Audacy reducing HD power?

[Signal Geek]

Some Audacy stations here in San Diego seem to have reduced their HD power, but not their analog wattage. When I drive through the city's valleys/shallow canyons (San Diego has lots of those), I now lose the HD lock on those signals faster that I do with the iHeart or PBS HD signals broadcasting with similar power from the same site.

Has anyone else noticed HD signals being weakened in other markets? If so, might this be another Audacy cost-cutting measure?

 

[101tm]

Great question! I live about 35-40 miles from the WFBC-FM/HD1 transmitter in Greenville, SC and I can no longer get a HD lock in the car unless I start heading closer to the signal. It used to carry way past here in HD with no issue until a few weeks ago. I’m well inside the 60dbu and used to get a solid HD signal. The only other Audacy station I listen to isn’t in HD as of right now, but I’ll have to check on the others now that you mention this. The iHeart, Salem, SummitMedia, religious etc stations in HD still come in just fine.

 

[Kelly A]

Good Lord. A conspiracy theory that a particular group is intentionally degrading their signal to save money?

 

[nd2023]

Audacy cut their HD2’s to save money. It’s logical that they cut the HD power to -20. Save 75% of the power. Next step could be to drop HD entirely except to feed translators

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Audacy cut their HD2’s to save money. It’s logical that they cut the HD power to -20. Save 75% of the power.

The problem with this theory is that "75% of the power" is a tiny slice of the budget. They could save a similar amount of money by downgrading the office coffee pot from Keurig to Folgers.

 

[Kelly A]

The problem with this theory is that "75% of the power" is a tiny slice of the budget. They could save a similar amount of money by downgrading the office coffee pot from Keurig to Folgers.

Exactly. The power budget used for HD is a drop within an Olympic sized swimming pool.

 

[pclover]

I wonder if iBiquity is ever going to cut licensing fees to make HD radio more appealing or left it drift away as stations look to cut costs. The one time licensing fee + cost of HD transmitter and ongoing costs for anything beyond a simulcast channel.

Oh and there is royalties for each receiver made as well.

Somebody awhile ago petitioned for 45~50 MHz to be DRM+ but I figure that went nowhere.

 

[speer360]

I wonder if iBiquity is ever going to cut licensing fees to make HD radio more appealing or left it drift away as stations look to cut costs. The one time licensing fee + cost of HD transmitter and ongoing costs for anything beyond a simulcast channel.

Oh and there is royalties for each receiver made as well.

Somebody awhile ago petitioned for 45~50 MHz to be DRM+ but I figure that went nowhere.

As of now the technology is owned by Xperi, who make money on licensing technology and intellectual property. Highly doubt they would start "giving" it away.

 

[Kelly A]

As of now the technology is owned by Xperi, who make money on licensing technology and intellectual property. Highly doubt they would start "giving" it away.

Yep, not like giving it away would cause consumers to run out and buy radios.

 

[Negin]

I wonder if iBiquity is ever going to cut licensing fees to make HD radio more appealing or left it drift away as stations look to cut costs. The one time licensing fee + cost of HD transmitter and ongoing costs for anything beyond a simulcast channel.

Oh and there is royalties for each receiver made as well.

Somebody awhile ago petitioned for 45~50 MHz to be DRM+ but I figure that went nowhere.

I think the royalties and high licencing fees may have kept it from being the next big thing. If they were a lot lower, more devices would've been IBOC compatible and more stations using it.

For a time some home receivers like from Denon and others had HD tuners in them. My main IBOC tuner is a DaySequerra M4 I got from a relative who helped clean out a former radio building and stored it in my barn.

 

[Kelly A]

I think the royalties and high licencing fees may have kept it from being the next big thing. If they were a lot lower, more devices would've been IBOC compatible and more stations using it.

Doubt it. Cryptically pathetic promotion and radios going the way of smartphones kept HD radio from becoming a thing.

For a time some home receivers like from Denon and others had HD tuners in them. My main IBOC tuner is a DaySequerra M4 I got from a relative who helped clean out a former radio building and stored it in my barn.

Great for a radio nerd, but 99.99% of the population isn't a radio nerd.

 

[Negin]

Doubt it. Cryptically pathetic promotion and radios going the way of smartphones kept HD radio from becoming a thing.

