How many AM stations still actively use HD Radio (AM-HD)? Are there any in your area?

[jlalande]

There are no AM HD radio station left here in Madison, Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Public Radio finally turned off HD on WHA 970 this past May, when they realigned their two statewide networks. I can't say I've missed the HD signal.

I was surprised WHA had previously left the HD signal on at night, when the station drops from 5kw to 51 watts. Before I turned off HD radio in the car (and when I still listened to 970 AM), the signal would frequently flap back and forth between the analog and HD signal at night, which was annoying.

I'm curious to see how much longer WPR will keep WHA on the air. After WPR's network realignment, both WERN 88.7 and WHA carry the same programming ("WPR News") and have virtually identical coverage areas. Not really sure what the argument is for keeping WHA on the air now, other than inertia and perhaps apprehension about ending the run of a 103-year-old radio station. But I can't imagine there are many people left listening to WHA that couldn't just switch over to WERN.

Other than WHA, the only other AM station I've picked up in HD here in Madison was iHeart's sports WTSO, which hasn't been in HD for many years now.

 

[PTBoardOp93]

I’m not sure I agree with this, your statement rings true to an extent but it also can not be ruled out that AM’s bandwidth limits how much sound quality can be pushed out.

Which is why I said "main problem", not "only problem." More bandwidth would be great, but not at the cost of more noise.

 

[boombox4]

HD on AM sounded good. I got my first (used) HD Radio, a Sony XDR, in 2017. Within a couple months, the two AMs that had HD pulled the plug on it, and within a couple years after that the HD2's on FM started to be discarded.

The IBOC 'buzz' that DXers hated didn't bother me much -- not any more than the splash from a local 50KW station puts out. I just figured it went with the territory. In the early 2010's it sounded a bit like the future.

Well, it wasn't.

 

[Wolfie770]

Hanover/Lebanon/White River Jct. NH/VT:

No AM HD now or ever, AFAIK. A handful of FM HD2s, none ever promoted on-air on the main signal, most just feeding a translator. The local NPR affiliates (one all-news/talk, the other all-classical music) just use their HD2s to carry the other station's programming, a complete waste. HD is dead as the proverbial door nail up here, no public awareness at all.

There are lots of areas where they combine the Classical (or Alternative) feed and News NPR feed and the HD-2 allows an uninterrupted Classical (or Alternative) schedule

 

[Wolfie770]

There are no AM HD radio station left here in Madison, Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Public Radio finally turned off HD on WHA 970 this past May, when they realigned their two statewide networks. I can't say I've missed the HD signal.

I was surprised WHA had previously left the HD signal on at night, when the station drops from 5kw to 51 watts. Before I turned off HD radio in the car (and when I still listened to 970 AM), the signal would frequently flap back and forth between the analog and HD signal at night, which was annoying.

I'm curious to see how much longer WPR will keep WHA on the air. After WPR's network realignment, both WERN 88.7 and WHA carry the same programming ("WPR News") and have virtually identical coverage areas. Not really sure what the argument is for keeping WHA on the air now, other than inertia and perhaps apprehension about ending the run of a 103-year-old radio station. But I can't imagine there are many people left listening to WHA that couldn't just switch over to WERN.

Other than WHA, the only other AM station I've picked up in HD here in Madison was iHeart's sports WTSO, which hasn't been in HD for many years now.

WHA turned it off? Never did understand the night time HD on that low of a power though. Maybe it's better to go for 88.7, 970 seems redundant now, but I can see why they might not want to just yet, with the heritage station status thing.

 

[RadioFixerCLE]

I am curious why Crawford insists on keeping digital on AM when everyone else has pretty much finally decided it wasn't worth it.

 

[Radiopaw]

I am curious why Crawford insists on keeping digital on AM when everyone else has pretty much finally decided it wasn't worth it.

I don’t know why people decided that too though, it resolved the main issues of the band. I know it has not amazing adoption rates, but once implemented it can’t be that expensive to maintain surely?

Removed man made interference, sends signals further and greatly improves audio quality.

If HD was on AM, I’d listen. Without it, it’s a tough sell. I tried again today, just not a good experience — and I’m 5 miles south of my markets major population point.

