[BC] FM Stereo Question

[ChuxGarage at aol.com]

Actually, most of out program material was recorded in the 1950's and 60's and stereo was a very big deal back then. In fact, some of it is quite amazing sounding.  We also play a lot of modern artists who are in stereo.  I'm not sure if people would be bothered or not if the stereo went away.

I doubt that most of our listeners radios are mono, at least not any more so than any other stations'.  Of course the really horrible clock radios from Walmart or the drug store are mono, but I doubt that they have the sensitivity to pick us up under any circumstances, at least not in the town in question.

I can tell you that when the LPFM I used to be associated with flipped formats to Classical and Jazz, we made the decision to kill the stereo.  It made a huge difference in the listenability of the station.  When it previously ran our standards/oldies format, it was possible to mask the marginal signal with processing.  With Classical music, you really can't hide behind an aggressive processor. 

I haven't heard any complaints about the mono classical music, other than one day when the power went out, the UPS system ran down and the generator failed to start (it was too cold).  When power came back up, the processor defaulted to stereo, and there were complaints that the signal was noisy.  A quick adjustment, and the noise went away. 

I'll probably experiment with the mono idea to see how it works out. It is easy enough to turn it back on.

Chuck Conrad
KZQX Radio
www.kzqx.com

In a message dated 2/28/2010 2:02:16 PM Central Standard Time, broadcast-request at radiolists.net writes:

>I would think it would do you well. And it sounds as though very few of the
>listener's receivers are stereo, and if I remember correctly, not much of
>your source material is either?