• 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

All Digital Mode?

C

clone

Guest
For the last couple days, I haven't been able to listen to WLUP-FM/Chicago in the car without turning the HD off. The analog works fine, but as soon as it snaps into digital mode, it won't fall back to analog when the digital signal is lost, acting as if it's an HD2.

Analog fallback works fine on the other stations I've tested. I also noticed that they were having issues with the analog delay for a few days beforehand. Does anyone actually think they made a conscious decision to disable analog fallback and go "all digital"? Or is my radio just broken...?
 
Complain to the station. Otherwise it'll be weeks before anyone notices. At least your radio has a "feature" of disabling HD reception.
 
Nick said:
Complain to the station. Otherwise it'll be weeks before anyone notices. At least your radio has a "feature" of disabling HD reception.
Click to expand...

I may just do that. Just verified the same results on my home unit. Which doesn't have the aforementioned "feature"!

On the other hand, I assume this was their way of "fixing" the delay problems. Mission accomplished, I suppose!
 
That sounds like an encoder issue. One of my local pubcasters does HD and for a long time their HD-1 did that. An upgrade to the encoder fixed it. Some radios were unaffected but the little Insignia portable couldn't handle it. It also wouldn't tune the HD-2 subchannel. The radio acted like it wasn't there. After the encoder upgrade they added a second (HD-3) subchannel. For a while I could get the HD-1 and HD-3 but not HD-2. After another tweak I now get all three but I don't think they ever figured out exactly what was wrong. Unlike commercial broadcasters, though, they were at least nice enough to correspond with me about the issue.

Incompatibilities like this should simply not happen. I think it's bad software programming, either at the encoder or in our radios.
 
Zach said:
That sounds like an encoder issue.  One of my local pubcasters does HD and for a long time their HD-1 did that.  An upgrade to the encoder fixed it.  Some radios were unaffected but the little Insignia portable couldn't handle it.  It also wouldn't tune the HD-2 subchannel.  The radio acted like it wasn't there.  After the encoder upgrade they added a second (HD-3) subchannel.  For a while I could get the HD-1 and HD-3 but not HD-2.  After another tweak I now get all three but I don't think they ever figured out exactly what was wrong.  Unlike commercial broadcasters, though, they were at least nice enough to correspond with me about the issue.

Incompatibilities like this should simply not happen.  I think it's bad software programming, either at the encoder or in our radios. 
Click to expand...

That's definitely a possibility...it just seems like they flipped the "Digital Only" switch or whatever it's called (I haven't dealt with HD on the other end in a long time, so I don't remember what that mode is called anymore), because it was working normally as far as I can tell before Friday.  Either that or the Decepticon is just malfunctioning, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. 

It behaves the same on a Pioneer DEH-P9400 car headunit and on my Sony XDR-F1 and they are both suddenly doing the same thing.  I might call them up, or just wait and see how long it takes them to notice!

I don't want to pass judgement on any engineers, since who knows what the behind the scenes politics are, but if this was their solution to the analog delay problems they were having they might as well have just shut the damn thing off!
 
Yep, WLUP's digital is definitely goofed up. I get moments when my radio goes silent for no good reason, and I have to re-tune to get audio back (I have a SONY XDR-S3HD table radio).
 
If I'm not mistaken, that behavior is characteristic of BE-brand FM-HD transmitters. There's some kind of firmware glitch. Unfortunate broadcasters who have one of these are confronted by BE and iBiquity blaming each other when they call for support.
 
Might as well shut off the HD to keep the few listeners with HD radios happy. If HD radio were more popular, stuff like this would take away a lot of listeners.
 
Savage said:
If I'm not mistaken, that behavior is characteristic of BE-brand FM-HD transmitters. There's some kind of firmware glitch. Unfortunate broadcasters who have one of these are confronted by BE and iBiquity blaming each other when they call for support.
Click to expand...

I observed this symptom a couple of years ago on a station in Ithaca, NY that had installed a new Nautel transmitter. Since I knew the CE there, we briefly discussed the problem and he told me it was a firmware issue that iBiquity hadn't yet corrected.

The so-called "ballgame mode" also forces receivers to digital mode and disables blending back to analog. I first noticed this about six years ago while trying to listen to WABC in northeast PA (before Citadel shut the HD down). Since there was no ballgame on the air at that time, I guess WABC was running a test -- but it was still annoying, as the audio would mute every few seconds.
 
