Holy smokes. What kind of music do they play?
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Looking around for a table-type HD radio (Hybrid Digital radio)
- Thread starter thezak
- Start date
They're acting as translators
88.7 WERN - 88.3 FM Cable Radio (WPR)
89.9 WORT - 91.5 FM Cable Radio (Community)
91.7 WSUM - 91.9 FM Cable Radio (College)
92.1 WXXM - 92.7 FM Cable Radio (Oldies)
93.1 WJQM - 93.5 FM Cable Radio (Hop Hop)
94.1 WJJO - 94.5 FM Cable Radio (Hard Rock)
94.5 W223CN - 94.9 FM Cable Radio (Regional Spanish)
94.9 WOLX - 95.3 FM Cable Radio (Classic Hits)
95.5 FM WWMV-LP - 95.5 FM Cable Radio (LP FM)
96.7 FM W24RDR - 96.9 FM Cable Radio (Sports)
97.7 FM W249DH - 97.7 FM Cable Radio (Country)
98.1 FM WMGN - 98.1 FM Cable Radio (Adult Contemporary)
100.5 FM WTLX - 100.5 FM Cable Radio (Sports)
100.7 FM WKKD - (K-Love) (Cable Radio Only)
100.7 FM WKKD-HD2 (K-Love 2000s) (Cable Radio Only)
100.7 FM WKLD-HD3 (K-Love 2010s) (Cable Radio Only)
100.7 FM WKKD-HD4 (Air 1) (Cable Radio Only)
101.5 FM WIBA-HD1 - 101.5 FM (Cable Radio)(Classic Hits)
101.5 FM WIBA-HD2 - 101.5 FM-HD2 Cable Radio (The U) (Golden Oldies)
104.1 FM WZEE - 104.5 FM Cable Radio (Top 40)
104.5 FM WSLD - 104.7 FM Cable Radio (Country)
104.9 FM - Life 102.5 FM (Christian)
Please cite the cable system in question. This feels a lot like fantasy posting, which we do not allow on this site.
Looks like the old cable radio system at UW. Minus the HD stations. I never heard of cable radio systems broadcasting in HD.
Not sure if UW kept their system running. A lot of schools abandoned analog cable systems in general for streaming packages. Along with their carrier current systems.
Not sure if UW kept their system running. A lot of schools abandoned analog cable systems in general for streaming packages. Along with their carrier current systems.
I always thought "Cable FM" made no sense since at least 90% (maybe more) of home FM listeners can receive adequate reception of local stations on most radios. I was always amused that the cable companies wanted folks to rent a TV/FM splitter for around 6 to ten bucks a month to pay for FM service. To check it out I went down to my local Radio Shack back, in the day, and bought a 5 dollar TV/FM splitter and connected it. I discovered (for me) the only advantage of it was that it actually gave me WFMT from Chicago (a really good Classical station). I happen to live in Southern California so I left it connected!
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The WFMT satellite network covered quite the audience!
I always thought Cable FM was more useful in large buildings or downtown areas with multipath issues. Or maybe as part of a “home audio solution” when FM was the only way to get live audio into your living room.
Of course nowadays this is all solved with a streamer.
I remember on vacation in Canada several years ago a lot of the FMs had music channels on the satellite TV. That seems smart for folks in rural areas.
I always thought Cable FM was more useful in large buildings or downtown areas with multipath issues. Or maybe as part of a “home audio solution” when FM was the only way to get live audio into your living room.
Of course nowadays this is all solved with a streamer.
I remember on vacation in Canada several years ago a lot of the FMs had music channels on the satellite TV. That seems smart for folks in rural areas.
It depends on the time and the circumstances.
For part of 1984, I lived in Beacon, New York. Colony Cablevision carried the NYC TV stations as well as its FM stations up to 104.3. The reason was simple: Mount Beacon blocked TV and FM reception from New York City. Colony put its reception antennas up on Mount Beacon to get around the problem.
Why did the FM service stop at 104.3? First, because there was a local station at 104.7, which I happened to work for. Second, the range above 104.7 was where stereo audio for pay-TV services was placed, along with various control tones. Before in-channel TV stereo broadcasting came into use, many cable systems would use one or more FM channels to provide stereo audio for pay-TV services.
Earlier, in rural areas which had few if any FM stations, an FM service made it possible to receive broadcasts from larger cities. In Missouri, the CARS-band relay system that crossed the state not only relayed TV stations from Kansas City and St. Louis, it also relayed two Kansas City FM stations, KCMO-FM/KFMU/KCEZ, then easy listening, and KXTR, classical.
So cable FM was far more useful than people in big cities might have thought.
I agree with you.
Since my TV viewing is limited to the occasional live sports (college football and NHL hockey) the only benefit I get from digital TV is some coverage on a few of the digi-subs. That costs me several local full power channels that are not reliable so, to please my wife, I download her scripted shows. Doesn't matter if I am using a large combo outdoor antenna or a collection of UHF interior antennas. And I live about 8 miles as the crow flies from the South Mountain towers. In the analog days I lived more than 30 miles directly north of South Mountain and never had a reception problem using the very same large combo VHF/UHF antenna in my attic.
