The audio clipping issue is back again on 99.5 Move fm. I did notice it last Tuesday, it was only very mild, but today it was pretty bad.
It was exceptionally bad when Titanium by SIA and David Guetta was playing on the networked Tommy and Carrie show.
@anon71206228 could you let the tech know?
Bunburysā temporary Newsradio 90.1 station has been give a new end date. The ABC reception help article has been recently updated - https://help.abc.net.au/hc/en-us/articles/4408424910351-Temporary-FM-frequency-for-ABC-NewsRadio-in-Bunbury-Western-Australia
As for the Newsradio 1152 AM Bunbury (Busselton), it has been the strongest station on AM for some time now. Iāve noticed only minor service interruptions and activity at the broadcast site. Out lying places like Collie, Bridgetown and Mandurah would likely be the real beneficiary on the temporary 90.1 service.
I do find it interesting that 1152 is a newer service than 684 6BS and 6RN 1269, but the latter two are not mentioned as requiring any works yet. I would have thought they would need maintenance before 1152 does and donāt recall any works that have been taken for 6BS and 6RN since 1152 went to air.
That is a good point. I wonder if it is a work safe electromagnetic requirement? Only Newsradio @ 10kw needs to be reduced in power, where as RN and ABC Local are already significantly less in power. All 3 have been off at times. Our Techno spies may know more.
I reckon thereās still a chance 90.1 MHz becomes permanent; switching it off would be a regression of sorts for the news junkies of the lower SW Land Division. Such wackiness would never happen āover eastāā¦or would it?
Then again, 1152 would be missed by those intrepid MW DXers in the Rainbow Nation and elsewhere across the ocean.
Does anyone know what format music files / bit rates are stored in playout systems at various stations/networks?
eg. Do they use (hopefully) uncompressed WAV files? It wouldnāt surprise me if some use MP3s or AAC though (hopefully at maximum bit rates). Can imagine CDs or LPs or other would only really be used by some community radio stations these days.
Shouldāve mentioned this yesterday but on i98 (Illawarra-based station) they played a new song by Mimi Webb called āFreezingā just before 9:30am.
Why is that unusual?
All commercial networks should use uncompressed wav files, SCA does, ARN does, the old Grant Broadcasters did, many community stations do now as well.
Thanks! Thought youād know!
I spoke to the tech yesterday about an unrelated thing & mentioned this to him.
Last time it was happening he replaced the audio processor, he bench tested it after taking it out & couldnāt find anything wrong with it, it was working perfectly as it should, he said heās been listening a lot since then & hasnāt heard the issue again yet (might not have been listening the other day when you heard it).
After replacing the processor heās backed off the limiting & compression, he said if they get a loud hit of audio & then something quieter there may be a noticeable delay on release of the AGC & limiting, he said it seems to be an issue with the SCA sourced program feeds & locally played out commercials etc. & thereās nothing more he can do about the SCA feed quality theyāre receiving, it doesnāt seem to happen during local programming?
I know what youāre going to ask next, why is it like this on the WF translator but not the main Move 107.9 transmission, I canāt answer that & neither can the tech, neither of us know or can find or figure any reason why it is happening at all?
Ford plans to stop putting AM radios in new cars starting next year
https://www.thestreet.com/automotive/ford-just-made-a-move-that-will-infuriate-american-drivers
Is it that difficult to have AM alongside FM and DAB? Will this force AM stations to go to DAB instead?
Looks like itās only USA for now.
Iād be surprised if they try that here given how popular AM talk stations are and that most regional areas donāt have digital radio yet.
So sounds like they are still shipping HD radio - a large number of the big AM stations are on the HD2/3 stations from other FMs in the market, so itās not quite as bad in the US market.
MP3 tends to be quite common in community radio, albeit at 320kbps. Music distribution services such as AMRAP and PlayMPE offer 320kbps MP3s, as well as WAVs.
It depends on the station, especially community stations. If they donāt have a lot of cash and are using older hardware, itās not unusual to find MP3 files on their playout system. If itās a community station where there is little to no gatekeeping on which music/audio files are loaded onto the playout system, the results can beā¦ well, do you remember 128kbps MP3s from the early '00s? Imagine those, along with poor or non-existent tagging.
Correct me if I am wrong, but the US does not have DAB. They use HD radio and it doesnāt stand for high definition.
To tune into HD you need to tune to the original AM or FM broadcast. Without an AM radio you could not tune into HD.
Once you tune into the frequency (say 954AM), you then can choose between 3-4 different broadcasts in digital stereo.
Correct. I do believe that HD stands for āHybrid Digitalā
I thought HD radio only worked on FM over there?
I doubt there would be the bandwidth on AM to carry extra stations since the FM spacing is 200 khz vs 10 khz on AM.
And as I do have an Insignia HD radio and it is FM only.