Some updates on the local HD stations

[tested]

I noticed last night that KZMP 104.9 has gone HD. Oddly, they have HD2, HD3, and HD4 active, but with no programming.

KZPS has turned off their HD2 station. It was an eclectic format of some kind.

KEGL ditched Slippery When Wet on HD2 and moved The Breeze there.

KKXT continues to have an empty HD2 channel. Not sure why they don't just either turn that off or program it.

On the AM side, KRLD stopped broadcasting in HD a while ago and the program director indicated they needed to get a part fixed or something, but they might not turn it back on at all. I guess that's what they decided to do.

That makes KFLC the only AM HD station in town. I can sometimes get KFAQ in Tulsa in HD at night on 1170 AM. But they seem to be intermittent in their transmissio too. Once in a blue Moon KMOX St. Louis will be inn HD on 1120 and it will briefly decode here.

 

[Will_H_69_9]

I noticed last night that KZMP 104.9 has gone HD. Oddly, they have HD2, HD3, and HD4 active, but with no programming.

KZPS has turned off their HD2 station. It was an eclectic format of some kind.

KEGL ditched Slippery When Wet on HD2 and moved The Breeze there.

KKXT continues to have an empty HD2 channel. Not sure why they don't just either turn that off or program it.

On the AM side, KRLD stopped broadcasting in HD a while ago and the program director indicated they needed to get a part fixed or something, but they might not turn it back on at all. I guess that's what they decided to do.

That makes KFLC the only AM HD station in town. I can sometimes get KFAQ in Tulsa in HD at night on 1170 AM. But they seem to be intermittent in their transmissio too. Once in a blue Moon KMOX St. Louis will be inn HD on 1120 and it will briefly decode here.

why is HD Radio still a thing, it flopped and streaming AM &FM stations with great sound from a ACC format is cheaper than buying a HD Radio set.

 

[tested]

why is HD Radio still a thing, it flopped and streaming AM &FM stations with great sound from a ACC format is cheaper than buying a HD Radio set.

Can't disagree with your overall assessment of the technology. I've long complained about what a terrible job various players did in rolling out this technology.
All that being said, stations are still doing it and a lot of new car radios have HD. People do listen, just not a lot of them. It still seems like a viable discussion for this board.

 

[Megapsycle]

I noticed last night that KZMP 104.9 has gone HD. Oddly, they have HD2, HD3, and HD4 active, but with no programming.

KZPS has turned off their HD2 station. It was an eclectic format of some kind.

KEGL ditched Slippery When Wet on HD2 and moved The Breeze there.

KKXT continues to have an empty HD2 channel. Not sure why they don't just either turn that off or program it.

On the AM side, KRLD stopped broadcasting in HD a while ago and the program director indicated they needed to get a part fixed or something, but they might not turn it back on at all. I guess that's what they decided to do.

Thanks for that info. I wondered what happened to the noise generator on either side of 1080 kHz.

 

[CaliRadioFan]

Eclectic Radio and Slippery When Wet still run KZPS and KEGL HD2 ID's on the IHeart App respectively. Moves to smaller markets may be imminent.

 

[newsmark]

why is HD Radio still a thing, it flopped and streaming AM &FM stations with great sound from a ACC format is cheaper than buying a HD Radio set.

It's a nice alternative if you buy a vehicle that happens to have HD Radio. Deep Cuts and Eclectic are a couple of my favorites.

I wonder if companies like IHeart put some of their streams on HD Radio because some music licensing is less expensive for a radio station than for an online-only station.

 

[CaliRadioFan]

That and running these HD2's out of individual stations is a lot more cost effective than having multiple online only streams out of a single location.

 

[tested]

I note this morning that several months after starting to air 3 subchannels of silence, KZMP has finally added programming on HD2.
It's some kind of foreign langauge programming. There's no ID of any kind on the RDS info.

Also, it appears KVIL has tinkered with the bitrates on The Oasis stream again. It doesn't sound nearly as good as it used to. I suspect they gave more to Channel Q's HD3 stream to help more people hear it. That's sad though. The Oasis used to sound great. Now it's very watery.

 

[CaliRadioFan]

Can't say if IHeart Eclectic has reappeared on air at KZPS-2, but the "struggling" company has invested and launched an entirely new streaming platform just for the HD2's! (eye roll here)

 

[tested]

Thought I would bump this up with some updates:

KZPS added an empty HD2 several months ago that remains silent, but has an iHeart Radio logo transmitted

Of course, that's nothing compared KKXT's HD2 that remains on the air with dead silence. It's been up for more than a year now. (maybe 2 years even?) No idea what they plan to put there.

KDMX dropped their HD2 which was their old Mix 102.9 format.

KZMP added what I can best describe as a hot AC format to their HD4 programming a while ago. After using several different names, it is now called LUV Dallas. One positive I've mentioned before: somehow they have managed to provide a good bitrate for all 4 subchannels that sound quite good, even if only one of them is programming I would ever listen to.