 

[yeoldeschool]

I tried that on a file I recorded of KLVZ AM HD, with low-pass frequencies of 3, 4, and 5 kHz. (KLVZ is the one Denver Crawford station that plays music.) Of course, I lost the highs. But the phasing effects remained. I would say it was slightly more listenable but there were still substantial digital artifacts.

I used to have an IBOC-capable aftermarket radio in one of the cars when AM IBOC was still being broadcast by KFI, KNX, and some others. Despite the stated bitrate of AM IBOC being 40 kbit/s, I always noticed how much more pre-echo-like reverberant phaseyness there was in the midrange on those AM stations than on HE-AAC internet streams at the same rates. I knew the IBOC codec was proprietary -- loosely based on AAC but completely incompatible, and assumed inferiority to not only HE-AAC but perhaps even to the version used for FM. Some digital transmission formats can also send one stream's bits in two concurrent logical partitions, one with high FEC robustness and another with low robustness, so you don't lose the audio completely under non-ideal conditions, and instead wind up with only part of the total bitrate being decoded, and the consequent lower fidelity. So that was another possibility I thought about. But in the end it didn't matter. I always forced the radio into analog reception mode unless I was listening to an HD subcarrier on FM where there was no other choice. IBOC just never sounded good to me. Even at its ~96 kbit/s maximum on FM without subchannels, AAC-era codecs running at aroudn 96 kbit/s sound like MP3 at 128 kbit/s. So to me the experience, even at its best, was always like listening to Napster MP3s (Napster was notorious for being majority 128 kbit/s).

Anyway, KYNO has a 32 kbit/s HE-AAC stream here. When you lowpass that, do your ears find the midrange 90% tolerable or do they discern the same unlistenable midrange as you experienced with lowpassed KLVZ?

The problem with psychoacoustic compression is that it's inherently based on tricking the brain and ear auditory systems. Depending upon variations in how listeners' ears and brain auditory systems work, different people hear different defects, or the same defects at different levels of objectionableness. That's why I wish the online streaming world would just start ditching this stuff once and for all, and begin streaming in FLAC at a minimum. Everybody's streaming HD video 24/7 on all types of internet connections today, and simple stereo audio at FLAC bitrates is nothing by comparison.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Denver has five: four Crawford stations and the heritage AM station from Pillar of Fire.

Crawford: KLZ, KLTT, KLVZ, KLDC. Only one, KLVZ, programs music regularly. KLZ is a conservative talk station; KLTT and KLDC have preaching.

Pillar’s KPOF does program some music as well as having traditional preaching programs.

Of this set, KLZ, KLTT, KLVZ, and KPOF have FM translators.

AM HD works but the digital artifacts are hard to tolerate, especially for spoken-word programs.

KLZ's HD hash wiped out 550 and 570 150 miles away from me and the few times i heard KLZ in HD, the hissy analog sounded better.

 

[CTListener]

Can we agree that whatever promise HD once had -- FM or AM -- is dead?

 

[Mark Roberts]

Anyway, KYNO has a 32 kbit/s HE-AAC stream here. When you lowpass that, do your ears find the midrange 90% tolerable or do they discern the same unlistenable midrange as you experienced with lowpassed KLVZ?

Intriguing, and I would love to, but for this:

Access to ice8.securenetsystems.net was denied

You don't have authorization to view this page.
HTTP ERROR 403

Maybe they don't want people with zip codes starting with "802" to listen online??? (Not sure where my ISP thinks I am today. It's been anywhere from Denver to Durango. Yes, Durango.)

The problem with psychoacoustic compression is that it's inherently based on tricking the brain and ear auditory systems. Depending upon variations in how listeners' ears and brain auditory systems work, different people hear different defects, or the same defects at different levels of objectionableness. That's why I wish the online streaming world would just start ditching this stuff once and for all, and begin streaming in FLAC at a minimum. Everybody's streaming HD video 24/7 on all types of internet connections today, and simple stereo audio at FLAC bitrates is nothing by comparison.

