In an age when much of the programming that is available on radio and television (in the U.S. anyway) is low quality "mush", it's always exciting to find something that is worth watching or listening to. I think it is important to celebrate and recognize those stations that put quality programs on the air, and that's why I've written this.

Radio Programs

I generally do not care for talk radio; especially those dreadful syndicated talk shows that present a very one-sided and polarizing political viewpoint. The one exception is WGN's Milt Rosenberg on Extension 720. If you live anywhere within about 500 miles of Chicago you can probably pick this up live on WGN radio because it comes on late at night; otherwise, they do have podcasts available on the web site. What can I say? This is truly intelligent talk radio.

My passion is music however, and classical music in particular. Unfortunately, classical music can be hard to come by unless you happen to live in a major city. We are lucky to have two stations here in Northern Illinois that broadcast classical music. My favorite is WNIU, which is operated by Northern Illinois University. This station carries the Classical 24 network (C24) which is 24 hour classical music. The station broadcasts on 90.5 FM and has a fairly limited reach; it does not cover the Chicago area with a usable signal (for most people, anyway). However, they do stream online at their web site. I have rigged up a 10 element log periodic antenna on the roof to pick them up.

Locally in Chicago we have WFMT, 98.7 FM. I prefer the morning and afternoon drive programs. The rest of the time, the station airs a lot of diverse programming that is too distracting for me to have on while I'm trying to write or do other work. WFMT used to have the best sounding signal on the FM dial. That is, until a couple of years ago when they converted over to digital (HD) broadcasting. The digital sidebands cause various artifacts that degrade the quality of analog FM reception. In particular, there is a great deal of high frequency distortion that is particularly noticeable on speech. I have come to the conclusion that there is nobody left at the station that is a critical listener, because I have brought this to their attention several times without success.

Another local gem is WLIP, a small town AM station in Kenosha, WI. With its 250 watt signal, WLIP is a little hard to catch in the Chicago area, but it is well worth listening to. In particular, the Sunday "Music of the Stars" program hosted by Lou Rugani has music you won't find elsewhere on the radio dial. This station also streams its programs online, so you aren't tied to their limited coverage area.
 
Television Programs

CBS Sunday Morning is a standout when it comes to live television programming. Our family started watching this program many years ago when it was hosted by Charles Kuralt. The current anchor, Charles Osgood, has done an outstanding job of keeping the show as interesting and worth watching as ever. He seems like a lovely person, and I would certainly enjoy meeting him.

The focus of Sunday Morning is news of course, but it goes far beyond that. I think of it as a news magazine, because it examines art, entertainment, music, architecture, literature, sports, science, and many other fascinating topics. This is actually the only television program I watch on a regular basis, and I wouldn't miss it. If you happen to live in a place where you can't receive it by terrestrial broadcast or satellite, visit the web site because they do make excerpts available online. Occasionally, they stream the entire program live.

Ever heard of HD radio? Few people have. The name "HD" is supposed to stand for "Hybrid Digital", but its perpetrators would like you to think it means "High Definition". That is a fabrication-- it is anything but!

HD radio is a flop. Here are just a few reasons why:

• It sounds bad (especially if you are a critical listener) due to the low bit rate
• It is not robust (it does not work well) in comparison to analog AM or FM transmission
• It takes up a great deal of bandwidth, and as a result, it causes a lot of interference to other stations
• It's expensive for radio stations to own and operate, and they have to pay a lot of money for a license to use it
• It solves a problem nobody had. It is digital, for digital's sake

HD radio has been a disaster for two groups in particular: radio listeners who lost reception of stations that they formerly could hear clearly but now cannot receive due to interference, and small market stations whose signals are being trashed by high powered stations transmitting HD. 

HD radio has another "technical" name: "IBOC", which stands for "In Band On Channel." The idea was that the digital signal would be transmitted in the same band as the analog signal, and on the same radio channel. The first part is true; the digital signal is transmitted in the same band. But the second part is not true; in fact, the digital sidebands are transmitted on adjacent radio channels, and that is why HD radio causes so much interference to other stations.

The proponents of HD radio have been less than candid about this issue, and the FCC is looking the other way. 

HD-AM is the worst offender when it comes to interference. When you tune across a station, it sounds like a Soviet-era jammer. An HD-AM station actually takes up all or part of FIVE radio channels, rather than the approximately 1-1/2 channels than a standard analog AM station occupies. Due to the skywave propagation conditions that exist on the AM radio band, this interference travels for thousands of miles at night. It is an economic disaster for many small town radio stations.

The worst offenders on both AM and FM are the high powered stations-- especially the 50 kW AM signals. Many of these are owned by CBS Radio. They are one of the investors in the corporation that developed HD radio, so they are loyal supporters. CBS is the single biggest source of interference to other AM stations, coast to coast.

Most people don't even listen to AM radio any more, and that is due in large measure to the amount of interference-- which, to be fair-- is caused by a variety of sources. But HD radio is undoubtedly a major contributing factor to the demise of AM.

By the way, I forgot to mention that hybrid digital transmission also makes analog radio reception sound bad! It produces a "hissing" sound in the background. It makes AM radio sound like a cell phone, because they filter out the high frequencies to protect the digital sidebands. Otherwise HD-AM wouldn't work (it barely works, anyway).

Wouldn't you think that smart people would figure this out and abandon HD radio? A few have-- and many more would like to-- but their hands are tied by corporate politics.

Some people think that radio is going to become redundant, once broadband wireless Internet service is widely available. I'm not so sure about that. I think broadcast radio will have an important role to play for many years to come.

As an industry, broadcasters need to abandon this failed technology and shut off their digital jammers. Right now, they are just shooting themselves in the foot. Personally, I can't wait until the last HD radio exciter is carted out to the dump!

I'll be sharing my thoughts on a wide variety of topics here.