[BC] FM Stereo Question

[ChuxGarage at aol.com]

I've had lots of responses, either on the forum or directly by email.  Thank you all.  They have ranged from "get a new antenna" to "try mono."  That was in response to the question of what happens if you raise the 19 kHz pilot level to the maximum legal level of 10%.

So we don't go off into too many tangents, here is a bit more information:

The station sounds quite good in most areas. I've even had several local broadcast engineers (who work for other stations) call to tell me so.  I don't think I'm imagining things. That said, I did work in the professional audio business for about 35 years and still dabble in it.  I don't have golden ears, but lots of performers who you would recognize thought I did a good job for them.

The small city with the reception problem is on the southwest quadrant of our 60 dbu protected contour.  There is a second adjacent station not too far away from that city - maybe 7-10 miles.  That may have something to do with it, but maybe not.

The previous owner tells me that the antenna is "optimized" to give the best coverage to a major city a few miles northwest of the transmitter site. Judging by the way it is mounted, I suspect he may be right. Since that is where most of the potential audience actually lives, it would make sense.  As I mentioned, the town that has the reception problem is toward the Southwest, about 90 degrees.

The station is licensed for 2450 watts ERP.  TPO is 3000 watts.  The transmitter is a 5 kW QEI that has had the HV power transformer strapped for lower output voltage.  The exciter is a Crown 30 watt unit.  I'm using an Inovonics 530 modulation monitor.  The antenna is a ten year old Jampro Penetrator two bay array at the top of a 490 foot tower.  Processing is provided by a Broadcast Warehouse DSP-Xtra, which includes an Ariane Leveler.  It is setup for fairly natural sounding audio.  The signal is full sounding, but not aggressive.  The station's format is a mix of Standards, Oldies and a little Jazz.  When you compare it with other stations in the market, it appears to be in the same ballpark volume wise, but it does not have that "peeled paint" sound that seems popular these days.  Since Arbitron tells me that our audience skews about 60% women and 40% men, I don't want to induce a lot of listening fatigue to the sound. I don't want bad audio to be a factor in TSL.

At the moment, I'm using an Inovonics RDS encoder (702).  It likes to see a 19 kHz pilot.  I can buy a more versatile RDS encoder from the Pira-CZ folks for a little over $260 that does not require an external 19 kHz source.  Since it also can do scrolling text and song information, It seems like the obvious choice if I decide to go mono.  I've used one before and was happy with the results. It would certainly beat doing a kludge of a signal generator or some external source to fool the current encoder.

I suspect that the easiest way to answer my question about injection level is to try it.  It is easy enough to put it back.

Chuck Conrad
KZQX Radio
www.kzqx.com