KVIL appears to have fixed their bitrate issues with The Oasis. It now has proper stereo separation and frequency range.

I note that 4 HD subchannels did show up in the ratings in the past year: KEGL's HD2 "The Breeze" adult hits format, KJKK's HD2 "Jamz" urban format, their HD3 classic country format, and KVIL's HD2 "The Oasis"

On the AM side, KRLD got their HD back about 6 months ago and it sounds good.

 

[neosolbrudda]

It would be really be cool if "Audacity" would change 100.3 HD2 to "100.3 Jamz", and play urban music from the late 80's/early 90's when the original KJMZ was in existence.

 

[KTN Corp]

Can't disagree with your overall assessment of the technology. I've long complained about what a terrible job various players did in rolling out this technology.
All that being said, stations are still doing it and a lot of new car radios have HD. People do listen, just not a lot of them. It still seems like a viable discussion for this board.

Everybody thought FM would turn out to be a flop right after the war ended. TV was the shining star of the post-war era and some people wrongly thought that TV would supplant (AM) radio.

Car-based suburban sprawl turned out to be the savior of (both AM & FM) radio. It took about 25 years for FM to catch on (sadly for Maj. Armstrong), but 1980 is the watershed year where FM becomes mainstream.

HD is following in analog FM's footsteps. Like FM in its second decade, the install base in cars is now at critical mass. Surprisingly the major radio companies have continued to support the technology (at least on FM) and adoption (both OEM and aftermarket car radios) is steadily increasing among listeners.

why is HD Radio still a thing, it flopped and streaming AM &FM stations with great sound from a ACC format is cheaper than buying a HD Radio set.

Spotty cell coverage hinders handoffs to the next tower and mobile data throttles during high demand. (Just installed SiriusXM in the car to listen to KIIS-FM because of the dropouts streaming on CarPlay.)

AM has reached 100 and the technology is starting to be retired. For Gen Xers and younger, AM might as well have gone extinct c. 1990. Here in Houston, the AM signals have marginal reception during the day (thanks to Part 15 noise) and poor reception at night (due to outmoded coverage patterns not covering the post-war sprawl). The HD subchannel simulcasts on FM have made the major AMs listenable 24/7.

The Insignia HD Radio set is readily available at Best Buy. It's an affordable $39.99 during sales (and still affordable $59.99 at regular price).

 

[BamaTX]

HD is following in analog FM's footsteps. Like FM in its second decade, the install base in cars is now at critical mass.

HD Radio isn't even standard on the F-150 (which is the most popular truck in the US).

Surprisingly the major radio companies have continued to support the technology (at least on FM) and adoption (both OEM and aftermarket car radios) is steadily increasing among listeners.

I disagree. Take a look at Crutchfield and you'll see an underwhelming number of HD Radios (with most of them having high end prices).

Spotty cell coverage hinders handoffs to the next tower and mobile data throttles during high demand.

I also disagree with this statement. Cellphone coverage in urban areas is no longer an issue as it once was during the early 3G days. The only places you'll run into gaps of coverage is in rural areas. But you're probably way out of range of HD Radio at that point anyways. I've been able to perfectly stream live audio on the road between Houston and Austin with zero drops (via both the I-10/71 and 290 routes).

Furthermore, even if you find yourself under network throttling you can still live stream audio. A 32 Kbps stream requires a constant 4 to 5 KB/s, which even old 2G technologies can satisfy. Even areas with massive cellphone congestion can usually spare the kilobytes needed to stream audio.

Another thing to consider is that cellphone coverage and bandwidth has matured a heck of a lot faster than HD Radio. Cellphone carriers are now deploying small cells, Massive MIMO and beamforming technologies to address pockets of congestion all over major urban areas. They're also aggregating more bandwidth than ever before.

The Insignia HD Radio set is readily available at Best Buy. It's an affordable $39.99 during sales (and still affordable $59.99 at regular price).

It's not portable, it's unpleasant to look at, and it has a large antenna sticking out of it. You're better off just using your existing smart speakers or TV to stream audio from anywhere in the world.

 

[davideduardo]

Car-based suburban sprawl turned out to be the savior of (both AM & FM) radio. It took about 25 years for FM to catch on (sadly for Maj. Armstrong), but 1980 is the watershed year where FM becomes mainstream.

Actually it was a little earlier. By 1975, more than half of all music listening was on FM, and by Fall of 1977 half of all radio listening was to FM.

At that time period in history, in-car listening was only about 32% of all radio listening and it would stay at about that level until well into the first decade of the New Millennium.

 

[davideduardo]

The Insignia HD Radio set is readily available at Best Buy. It's an affordable $39.99 during sales (and still affordable $59.99 at regular price).

For that price, during this coming week's Prime sale on Amazon, I can get two devices that let me say, "Alexa, play me country gold" and I get songs I like with no ads. And they'll deliver them free to my home or office.

Alexa can also give me the weather and stock quotes and even look up things in its dictionary plus scheduling my day. Why would I buy a radio that does just one thing?

