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Any stations with RDS in the USA using AF alternative frequency?

J

jras20

Is there any stations in the US ising AF alternative frequency with RDS? I wonder why they didn't use that more instead of HD Radio?
 
Last time I checked, Mississippi Public Broadcasting was using AF. I've also seen an AF frequency list that included an AM station - can't remember which station.

I guess I don't see where RDS/AF is a substitute for HD Radio? Seems to me they accomplish two different things?
 
My friends at WCJW 1140 Warsaw NY use AF on their network of five FM translators between Rochester and Buffalo. They report that very few radios appear to actually work with AF in the way it's designed.

I've also heard stories of poorly-implemented AF installations sending listeners to stations outside the network.

AF, of course, makes much more sense in a European-style system with national or regional networks using a web of smaller transmitter sites, as opposed to our "one station = one transmitter" standard model.
 
I have a USB AdsTech FM tuner (uses a Si4701 DSP) and it is able to decode AF. I find that for many stations all you get is bad data. The stations owned by Galaxy in Syracuse, NY were using AF correctly. TK-99 was showing both 99.5 and 105.5 and K-Rock was showing both 100.9 and 106.5.
 
Does AF sound better or worse than HD? I never heard a AF broadcast since around here it's just RDS data and time data.
 
AF should sound better than HD because it's sending you to a frequency with a stronger signal.

I think instead of alternate frequency, a similar feature with HD radio should be sending listeners to the Internet stream of the HD1 or HD2.
 
AF is completely different from HD Radio, but I always thought a good fix for HD on AM would be to implement something like AF where a very small amount of digital data would be sent that tells the receiver what FM frequency the station can be heard on (analog or HD). Almost all HD AM stations in major markets have a FM simulcast on a HD subchannel or their own analog channel. For analog the PI code is checked and for HD FM the calls are checked. Once the reciever verifies and locks onto the equivalent FM station, it blends from AM to FM. If the FM signal is lost it falls back to AM.
 
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