I think some of the DXer's have a beef with the hybrid digital 30 kHz bandwidth. The digital-only 20 kHz bandwidth might be an easier sell, given that it would be less likely to cause interference to adjacent stations.
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Hubbard Testing All-Digital AM on WWFD
- Thread starter rbc
- Start date
I think some of the DXer's have a beef with the hybrid digital 30 kHz bandwidth. The digital-only 20 kHz bandwidth might be an easier sell, given that it would be less likely to cause interference to adjacent stations.
Sure, but DX'ers represent .0001% of relevant radio listening, so their concerns have never even moved the needle when it comes to acceptance of AM-HD or not. Listeners have been abandoning AM for years. The vast majority of Millennial's that aren't hobbyists don't even know AM radio exists.
Looks like WWFD received a shout-out from Radio World coverage on the Digital Radio Summit:
https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/digital-radio-summit-wake-up-call
https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/digital-radio-summit-wake-up-call
There are the accidental DX'ers, that consider sky-wave at night as an annoyance that interferes with their local station. They will probably appreciate the 10 kHz of "breathing room" that the smaller digital-only signal would take on the radio dial, even if they don't understand why.
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It looks like WWFD has requested an extension to their experimental licensing for all-digital broadcast:
https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101805390&formid=911&fac_num=47104
They requested an extension to July 6, 2020.
https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101805390&formid=911&fac_num=47104
They requested an extension to July 6, 2020.
Dave Kolesar provided me with a little update on the status of WWFD today. Here it is:
"We've finished optimizing the main transmitter and the antenna system, so I believe that the coverage is the best we can make it. As soon as we got fast receiver acquisition working (radio locks within about 1.5 seconds), we showed up in the Frederick Spring 2019 ratings:
https://ratings.****************/content/arb528
We've had the 94.3 FM translator for the past two years, and 820 as The Gamut was analog from 2013-2018, and it had never "moved the needle" in the Nielsen ratings until now. About 25% of cars on the road in the area have HD. I really think that people are starting to find us as a digital station!"
"We've finished optimizing the main transmitter and the antenna system, so I believe that the coverage is the best we can make it. As soon as we got fast receiver acquisition working (radio locks within about 1.5 seconds), we showed up in the Frederick Spring 2019 ratings:
https://ratings.****************/content/arb528
We've had the 94.3 FM translator for the past two years, and 820 as The Gamut was analog from 2013-2018, and it had never "moved the needle" in the Nielsen ratings until now. About 25% of cars on the road in the area have HD. I really think that people are starting to find us as a digital station!"
I agree. I think it shows all-digital AM is a way to grow an audience on medium wave, at least when the marketplace supports it. Perhaps we'll start seeing AM stations in other large markets go all-digital soon.
Not likely. Why spend on technical transmission facilities when nobody (Okay, "nearly nobody") is buying radios unless they are attached to things like automobiles.
The bulk of the population has moved beyond buying single function devices like radios and demand single devices that are notepads, message centers, mailboxes, phones, video screens, audio players, game players and much more.
The only places where dramatic hardware transformations have occurred are ones where the government controls broadcasting or is the major player in the field. Examples are England, Sweden, India.
India is currently building a vast network of medium wave stations running up to a megawatt using DRM. They can do it because that nation controls most broadcasting. Same goes for DAB in a few European nations.
And the HD2's on their WTOP and WWWT station(s).
My guess is that it probably is automobiles that made the difference.
I have not heard an all-digital signal before (anyone in DC?), but the P3 channel rate of MA3 (all-digital) is 20 kbps versus 16 kbps for MA1 (hybrid). I'd imagine that would have to make a difference. As a practical matter, I'd imagine putting all the transmitter power into the digital signal would make reception more reliable for the listener.
16 or 20 kbps, either way it ain't enough for anything remotely "high fidelity". But it's probably still an upgrade for listeners versus the usual sub-5 kHz audio they get in car listening on AM now.
People have shown that they think SiriusXM's sound quality is "great" so obviously most listeners haven't the slightest clue of what music should actually sound like, which may work to AM HD's advantage.
People have shown that they think SiriusXM's sound quality is "great" so obviously most listeners haven't the slightest clue of what music should actually sound like, which may work to AM HD's advantage.
This is an excerpt from a Radio World article:
"At this time, the AM HD Radio system does not offer the framework to provide these services, as all the data must be used for the audio codec. There is also considerably less bandwidth to allocate for this process, which would decrease audio quality. MA1 Core Only mode offers 20 kbps, MA1 Full Hybrid mode offers almost 37 kbps, and MA3 All Digital mode offers nearly 40 kbps."
[...]
https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/artist-experience-and-album-art-via-hd-radio
"At this time, the AM HD Radio system does not offer the framework to provide these services, as all the data must be used for the audio codec. There is also considerably less bandwidth to allocate for this process, which would decrease audio quality. MA1 Core Only mode offers 20 kbps, MA1 Full Hybrid mode offers almost 37 kbps, and MA3 All Digital mode offers nearly 40 kbps."
[...]
https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/artist-experience-and-album-art-via-hd-radio
When you factor in road noise while driving, I'm not sure most people will notice the difference. I think the key thing people notice is static while listening to analog services, particularly on AM.
Based on the Radio World article, I think that might be per-channel, so stereo should be around 32-40 kbps total.
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