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Around the Boston area what AM stations offer hybrid digital HD radio?...
- Thread starter thezak
- Start date
If the HD site is to be believed:
800 WNNW (Lawrence), 1030 WBZ, 1200 WXKS, 1260 WMKI, 1430 WKOX
http://www.hdradio.com/stations/Massachusetts-MA/Boston-11
The site says 1200 is Tropical (nope, cons. talk) and 1430 may not nec. be tropical (it is
Spanish language though)
The page does mention that some AM stations, however, are offered as HD2s and HD3s on FM
including 1200 on 107.9's HD-2 (and they do get it right with "talk") and they say WEEI's sports
is on HD2 at 107.3 and 97.7, and on HD3 at 93.7. (But technically some could say that, at least
in terms of how they market it, WEEI's main signal is at 93.7 and they're simulcasting it on 850.
Whatever.). And WBZ (AM) is on the HD 3 of 98.5
by the way it when WBZ (AM) gives their ID it sounds like they're saying "WBZ in HD Boston,
WBZ-FM HD 3" or maybe "WBZ in HD, WBZ-FM HD 3, Boston". Can they say "in" like that?
It almost sounds like "WBZN HD" or "WBCN HD"
800 WNNW (Lawrence), 1030 WBZ, 1200 WXKS, 1260 WMKI, 1430 WKOX
http://www.hdradio.com/stations/Massachusetts-MA/Boston-11
The site says 1200 is Tropical (nope, cons. talk) and 1430 may not nec. be tropical (it is
Spanish language though)
The page does mention that some AM stations, however, are offered as HD2s and HD3s on FM
including 1200 on 107.9's HD-2 (and they do get it right with "talk") and they say WEEI's sports
is on HD2 at 107.3 and 97.7, and on HD3 at 93.7. (But technically some could say that, at least
in terms of how they market it, WEEI's main signal is at 93.7 and they're simulcasting it on 850.
Whatever.). And WBZ (AM) is on the HD 3 of 98.5
by the way it when WBZ (AM) gives their ID it sounds like they're saying "WBZ in HD Boston,
WBZ-FM HD 3" or maybe "WBZ in HD, WBZ-FM HD 3, Boston". Can they say "in" like that?
It almost sounds like "WBZN HD" or "WBCN HD"
thezak said:
"HD" does not stand for Hybrid Digital.
mgpt6 said:
at least DRM on shortwave one can DL a demodulator. you either have to compile some patent-encumbered undistributable fork of libaac or use a DLL from fraunhofer which you have to sign up for, but at least gettting a decoder is doable. then you'll realize even Sackville transmissions don't have enough S/N to demodulate, let alone RNZI with all its phase-disotrtion fluttery stuff from such a long path. on the of chance it works, you'll be treated to 16.9kbps AAC, which sounds like utter trash compared to AM
I picked up an HD radio convertor for my car last fall. On AM, WBZ, WMKI and WKOX all are running it. WXKS-AM was at first but lately it has been off.
I've actually been impressed with how well it works and sounds on these stations. I've compared WBZ-AM to WBZ-FM HD3 and find the HD3 drops out a lot where as the AM-HD is rock solid. WBZ I can get in HD without drop outs from Plymouth to almost Manchester NH.
I wasn't as impressed with HD on a trip to NYC as it just seemed to drop out a lot in general on either AM or FM. I think the buildings just raise havoc. Even just outside the city where the analog reception is strong, the HD just didn't seem to work as well as in the Boston area.
Now, I know it causes impact to analog, increased noise, etc. It would be better to do wide bandwidth AM C-Quam stereo and try to add on some type of RDS capability - but that fizzeled out after about 20 years of trying and it doesn't look like it is coming back.
I've actually been impressed with how well it works and sounds on these stations. I've compared WBZ-AM to WBZ-FM HD3 and find the HD3 drops out a lot where as the AM-HD is rock solid. WBZ I can get in HD without drop outs from Plymouth to almost Manchester NH.