In total agreement with you. FLAC is kind of a pain for static file storage due to the sizes involved (50% compression is about the most you can get with lossless in my experience) but bandwidth for a stream should be available in most places these days.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I am curious why Crawford insists on keeping digital on AM when everyone else has pretty much finally decided it wasn't worth it.

Crawford seems very much committed to AM stations, though there are FM translators for some of them, and has been running frequent PSAs supporting congressional action to keep AM radios in vehicles and encouraging listeners to reach out to their congressional representatives to express their support for such legislation.

 

[fybush]

Can we agree that whatever promise HD once had -- FM or AM -- is dead?

No.

Just because there's no FM HD activity in your area doesn't mean you can extrapolate that to the rest of the country.

 

[CTListener]

No.

Just because there's no FM HD activity in your area doesn't mean you can extrapolate that to the rest of the country.

But is HD growing in the rest of the country, or just existing -- the "stations between the stations" that few people are listening to and advertisers ignore?

 

[davideduardo]

But is HD growing in the rest of the country, or just existing -- the "stations between the stations" that few people are listening to and advertisers ignore?

And which support a huge number of translators due FCC rules.

 

[ftballfan]

There are no AM HD radio station left here in Madison, Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Public Radio finally turned off HD on WHA 970 this past May, when they realigned their two statewide networks. I can't say I've missed the HD signal.

I was surprised WHA had previously left the HD signal on at night, when the station drops from 5kw to 51 watts. Before I turned off HD radio in the car (and when I still listened to 970 AM), the signal would frequently flap back and forth between the analog and HD signal at night, which was annoying.

I'm curious to see how much longer WPR will keep WHA on the air. After WPR's network realignment, both WERN 88.7 and WHA carry the same programming ("WPR News") and have virtually identical coverage areas. Not really sure what the argument is for keeping WHA on the air now, other than inertia and perhaps apprehension about ending the run of a 103-year-old radio station. But I can't imagine there are many people left listening to WHA that couldn't just switch over to WERN.

Other than WHA, the only other AM station I've picked up in HD here in Madison was iHeart's sports WTSO, which hasn't been in HD for many years now.

WPR still has a few FMs in HD, especially where one of their statewide networks has a coverage deficiency or where HD2 feeds one or more FM translators.

Current WPR HD stations
88.7 WERN Madison [News HD1/Music HD2] (HD2 feeds translators on 90.5 and 107.9 in Madison)
90.7 WHAD Delafield/Milwaukee [Music HD1/News HD2] (HD2 feeds translators on 101.7 in Elkhorn and 103.3 in Lake Geneva)
90.9 WHRM Wausau [News HD1/Music HD2] (HD2 feeds translators on 99.1 in Stevens Point, 100.9 in Marshfield, and 101.3 in Wausau - WPR Music is also on a redundant shared time FM on 91.9 in Wausau as 101.3 covers much more area from the same tower)
91.3 WHHI Highland [Music HD1/News HD2] (News is on a puny signal in SW Wisconsin)

Former WPR HD stations
88.3 WHWC Menomonie - turned HD off in 2020 [was Ideas HD1/News & Classical HD2] (analog now News)
88.9 WLSU La Crosse - turned HD off in or after 2008 [was News & Classical HD1 only] (analog now Music)
89.1 WHAA Adams - turned HD off in 2020 [was Ideas HD1/News & Classical HD2] (analog now Music)
89.3 WPNE Green Bay - turned HD off in 2024 [was News & Classical HD1/All Classical HD2] (analog now News; Music is on a nearly equal signal in NE Wisconsin)
89.9 WHSA Brule - turned HD off in 2020 [was News & Classical HD1/Ideas HD2] (analog now News)
90.3 WHBM Park Falls - turned HD off in 2020 [was Ideas HD1/News & Classical HD2] (analog now News)
90.3 WHLA La Crosse - turned HD off in 2024 [was Ideas HD1/All Classical HD2/News & Classical HD3] (analog now News; could have easily remained HD with Music on HD2 as Music is on a much inferior signal in La Crosse)
90.9 WUWS Ashland - turned HD off in 2020 [was Ideas HD1/News & Classical HD2] (analog now News)
91.3 KUWS Superior - turned HD off in 2020 [was Ideas HD1/News & Classical HD2] (analog now Music)
91.9 WHDI Sister Bay - turned HD off in 2020 [was Ideas HD1/News & Classical HD2] (analog now Music)

Also, 970 WHA should be part of the Music network. Their other AM (930 WLBL in Auburndale/Stevens Point) is part of the Music network.

