingly, is in rural Alaska, where the 
cost of electricity is unbelievably high, and therefore the cost of 
operating stations like KBBI 890, KOTZ 720 and KCHU 770 is a real 
concern. There's been some talk, at least on a theoretical level, about 
shutting down analog operations on some of those stations and taking 
them digital-only. The cost of doing that - AND of providing new radios 
to their small listener bases - would apparently be offset very quickly 
by the savings on power bills.

I suppose I should note that I, too, am a former contributor to Radio 
World, although that relationship came to a close a couple of months ago.

s
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