Great for a radio nerd, but 99.99% of the population isn't a radio nerd.

Bingo! Most of the population now prefer everything on their mobile.

 

[davideduardo]

Somebody awhile ago petitioned for 45~50 MHz to be DRM+ but I figure that went nowhere.

With stand-alone radio sales having dried up now more than a decade ago, nobody is going to buy a radio with "a new band" if they don't even buy them for the old bands.

 

[nd2023]

With stand-alone radio sales having dried up now more than a decade ago, nobody is going to buy a radio with "a new band" if they don't even buy them for the old bands.

I really like ATSC3 Radio. Saw a speech at NAB about a demonstration of this technology in the Baltimore market.
However, if people aren’t using HD radio, they certainly won’t be using ATSC3 radio.
We needed this 20 years ago

 

[davideduardo]

I really like ATSC3 Radio. Saw a speech at NAB about a demonstration of this technology in the Baltimore market.
However, if people aren’t using HD radio, they certainly won’t be using ATSC3 radio.
We needed this 20 years ago

More like 40 years ago, when people were adjusting still to the move of most good programming from AM to FM in the 70's and were open to changes and the buying of a new radio.

 

[Will_H_69_9]

I really like ATSC3 Radio. Saw a speech at NAB about a demonstration of this technology in the Baltimore market.
However, if people aren’t using HD radio, they certainly won’t be using ATSC3 radio.
We needed this 20 years ago

pretty much, who needs a actual radio when you can just listen to a webstream of a radio station, a podcast or build your own personal radio station via streaming service like Spotify or Pandora, Radio is another industry where the internet technology advancing has straight up killed it, it happened to print media, it's happening to TV and it's happening to radio too. hell, you can still get EAS alerts from webstreams of actual radio stations that have their stream hooked up to the same feed that feeds to the signal on the over the air version so that way, you get the alerts you would get from listening to a live broadcast on the FM/AM/HD Radio broadcast signal version of the radio stations.

 

[pclover]

Yep, not like giving it away would cause consumers to run out and buy radios.

Cutting the royalty for radio manufactures would be a good thing at least IMO. Would allow compnaies to add it to radios at not much extra cost. With that said I figure they probably wont open it up to wrap into a IC such as the good NXP chips that can be made in masses cheaply. Right now it's a sperate IC.

I forgot exactly how much the royalty was but it was but it was sizable portion.

 

[pclover]

I think the royalties and high licencing fees may have kept it from being the next big thing. If they were a lot lower, more devices would've been IBOC compatible and more stations using it.

For a time some home receivers like from Denon and others had HD tuners in them. My main IBOC tuner is a DaySequerra M4 I got from a relative who helped clean out a former radio building and stored it in my barn.

HD stuff I have is the Sony XDR-S10HDIP which offers the same performance as the XDR-F1HD but much cheaper. Also have the HDR-14 and RTL-SDR HD radio stuff if you count that. Of course for HD the Sony offers the best performance.

Another issue because of high startup costs and licensing fees HD radio becomes normally a non starter for smaller stations. I figure they wont waive the license fees ever for non profit stations. As for LPFMs I don't think it would work that well due to ultra low power.

 

[speer360]

Cutting the royalty for radio manufactures would be a good thing at least IMO. Would allow compnaies to add it to radios at not much extra cost. With that said I figure they probably wont open it up to wrap into a IC such as the good NXP chips that can be made in masses cheaply. Right now it's a sperate IC.

I forgot exactly how much the royalty was but it was but it was sizable portion.

Keep in mind the majority of the install base being licensed yearly are OEM car radios. The cost is minimal at that point compared to the end products cost.

Still the majority of the yearly install base “paying” the license doesn’t know or care what HD radio is.

 

[pclover]

I really like ATSC3 Radio. Saw a speech at NAB about a demonstration of this technology in the Baltimore market.
However, if people aren’t using HD radio, they certainly won’t be using ATSC3 radio.
We needed this 20 years ago

I wonder how reliable ATSC3 digital based radio would actually be. Normally at much higher frequencies which are subject to more severe multipath. If it's Inside High VHF vs UHF it might be ok.

Yes, It's built to handle multipath but but still eh. ATSC1 does a horrible job with it but perhaps ATSC3 has addressed it.