Ive had multiple times where my XDR-F1HD fails to return to the analog audio after locking HD on AM. I've also had times where it starts flashing HD on an AM station that doesn't do IBOC and then the audio goes silent. Always just assumed it was a firmware bug in the XDR-F1HD.
 
spunker88 said:
Ive had multiple times where my XDR-F1HD fails to return to the analog audio after locking HD on AM. I've also had times where it starts flashing HD on an AM station that doesn't do IBOC and then the audio goes silent. Always just assumed it was a firmware bug in the XDR-F1HD.
Click to expand...

Probably firmware, I've never experienced it, and it is my primary tuner. You might want to consult Brian Beasley's page and modify it defeat HD altogether.
 
Full digital signal will output no audio on any analog receiver. No carrier either. A very simple way to experience a pure digital signal is with an analog TV set. Determine the transmit channel of the most powerful DTV station to you. Connect a known good aerial to the set and tune it to the transmit channel of the DTV station. An analog TV signal consists of an AM picture and FM sound. Tune around to see if you can detect any hint that there is a DTV station on the air. That, my friends, is what a pure digital signal looks and sounds like!
 
iyiyi said:
Full digital signal will output no audio on any analog receiver. No carrier either. A very simple way to experience a pure digital signal is with an analog TV set. Determine the transmit channel of the most powerful DTV station to you. Connect a known good aerial to the set and tune it to the transmit channel of the DTV station. An analog TV signal consists of an AM picture and FM sound. Tune around to see if you can detect any hint that there is a DTV station on the air. That, my friends, is what a pure digital signal looks and sounds like!
Click to expand...

Depending on the digital mode, it might sound like an increased noise level, but nothing intelligible nor a "dead carrier" would be heard.
 
iyiyi said:
Full digital signal will output no audio on any analog receiver. No carrier either. A very simple way to experience a pure digital signal is with an analog TV set. Determine the transmit channel of the most powerful DTV station to you. Connect a known good aerial to the set and tune it to the transmit channel of the DTV station. An analog TV signal consists of an AM picture and FM sound. Tune around to see if you can detect any hint that there is a DTV station on the air. That, my friends, is what a pure digital signal looks and sounds like!
Click to expand...

It was actually the "ballgame mode" that I was referring to, obviously not Full Digital (digital only) mode. Sorry for any confusion.

Here's a video showing how it acts. http://youtu.be/DnXuL0Tzw2A

As you can see, analog fallback works normally on other stations besides WLUP...
 
A friend of mine who is a former professional software writer and now owns a HD radio station, made the comment about his HD equipment, "Hell, I can write better software than that...."

I'm sure he could.
 
Zach said:
So what exactly is the purpose of the ballgame mode, exactly? If you're listening to the HD feed it's still 7 seconds behind live action. Ballgame mode to me would be "off"!
Click to expand...

WFAN NY shuts off the hash maker during live games.
 
Zach said:
So what exactly is the purpose of the ballgame mode, exactly? If you're listening to the HD feed it's still 7 seconds behind live action. Ballgame mode to me would be "off"!
Click to expand...

It allows a station to keep the HD-2 on during live sporting events. At least until the 1st HD radio shows up at a ballpark.

Dave B.
 
Zach said:
So what exactly is the purpose of the ballgame mode, exactly? If you're listening to the HD feed it's still 7 seconds behind live action. Ballgame mode to me would be "off"!
Click to expand...
The purpose of "ballgame mode" is so that the delay can be turned off the analog side and HD listeners doesn't experience issues with blending back to analog.
 
KeithE4 said:
iyiyi said:
Full digital signal will output no audio on any analog receiver. No carrier either. A very simple way to experience a pure digital signal is with an analog TV set. Determine the transmit channel of the most powerful DTV station to you. Connect a known good aerial to the set and tune it to the transmit channel of the DTV station. An analog TV signal consists of an AM picture and FM sound. Tune around to see if you can detect any hint that there is a DTV station on the air. That, my friends, is what a pure digital signal looks and sounds like!
Click to expand...

Depending on the digital mode, it might sound like an increased noise level, but nothing intelligible nor a "dead carrier" would be heard.
Click to expand...

So with that "pure digital signal", considering with an analog set you can't detect any signal, could you use that frequency for an analog transmitter without any mutual interference, even if you're close enough to be within 6 dB or so of the general population / uncontrolled maximum permissible contour of the digital station? Also could you do it the other way around (transmit a digital signal on an analog's frequency)?
Also, would the digital signal not even register on an analog-only FIM, even if the transmitter and FIM are in a screen room inside a cave/mine a few km underground?
Or can digital and analog still not co-exist like that? :(
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom