• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

WYDE-AM 1260 going all-digital?

passtheword

passtheword

Seriously? How many people are going to listen to a digital-only broadcast when hardly any of the public knows what HD radio is or cares for that matter?
Insane move? I'd say so...
Wondering just how long it will be before the broadcast license is turned in to the FCC?

Technical Profile: WYDE

History and technical information for radio station WYDE (AM) in Birmingham, Alabama.
www.almediapage.info www.almediapage.info
 
Just remembered Crawford has the FM translator (W237EK) at 95.3 FM they use to rebroadcast WYDE-AM. I'm guessing that will continue, provided FM translators can legally rebroadcast digital-only AM stations? After all, FM translators can rebroadcast FM HD channels. Isn't W237EK "married" to the AM station and must rebroadcast WYDE for a minimum period of time (5 years)?
 
All digital AM is surprisingly robust. I was staying in a dowtown Boston high-rise hotel last year and had good reception of WSRO 650 inside my room during the day. The stations is silent now, but was all digital then. Most of the other suburban AM stations were noisy with interference on my Sangean HDR-14.
 
WYDE is also simulcast on 92.5 WYDE-FM. It's a rimshot to Birmingham, but together with the translator on 95.3, they cover enough of the market that they'd have little to lose by switching the AM to digital-only HD.

And insert joke here about IBOC having a "wyde" bandwidth on AM...
 
kevtronics said:
WYDE is also simulcast on 92.5 WYDE-FM. It's a rimshot to Birmingham, but together with the translator on 95.3, they cover enough of the market that they'd have little to lose by switching the AM to digital-only HD.

And insert joke here about IBOC having a "wyde" bandwidth on AM...
Click to expand...
I imagine then the two FM signals will have to suffice propping up the AM. Neither one of the FMs covers a good chunk of the Birmingham metro. I doubt the AM has much audience anyway and, other than people who are familiar with or work in AM/FM radio, are aware HD (digital) radio even exists.
 
Crawford is BIG on digital/HD...
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
Crawford is BIG on digital/HD...
Click to expand...
Three such Crawford operations in Denver. That, plus KPOF (Pillar of Fire), may make Denver the market with the most AM HD operations. But they're all hybrid.

I can't get KCBC at strong enough levels in Oakland to see if it has AM HD. But I wonder if that's making 760 such a mush at night (see the Frequency of the Week: 760 thread for more on that).
 
I've only experienced one all digital AM so far, and that is (was) KTSN "Sun Radio" in Austin. It's just 1 kW from a stick right in the middle of the city so reception outside the urban core was pretty spotty. The audio quality didn't really seem any better or more immune from dropouts than the hybrid digital mode from what I remember. It was especially difficult under highway overpasses.

At night, reliable HD decoding was limited to maybe two blocks around the tower. And I know, because I drove all around it looking for the cutoff point! Like WYDE, it's a graveyard frequency so I expect nighttime digital to be equally useless on 1260.

That said, 1260 is at least 5kW during the day so that might help. Crawford's 850 is probably the best sounded AM HD I've heard anymore so maybe they can work some magic on 1260.

I understand that KTSN has now moved to 1060 and 1490 in Austin is doing a Jack FM feeding a translator. Still in full digital, as far as I know.
 
ngriffin said:
All digital AM is surprisingly robust. I was staying in a dowtown Boston high-rise hotel last year and had good reception of WSRO 650 inside my room during the day. The stations is silent now, but was all digital then. Most of the other suburban AM stations were noisy with interference on my Sangean HDR-14.
Click to expand...
"The stations is silent now, but was all digital then." If a crystal-clear robust tree falls in the forest...
 
From audience user standpoint, all that matters is the GUI on the dashboard. Sound is sound.

Are electric vehicle manufacturers removing AM digital from their cars? If so, why?
 
A big problem with digital-only HD on AM is lack of discoverability. Even on an HD-equipped radio, if you're just quickly tuning across the band or preset-hopping, all you'll hear is noise, so you won't even know the station is there. You have to sit there listening to loud static for about 4 seconds before the radio realizes it's an HD signal and mutes the audio while it buffers. Then after another 4 seconds or so of silence, it finally begins playing the station's digital audio.

If the signal is weak, this takes even longer. If the signal is too weak to decode the digital audio, eventually the radio will unmute and you'll be greeted with a loud blast of static again.
 
kevtronics said:
A big problem with digital-only HD on AM is lack of discoverability. Even on an HD-equipped radio, if you're just quickly tuning across the band or preset-hopping, all you'll hear is noise, so you won't even know the station is there. You have to sit there listening to loud static for about 4 seconds before the radio realizes it's an HD signal and mutes the audio while it buffers. Then after another 4 seconds or so of silence, it finally begins playing the station's digital audio.

If the signal is weak, this takes even longer. If the signal is too weak to decode the digital audio, eventually the radio will unmute and you'll be greeted with a loud blast of static again.
Click to expand...
Between what you just mentioned and the general public's disinterest in listening to AM radio, going to all-digital doesn't make sense IMO. If the average radio listener won't tune into analog AM, there will be even less people listening in an all-digital format.

I wouldn't be surprised if Crawford eventually turns in the license for WYDE. I know they went that route with their station in Portland, KKPZ, a couple of years ago.
 
If the WYDE-AM license were eventually surrendered, is it possible Crawford could legally feed 95.3 FM with WDJC HD3 since their HD3 channel is supposedly already airing the WYDE-AM programming? I have heard that W237EK is one of those FM translators "married" to the AM (for a minimum of five years?). 95.3 has been rebroadcasting WYDE-AM since at least 2016. If there is only a five year minimum requirement to rebroadcast the AM, would that free up the possibility that WDJC HD3 could be used to feed 95.3? Could the FM translator be sold off at that point (without the AM) or would that not be permitted since the FM translator was originally tied (married) to the AM? I imagine if neither scenario I mentioned above were possible, Crawford could sell 1260 and 95.3 together to another party. Whether they would actually do that...
 
kevtronics said:
A big problem with digital-only HD on AM is lack of discoverability. Even on an HD-equipped radio, if you're just quickly tuning across the band or preset-hopping, all you'll hear is noise, so you won't even know the station is there. You have to sit there listening to loud static for about 4 seconds before the radio realizes it's an HD signal and mutes the audio while it buffers. Then after another 4 seconds or so of silence, it finally begins playing the station's digital audio.

If the signal is weak, this takes even longer. If the signal is too weak to decode the digital audio, eventually the radio will unmute and you'll be greeted with a loud blast of static again.
Click to expand...
My experience with WSRO running all digital in my 2014 F150 was that HD was detected and audio started very quickly - within a second. Much faster than detection of hybrid HD on AM or FM. I assumed that all digital mode was easier for the tuner to detect for some reason.
 
spt87 said:
My experience with WSRO running all digital in my 2014 F150 was that HD was detected and audio started very quickly - within a second. Much faster than detection of hybrid HD on AM or FM. I assumed that all digital mode was easier for the tuner to detect for some reason.
Click to expand...
Did you hear the underlying digital hiss before it starting decoding? I would hope that radios would mute as soon as they realize they're locked onto a digital only signal.
 
tomservo said:
I've only experienced one all digital AM so far, and that is (was) KTSN "Sun Radio" in Austin.
Click to expand...
I never thought they were ever full digital but always hybrid digital. At least they're hybrid right now. The night HD signal is pretty terrible though
 
HTX said:
I never thought they were ever full digital but always hybrid digital. At least they're hybrid right now. The night HD signal is pretty terrible though
Click to expand...
It was definitely 100% digital when I was there last year. There was no audio at all until the digital decoded, but as was mentioned up thread it did seem to decode quicker than the hybrid mode. On analog radios all I heard was the woosh of digital noise on frequency.

While I had trouble keeping a lock on while driving around Austin, I can honestly say it surprised me by decoding as far out as Bastrop if I was away from power lines and homes.
 
tomservo said:
It was definitely 100% digital when I was there last year. There was no audio at all until the digital decoded, but as was mentioned up thread it did seem to decode quicker than the hybrid mode. On analog radios all I heard was the woosh of digital noise on frequency.

While I had trouble keeping a lock on while driving around Austin, I can honestly say it surprised me by decoding as far out as Bastrop if I was away from power lines and homes.
Click to expand...
Must have been some kind of temporary test then. Can't believe I missed it. Everytime I've gotten it to lock it still had the KTSN call sign in the name. And they were still Sun Radio?
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom