When I listen to San Diego 6 TV on my FM radio, why is the audio volume so much lower than that of FM radio stations?
We agree that having to turn up the volume on 87.7 FM is annoying. When the FCC and communications scientists came up with the standards for FM broadcasting in the late 1940s, they were afraid that if they turned up the volume on TV audio, it would interfere with the video portion of the picture. So they decided to limit TV audio to one-third of the frequency modulation (FM) of that allowed for FM audio-only broadcasters. This makes it much lower in volume at the radio end. It’s a fortunate coincidence for us that you can pickup TV audio on the FM band for channel 6 because it’s so close to the FM band, but that fortunate coincidence comes with the price of having to “turn it up” every time you switch to our signal because of the slight incompatibility. You also can’t hear our audio in stereo unless you have a regular analog TV tuner.
We agree that having to turn up the volume on 87.7 FM is annoying. When the FCC and communications scientists came up with the standards for FM broadcasting in the late 1940s, they were afraid that if they turned up the volume on TV audio, it would interfere with the video portion of the picture. So they decided to limit TV audio to one-third of the frequency modulation (FM) of that allowed for FM audio-only broadcasters. This makes it much lower in volume at the radio end. It’s a fortunate coincidence for us that you can pickup TV audio on the FM band for channel 6 because it’s so close to the FM band, but that fortunate coincidence comes with the price of having to “turn it up” every time you switch to our signal because of the slight incompatibility. You also can’t hear our audio in stereo unless you have a regular TV tuner.
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