In a message dated 9/6/01 2:54:55 AM GMT Daylight Time, [email protected]
writes:
<< Hi from Iowa, USA, EN31do
This my seem a silly question, but I am curious.
How is the audio quality of European LW BC stations? The bandwidth
percentage is really something on those frequencies.
Do they have special audio processing techniques? Are they rather
"narrow" for broadcasting? >>
Good question.
I recall that when Atlantic 252 first came on air from the old Butlins
holiday camp north of Dublin, their audio was lacking HF content because of
the limited bandwidth of the antennas. At one stage the transmitter would
see a high SWR and trip down in power because of the poor match 3kHz off the
carrier frequency. Now, they've added extra wires to the antenna to improve
the bandwidth and they are happy.
It's worth remembering that MW broadcasters here works on a 9kHz spacing and
not the 10kHz US standard, that's a whole 500Hz less audio.
Audio 'processing' is a silly war here on FM and AM. The station I work for
has just spent about 11,000 Dollars on a processor so it can sound as loud as
the competition. Unfortunately my ears rebelled and while the music sounds OK
the speech is terrible. From an engineering perspective the Omnia 6 is
interesting. Its located at the transmitter site and can be accessed from my
PC via the phone line.
The software shows the block diagram on the screen and I can turn up / down
any of the functions (about 150 of them) and store the new settings to memory.
It's a whole world away from the days of a single audio limiter and a volume
control.
Hope you get the audio clips from someone.
73
David G0MRF
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