 

[fybush]

But is HD growing in the rest of the country, or just existing -- the "stations between the stations" that few people are listening to and advertisers ignore?

The "stations between the stations" hasn't been a marketing pitch for 20 years now.

Most FMs in the top 100 markets have HD, and they use it for a lot of things. Multipath reduction in hilly terrain. Feeding translators. Leased time ethnic in big cities. In probably one of every four cars on the roads now, especially the newer ones with more affluent drivers, HD provides album art and station logos and even ad content. Public stations providing additional streams of content.

 

[boiseengineer]

WPR still has a few FMs in HD, especially where one of their statewide networks has a coverage deficiency or where HD2 feeds one or more FM translators.

Former WPR HD stations
88.3 WHWC Menomonie - turned HD off in 2020 [was Ideas HD1/News & Classical HD2] (analog now News)
88.9 WLSU La Crosse - turned HD off in or after 2008 [was News & Classical HD1 only] (analog now Music)
89.1 WHAA Adams - turned HD off in 2020 [was Ideas HD1/News & Classical HD2] (analog now Music)
89.3 WPNE Green Bay - turned HD off in 2024 [was News & Classical HD1/All Classical HD2] (analog now News; Music is on a nearly equal signal in NE Wisconsin)
89.9 WHSA Brule - turned HD off in 2020 [was News & Classical HD1/Ideas HD2] (analog now News)
90.3 WHBM Park Falls - turned HD off in 2020 [was Ideas HD1/News & Classical HD2] (analog now News)
90.3 WHLA La Crosse - turned HD off in 2024 [was Ideas HD1/All Classical HD2/News & Classical HD3] (analog now News; could have easily remained HD with Music on HD2 as Music is on a much inferior signal in La Crosse)
90.9 WUWS Ashland - turned HD off in 2020 [was Ideas HD1/News & Classical HD2] (analog now News)
91.3 KUWS Superior - turned HD off in 2020 [was Ideas HD1/News & Classical HD2] (analog now Music)
91.9 WHDI Sister Bay - turned HD off in 2020 [was Ideas HD1/News & Classical HD2] (analog now Music)

Also, 970 WHA should be part of the Music network. Their other AM (930 WLBL in Auburndale/Stevens Point) is part of the Music network.

Early HD adopters. HD exciters of that era were, as a nameless person at Harris Broadcast said, "a science experiment".
Many exciters failed since they basically had a computer motherboard running some form of Linux. PC motherboards and many other devices of that era were failing due to "capacitor rot". But that's another story.
HD exciters were too expensive to replace. Licensing fees. Turn it off.

 

[yeoldeschool]

Intriguing, and I would love to, but for this:

Sigh. I hate geofencing. Here's a brief stream rip, then, for you to try with -- contains both voice and music:

https://rentry.org/4ufivfy6/raw (how it was ripped)
https://files.catbox.moe/y3hgga.m4a (kyno.m4a audio file)

In total agreement with you. FLAC is kind of a pain for static file storage due to the sizes involved (50% compression is about the most you can get with lossless in my experience) but bandwidth for a stream should be available in most places these days.

Disk storage space has become so bottomless and cheap, that shouldn't be a concern even for the most prolific collectors. You can put over 20,000 average length songs in FLAC format on a 512 GB USB thumb drive for $50.

 

[CTListener]

And which support a huge number of translators due FCC rules.

That's what I classify as "merely existing" for HD. The translators get the listeners, not the HD sidebands of the main signal. Where is the growth potential of HD outside of feeding content to a transmitter on some other frequency? What are broadcasters doing to create content for their HD-2s and HD-3s, and to publicize those HDs on air and (if they are still financially able to do so) through advertising -- online, TV or billboards?