High Power HDs in Philly?

[JerseyShor]

Now that the FCC will allow HD Radio to broadcast with up to 10% of the normal ERP, is anyone doing it?

 

[Bill_W]

Heard on KYW that WYSP would be raising their power which would increase WYSP HD-2 therefore KYW on FM would increase.

 

[athegymtday]

Actually, without the increase WYSPHD2 (KYW) is one of the strongest HD stations WOGL HD's even with a power increase is not great in Bucks and some places in Montgomery County. But comes in great in Chester Co. I guess it all depents on line of sight from the transmitters. I still think HD radio will soon be a thing of the past.

 

[Play Freebird]

I expect that the short-spacing between adjacent-channel allocations in Philadelphia and New York (and in some cases, Lancaster County) will make it impossible for most local stations to operate at -10 dB (10%), unless they try to run the sidebands with asymmetrical power. However, the "let's just ignore the interference" rules would permit a voluntary increase from -20 to -14 regardless of spacing.

WRTI is presently at -14 dB (4%), which is their legal maximum due to the close spacings to WOEL 89.9 in Elkton, MD and WXLV 90.3 north of Allentown. WXPN attempted -14, but the ethnic broadcaster who leases the 92 kHz SCA complained about an increase in noise and crosstalk, so the digital power was turned back down.

WOGL has poor IBOC coverage in some directions because they use the aux antenna (side mounted on a 12 foot wide tower) for digital, rather than the master panel antenna which is used for WOGL's analog.

 

[athegymtday]

Looks like WOGL's problem can be solved with a different antenna configuration. They need to do something if they want to sell Phillies 24-7 on WOGL HD4. Does anyone know if reflected power or VSWR is also a problem ? Or is that just cosidered part of the overall noise?