I wasn't as impressed with HD on a trip to NYC as it just seemed to drop out a lot in general on either AM or FM. I think the buildings just raise havoc. Even just outside the city where the analog reception is strong, the HD just didn't seem to work as well as in the Boston area.
Now, I know it causes impact to analog, increased noise, etc. It would be better to do wide bandwidth AM C-Quam stereo and try to add on some type of RDS capability - but that fizzeled out after about 20 years of trying and it doesn't look like it is coming back.
carmen said:
Complex digital modulation schemes don't work well if the ionosphere is involved. Anything more complex than QPSK has issues.
Besides, DRM is a possible solution for a problem that's going away. Shortwave broadcasting is pretty much dead, and DRM won't save it even if it could be made to work well. Outside of broadcasts to the poor countries of Africa and Asia where they can't afford smartphones but have SW radios, shortwave is obsolete.
And DRM transmissions from Sackville are moot, since Radio Canada International is closing down in a couple of months. Another nail in the shortwave coffin.
raccoonradio said:
The Web site is obviously not to be believed because WXKS (AM) 1200 does not now and never has broadcast in AM-band HD--at least not since its transmitter moved to Newton. The new transmitter facility at 750 Sawmill Brook Parkway (triplex with WRCA 1330 and WUNR 1600) was allegedly designed for AM-band HD on all three stations--and allegedly, the necessary equipment was installed before the site went on the air. But for reasons I have never heard explained, HD was apparently never implemented (or at least was apparently never switched on) on any of the stations. This was to have been an AM HD showcase installation: three high-powered AMs with complex directional patterns triplexing into five towers at a site designed from the ground up for AM HD. When the three licenses to cover were granted and HD hadn't started on 1200, I figured the that startup of HD on the three stations (or at least on 1200) might have been delayed until a year after the licenses to cover had been granted. (If there were issues with interference to other stations, such a delay might have avoided the need for the three newly built stations to remediate those problems at their own expense.) But that deadline came and went without any HD transmissions (at least none that I ever heard). I know someone who was involved--at least with WRCA and WUNR--and I tried to get him to tell me the story but he would not or could not do so.
thezak said:
I wish none of them did. HD Radio on AM is a gigantic bandwidth hog. WTSN 1270 from Dover, NH slowly drowns in HD noise from WMKI as one approaches the MA state line on I-93. It becomes completely unlistenable once one crosses the Merrimack River.
During my frequent forays into upstate NY on the Pike/Thruway I often scan the AM band. At night there are several spots where HD noise is dominant, the channels on either side of WBZ being two of the most prominent.
I don't understand why so many stations spend so much money to broadcast what 99.9 percent of the listeners will hear as noise. It boggles the mind.
DavidEduardo said:
Quite true, as iBiquity has stated repeatedly, even though the HD in HDTV does stand for something--high-definition--the HD in HD Radio stands for nothing at all. But if iBquity were to, as it were, drive a new definition between the HD hubcaps, hybrid digital would make perfect sense. (BTW my allusion to driving a new definition between the hubaps comes from a generations-old joke about a car that had seen much better days. A mechanic was asked what it would take to make the car roadworthy and he replied, "Jack up the hubcaps and drive a new car between them.")
We should all be lucky enough to see something like that happen with AM-band HD Radio. The technology just doesn't work satisfactorily. If the FCC and the broadcasters were willing to risk obsoleting ~1 billion AM receivers, thereby driving away what's left of the AM audience, AM-band HD Radio, without the analog component, might work, but the move would be equivalent to killing the patient to cure the disease. DRM would probably be a much better approach.
DanStrassberg said:
That must be an old joke, because that could not be done with today's plastic "wheel covers". They would crumble and disintegrate.
Whoever came up with the recent idea of replacing durable metal hubcaps on cars with flimsy plastic "wheel covers" that must be constantly replaced was a marketing genius. Must be a multi-millionaire by now.
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