 

[davideduardo]

I also disagree with this statement. Cellphone coverage in urban areas is no longer an issue as it once was during the early 3G days. The only places you'll run into gaps of coverage is in rural areas. But you're probably way out of range of HD Radio at that point anyways. I've been able to perfectly stream live audio on the road between Houston and Austin with zero drops (via both the I-10/71 and 290 routes).

As detailed below, in a very modern city (it was entirely created after WW II due to the advent of economical air conditioning) there are dozens of "bad" areas where either no service or dropouts are guaranteed. And it is getting worse as customers use more bandwidth and the facilities fall behind.

Furthermore, even if you find yourself under network throttling you can still live stream audio. A 32 Kbps stream requires a constant 4 to 5 KB/s, which even old 2G technologies can satisfy. Even areas with massive cellphone congestion can usually spare the kilobytes needed to stream audio.

I have 1tb both ways on one of my home web services, yet during many times of the day my upload speed is about as good as my dial-up landline in Puerto Rico back in 1989.

Another thing to consider is that cellphone coverage and bandwidth has matured a heck of a lot faster than HD Radio. Cellphone carriers are now deploying small cells, Massive MIMO and beamforming technologies to address pockets of congestion all over major urban areas. They're also aggregating more bandwidth than ever before.

It's still pretty erratic. At the busiest corner in my community, La Quinta, CA, there is no service by two of the three cellular carriers. On my way home from there, there are two places where nearly 100% of the time I lose signal with my carrier. And this is in a city that has among the highest average incomes in the country.

There is still a way to go.

It's not portable, it's unpleasant to look at, and it has a large antenna sticking out of it. You're better off just using your existing smart speakers or TV to stream audio from anywhere in the world.

Or buy an Amazon unit and ask Alexa to do things for you, including music without ads.

 

[Kent]

For that price, during this coming week's Prime sale on Amazon, I can get two devices that let me say, "Alexa, play me country gold" and I get songs I like with no ads. And they'll deliver them free to my home or office.

Alexa can also give me the weather and stock quotes and even look up things in its dictionary plus scheduling my day. Why would I buy a radio that does just one thing?

Since I moved into my current house 5 years ago, I haven't even plugged a radio in. I still have my trusty radio that I've had for nearly three decades, but it's sitting along my basement wall with an Amazon Echo on top of it.

I did look at buying a radio with HD about 15 years ago as I found a way to get one for cheap at Best Buy. The problems, at the time, were whether or not the reception was good enough and that only the NPR affiliate offered any sort of HD. Today, that's still the only station here that offers HD Radio. One of our local companies was going to add HD to at least a couple of its signals and even bought a couple of extra translators to do something with. Those translators are still relaying existing FM stations in the cluster, and there's no sign of HD. I might have been interested in it if I had still lived in Dallas. I eventually bought one of those HD Radio dongles for my iPhone when they went on clearance. At that price, it was something I could play around with when I traveled. Unfortunately, the HD Radio app stopped working when Apple changed its standards and has never been updated. So, obviously, I can't use it anymore. It was kind of a neat product for the price, but my listening habits are a lot more similar to what they are at home when I travel now.

 

[BamaTX]

As detailed below, in a very modern city (it was entirely created after WW II due to the advent of economical air conditioning) there are dozens of "bad" areas where either no service or dropouts are guaranteed.

I'm more likely to find areas in DFW where Cedar Hill HD streams doesn't reach than cellphone areas with "No Service". Last time I drove from Houston to Dallas, I think my stream dropped a total of 3 times in order to buffer. That's pretty dang impressive for 200+ miles of road.

And it is getting worse as customers use more bandwidth and the facilities fall behind.

Actually, speeds are improving. The average mobile download speed almost doubled from last year to this year. Technologies such as NR 5G, beamforming, Massive MIMO, and small cells have proven to be pretty successful in combating most issues. It's just a matter of time before these technologies arrive everywhere.

I have 1tb both ways on one of my home web services, yet during many times of the day my upload speed is about as good as my dial-up landline in Puerto Rico back in 1989.

Sounds like an issue with your ISP tbh. I've never had that issue with fiber or cable.

Also, are you sure you don't mean 1 GB?

It's still pretty erratic. At the busiest corner in my community, La Quinta, CA, there is no service by two of the three cellular carriers. On my way home from there, there are two places where nearly 100% of the time I lose signal with my carrier. And this is in a city that has among the highest average incomes in the country.

There is still a way to go.

And this is why small cells are being introduced over macro sites. What is likely happening in your area is local jurisdictions are dragging their feet in approving permits.

There's no way around it; OTT media is the future. I've had less issues streaming in the past 5 years than I had with my early generation HD Radio in 2007. And to be honest, I have absolutely no desire to ever purchase an HD Radio again. It's just a useless feature to me.

 

[fmlist.org]

Is KEGL-HD2 still "The Breeze"? And no KEGL-HD3?

 

[neosolbrudda]

Is KEGL-HD2 still "The Breeze"? And no KEGL-HD3?

Yes