On the digital radio subject - got one table top and both vehicles have digital radios. I cannot tell the difference between digital and analog FM but usually listen to 93.3 HD2 only. Might have something to do with my 81-year old ears.
Thanks for the info!
Spectrum - Madison Wisconsin
There were a handful of markets where either flat terrain (allowing better OTA reception) or demographics resulted in OTA having relatively high percentages of the audience using OTA only. TVB used to provide those percentages, but unfortunately, I can't find a national percentage for when it bottomed out in the early 2010s. From memory, I want to say that it was down to about 10%, though.
What I did find was a downloaded copy of the OTA, cable, and ADS (primarily satellite) percentages by market for July of 2012. For those who are curious, I've attached the spreadsheet in PDF format so you can download it and see the entire list. What's notable is how low the percentages are for most major markets -- at the extreme, Boston's OTA viewing percentage back then was just 2.8%. But I've also included the ten markets with the highest and lowest percentage of OTA viewers below.
The markets with the highest OTA audience percentages were:
| DMA Rank | DMA Name | % OTA | % Wired Cable | % ADS |
112 | Boise | 26.9 | 24.9 | 48.9 |
202 | Fairbanks | 26.8 | 46.2 | 27 |
87 | Harlingen-Wslco-Brnsvl-McA | 25.6 | 44.1 | 31.4 |
91 | El Paso (Las Cruces) | 21.4 | 45.7 | 33.7 |
34 | Milwaukee | 21.4 | 59.2 | 19.9 |
109 | Ft. Wayne | 19.6 | 42.4 | 38.5 |
45 | Albuquerque-Santa Fe | 19.2 | 34.2 | 47 |
160 | Idaho Fals-Pocatllo(Jcksn) | 18.8 | 33.3 | 48.5 |
10 | Houston | 18.3 | 53.6 | 28.7 |
15 | Minneapolis-St. Paul | 18 | 52.9 | 29.3 |
At the other extreme, here are the ten markets with the lowest percentage of OTA viewers at the time - and note that three of these markets are in the top 10 (NYC, Boston, Washington) and half are in the top 50:
197 | San Angelo | 4.3 | 56.6 | 40.5 |
145 | Palm Springs | 4 | 72.4 | 25 |
38 | West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce | 3.9 | 73.7 | 24 |
1 | New York | 3.8 | 85.2 | 12.4 |
8 | Washington, DC (Hagrstwn) | 3.7 | 75.1 | 22 |
102 | Johnstown-Altoona-St Colge | 3.6 | 55.1 | 42.1 |
170 | Clarksburg-Weston | 3.5 | 52.5 | 44.8 |
30 | Hartford & New Haven | 3.4 | 82.2 | 15 |
156 | Bluefield-Beckley-Oak Hill | 2.9 | 61.2 | 37.3 |
7 | Boston (Manchester) | 2.8 | 83.3 | 14.5 |
Interesting! How is audio quality and reliability? I could imagine this is something that Spectrum doesn’t pay much attention to.
It actually sounds just as good as having a outdoor FM antenna.
I just have spectrum internet and just out of silly grins I decided to plug my radio in to the cable outlet and that's how I found out about it.
I also run my own cable radio station and I have a few of my own RF modulators for different projects such as restoring vintage TVs.
My neighborhood can pickup my RF modulators due to me having a landlord I can't add a filter so my neighbors can pick up my vintage TV projects.
The last place I lived at had Mediacom (New Lisbon Wisconsin) and it didn't have cable radio but the local channels were available in clear quam so not encrypted unlike Spectrum
I also have had Mediacom and never had radio stations as part of the lineup.
That's exactly what I was trying to say. Sorry if I wasn't clear.
Mediacom had local channels for free while spectrum doesn't.
Spectrum does cable radio while Mediacom does NOT do cable radio.
Ah, OK.
I thought maybe I could get something useful out of my overpriced, unreliable service.
But I guess not.
I don't know if I'd even get the free local TV channels anymore, because they switched to some new IPTV thing, which I don't particularly care for (the stupid thing will drop into standby when I'm in the middle of a show, and it will go through periods where it buffers constantly, and I get 2-5 seconds of signal followed by 2-3 minutes of frozen picture).
I suppose I could check, though?
c
I thought maybe I could get something useful out of my overpriced, unreliable service.
But I guess not.
I don't know if I'd even get the free local TV channels anymore, because they switched to some new IPTV thing, which I don't particularly care for (the stupid thing will drop into standby when I'm in the middle of a show, and it will go through periods where it buffers constantly, and I get 2-5 seconds of signal followed by 2-3 minutes of frozen picture).
I suppose I could check, though?
c
Having actually worked for what's now Spectrum, and knowing people in tech there, I find it very, very doubtful that any Spectrum system anywhere is actually still carrying analog FM. That's 20 MHz of spectrum that's actually used these days for return paths for cable modems. And they're certainly not adding new LPFM stations or the "cable-only" K-Love stations with fake calls you put in your list.
If you have hard evidence to the contrary, I would like to see it.
What kind of radio plugs into a cable outlet?
Also what do you play on your cable radio station?