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Call Sign Question

C

crisisbroadcast

Guest
With radio conglomerates making the move to HD Radio, we're starting to see call signs like WRDW-HD (or WRDW-HD2) for 96.5's dance subchannel in Philadelphia. I've seen other HD radio channels being described and identified in the same manner (Kxxx-HD or Wxxx-HD).

How, then, will AMs and FMs sharing the same four or three letter calls be differentiated? Will AMs be allowed to go without the suffix -HD much like they don't use -AM, or will we see two WCBS-HDs in New York, etc.?

Or is this whole "-HD" business just a marketing trick?<P ID="signature">______________
</P>
 
> Or is this whole "-HD" business just a marketing trick?

I think you just answered your own question :) As far as I know, the FCC hasn't made it a requirement for a station to announce that they're broadcasting digitally. However, the point of stations wanting to do so has already brought about a situation in which there is no standard format for making such an announcement.

The following points are made assuming that HD radio has taken off successfully on the AM band (God forbid). I would guess, using my own common sense and the past as reference points, that since HD-AM stations will be quite distinguishable from analogue AM stations just by sound quality alone, it wouldn't really be necessary to announce that a station is broadcasting digitally. It would likely be up to each individual station as to how to brand themselves to reflect the fact that they're broadcasting digitally. You'd probably hear some stations calling themselves "W???-HD", others branding themselves as "HD Radio W???", etc. And since most FM stations, as opposed to their AM counterparts, have their own brands aside from their call letters anyway, the need for any differentiation between AM and FM stations with the same call sets wouldn't really change. They'd still have to say "W???-FM", but you'd probably hear the same "HD Radio" in front of the legal ID as you would on the AM station, or possibly "W???-FM-HD" (since saying it as "W???-HD-FM" would make it invalid as a legal ID).

All in all, it's pretty much up to the station. Among radiophiles such as ourselves, the emerging standard is to refer to digital FM subchannels as "W???-HD-2", but I think right now, the rest of the general public is pretty much clueless as to the fact that digital radio even exists.

Post 950 dedicated to WWJ, which (unfortunately) has been playing around with IBOC and keeps throwing hash all over WKHM when I'm trying to listen to Rush and Sean! ARGHHH!!!<P ID="signature">______________
"Congratulations to Britney Spears and Kevin Federline, they had a baby yesterday. Spears said he sleeps 18 hours a day and so does the baby.
-- Conan O'Brien
http://theradioblog.blogspot.com</P>
 
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