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Hubbard Testing All-Digital AM on WWFD

spiritof67 said:
Has anyone recorded the all digital AM signal of this station? For that matter, comparing the FM HD and internet signal in terms of sound quality would be a great idea.
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Here is an aircheck from WWFD from this summer. It's pretty heavily scoped but should be enough to get an idea of the audio quality. I don't know anything about the music library they use, so some of the artifacts you hear could be from the source material, or STLs or whatever. But it seems to especially struggle with high frequencies, like a low-bit rate AAC+ stream would.

https://airchexx.com/the-great-am-digital-experiment-a-sample-of-820-wwfd-frederick-md-may-30-2019/
 
Thanks, PT, for posting that link! It's nice getting to hear it with headphones on.

It really confirms my belief that the all-digital mode is no better, sound-quality-wise, than the hybrid mode. Same crunchy audio, a total lack of stereo separation that is similar to what I hear on local iHeart HD3/HD4 channels. BUT… considering the supposed robustness of the signal and the good dynamic range compared to most AM car radios, I'd say it's a worthwhile tradeoff for many formats.

Really, listening to it closely I was struck by how similar it sounds to SiriusXM channels. In other words: bad. But considering how successful SXM is and how few people complain about the audio, it shouldn't matter to the average Joe.

I still think analog AM *can* sound cleaner and crisper, but only under extraordinary circumstances. Like how my local AM (which is basically across the highway from me) sounds on my SDR, where I can select the full 10 kHz bandwidth that most radios these days ignore.

Edit to add: A recording I made of my local station from 2016, via a Sony AMAX AM Stereo radio, for comparison. I think the SRF-42 actually doesn't pass the full 10 kHz that the station broadcasts with; I'll have to make another recording one day with the SDR on my PC for that.
 
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HD in Stereo

PTBoardOp94, thank you for the WWFD Link. I'm listening to it now.

In checking, KFUO does indeed broadcast in stereo on AM-HD. An aircheck is posted in another thread.
 
Interesting. I appreciate the correction regarding stereo on MA1 "hybrid" HD AM radio transmission.
 
Maybe it's just better processing or the kind of content/music played, but that KFUO audio is a little nicer sounding than WWFD. It's still "low bitrate stream crap" quality but good enough that I'd go out and buy an AM HD-capable radio (if it wasn't attached to a $35,000 car, ha ha) if I had a local station that played music that I wanted to hear.

The stereo/mono switching was quite annoying, though. I'm curious to know if that's the station or the poster's radio. Blending shouldn't be necessary on digital, it is either there or falls back to analog, right?
 
I have a relative who now lives near Harrisburg, PA. Someone posted on Youtube on how he got the HD signal of WWFD from his location in Harrisburg. Frederick is a mere 80 miles from his location and he can get the HD signal very clearly without any dropouts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDuOILhvDB8

Next time I visit the area, I will bring in my SPARC HD radio and tune to that signal for my curiosity. I suspect that Baltimore/DC stations can be heard in that area during daytime, so it's possible that WWFD can be heard regularly too.

At my location in the W-B/Scranton area, I once locked in WWFD at my house, but managed to hear their HD signal for just five seconds and then the signal faded out. This was around sunset and it was mixing in with WNYC, which does not have HD capability. Furthermore, I also received HD signals from WCBS and WPHT, but in both cases, they were locked in for only a few seconds before the signal faded.
 
tomservo said:
I still think analog AM *can* sound cleaner and crisper, but only under extraordinary circumstances. Like how my local AM (which is basically across the highway from me) sounds on my SDR, where I can select the full 10 kHz bandwidth that most radios these days ignore.
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No, it can't. There is this law called physics that prevents AM modulation in the MW band from sounding as good as FM. There is also this little detail called Signal to Noise. Noise has always been destructive to audio quality, and the MW band is loaded with noise.

Edwin Armstrong at RCA proved it back in 1922: https://www.damninteresting.com/the-tragic-birth-of-fm-radio/
 
Kelly A said:
No, it can't. There is this law called physics that prevents AM modulation in the MW band from sounding as good as FM. There is also this little detail called Signal to Noise. Noise has always been destructive to audio quality, and the MW band is loaded with noise.

Edwin Armstrong at RCA proved it back in 1922: https://www.damninteresting.com/the-tragic-birth-of-fm-radio/
Click to expand...

I didn't say it could sound as good as FM, I sound is just can sound really good, better than most radios are capable of providing. That's not the broadcaster's fault and has nothing to do with the transmission method. It's bad radio design. Or good radio design, depending on your perspective.

Also, since I'm within the 1,000 mV/m contour of my local station when they are on day power, there isn't much in the way of noise getting in.
 
The posts here are very instructive. I am surprised at how little stereo seperation there was on WWFD. KFUO actually had better separation when it was in stereo. In some ways it sounded better than WWFD as a result. These are not quite apples to apples comparisons, but it's good to have some basic examples to listen to.
 
As we argue about preserving of AM radio, the Europeans are arguing about the speed at which they will eliminate their FM stations.
Many of their long and medium wave stations have long-since gone silent and they are now looking toward phasing out their analog FM systems.
Skim down this list of the sixty-one digital stations you can hear while driving through London.
Of all the articles that I have read, this one appears to be the least Norway-centric.
 
ai4i said:
As we argue about preserving of AM radio, the Europeans are arguing about the speed at which they will eliminate their FM stations.
Many of their long and medium wave stations have long-since gone silent and they are now looking toward phasing out their analog FM systems.
Skim down this list of the sixty-one digital stations you can hear while driving through London.
Of all the articles that I have read, this one appears to be the least Norway-centric.
Click to expand...

The difference that we should note in the US is that in those European nations the state has much greater control of radio including huge portions of the listing audience with state rum radio like the BBC. And we know that state organizations like to expand and preserve themselves; they also have a “we know what is best for you” attitude.

All my friends in the UK outside of urban areas say DAB is unreliable and often difficult in homes and within walls. They hate it, but the regulators are in London and don’t think of the smaller towns and cities which are poorly served in many places.

But “they” are the government, so DAB is being imposed on everyone. Canada, more like the US system, tried DAB and nobody cared and it died. With new wireless technology, the over the air technology is declining anyway.
 
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Updating this thread: My wife has been out of town this past week, so I decided to drive her Volvo to work in NW Washington DC. On the commute, I set an AM preset for WWFD and have made some observations:

The 495N Beltway is outside of the primary coverage area for WWFD, so I was curious how a factory HD radio would play the station. In essence, as with anything digital, the quality was either really quite good, or silent. Provided I wasn't crossing under overpasses, my radio locked on quickly in stereo and the audio quality was very good. The title, artist, and album data also displayed quickly.

Driving under an overpass in stop and go traffic would cause complete signal loss, then about three seconds to re-lock onto the signal once in the clear. Depending on the number of bridges and overpasses, I'm not sure whether your average consumer could put with so many drop outs. It did appear however, that as I got closer to the station, bridges and overpasses had less negative effects or drop outs.
 
Kelly A said:
Updating this thread: My wife has been out of town this past week, so I decided to drive her Volvo to work in NW Washington DC. On the commute, I set an AM preset for WWFD and have made some observations:

The 495N Beltway is outside of the primary coverage area for WWFD, so I was curious how a factory HD radio would play the station. In essence, as with anything digital, the quality was either really quite good, or silent. Provided I wasn't crossing under overpasses, my radio locked on quickly in stereo and the audio quality was very good. The title, artist, and album data also displayed quickly.

Driving under an overpass in stop and go traffic would cause complete signal loss, then about three seconds to re-lock onto the signal once in the clear. Depending on the number of bridges and overpasses, I'm not sure whether your average consumer could put with so many drop outs. It did appear however, that as I got closer to the station, bridges and overpasses had less negative effects or drop outs.
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When you say the "primary" coverage area, I assume you mean "protected". They can't really do anything about reception beyond the protected contour because by definition, they would be causing interference in the "bonus coverage" area.
 
semoochie said:
When you say the "primary" coverage area, I assume you mean "protected". They can't really do anything about reception beyond the protected contour because by definition, they would be causing interference in the "bonus coverage" area.
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Where I was driving on N495 would be in about the WWFD 1.5-2mVM field, day mode. At night, that area is in their null.
 
DavidEduardo said:


The difference that we should note in the US is that in those European nations the state has much greater control of radio including huge portions of the listing audience with state rum radio like the BBC. And we know that state organizations like to expand and preserve themselves; they also have a “we know what is best for you” attitude.

All my friends in the UK outside of urban areas say DAB is unreliable and often difficult in homes and within walls. They hate it, but the regulators are in London and don’t think of the smaller towns and cities which are poorly served in many places.

But “they” are the government, so DAB is being imposed on everyone. Canada, more like the US system, tried DAB and nobody cared and it died. With new wireless technology, the over the air technology is declining anyway.
Click to expand...

Do you have contacts elsewhere in Europe? I know Norway went DAB, with a few independent, commercial FM holdouts. I read one article a couple years ago where some listeners in rural Norway were complaining about reception issues via DAB, but haven't heard anything since.
 
Kelly A said:
Maybe "Bonus Coverage" would be as one approached railroad tracks?
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I'm sorry. This sounds exactly like something I would say but I just don't get it. The only thing I can come up with is, examples of a "track" would include "I've Been Working on the Railroad" and "John Henry".
 
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