KBXX Analog off the air?

[rbrucecarter5]

Curious phenomenon - a couple of times I have tuned them in on a Sony XDR-F1HD, heard absolutely nothing on analog - then HD locks and I hear them. On all other stations, I hear analog just fine before lock. Anybody else with an HD radio notice this?

 

[distortion1]

Odd. I use an HD Radio in the car and home, and haven't had any issues with KBXX...

The only issues I seem to run-into is every Missouri City station, driving at 59 & Beltway. Seems this area is 'overshot' by the towers, and the overpass knocks out all HD for a few seconds.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

It did not happen again - I actually heard analog audio on the same tuner. At first, I wondered if it was a momentary test of digital-only transmission.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Re: KBXX Analog off the air? - MYSTERY SOLVED!

It did it again last night, but on a different station. Which made me wonder - what's up? It turns out that the Sony XDR-F1HD remembers what stations have HD-2 through whatever, and if you manually scan frequencies from high to low, you hit silence until HD lock is acheived on everything, including HD-1. I don't know if I should call this a "defect" or a "feature", because some listeners might prefer it this way.

 

[jras20]

Re: KBXX Analog off the air? - MYSTERY SOLVED!

That happened to me also a while back, I can't remember when, but I didn't have a HD Radio back then, I heard the buzz but the analog was off. KBPA did this also a few times.

 

[stan]

Here's a question for you experts - can a station broadcast in digital mode only? What if the analog broadcast had some sort of technical problem, could only the digital signal be legally transmitted?

 

[distortion1]

Here's a question for you experts - can a station broadcast in digital mode only? What if the analog broadcast had some sort of technical problem, could only the digital signal be legally transmitted?

With the current equipment, no. There's no way to turn off analog and broadcast only in HD.

Legally, no idea.

 

[RFLA]

Here's a question for you experts - can a station broadcast in digital mode only? What if the analog broadcast had some sort of technical problem, could only the digital signal be legally transmitted?

With the current equipment, no. There's no way to turn off analog and broadcast only in HD.

Legally, no idea.

Distortion is correct as IBOC is broadcast just like a stereo pilot or RDS data is currently on all stations. It's basically broadcast as a sub carrier, however it's so high to the edge of the transmitted bandwidth, is the reason it "bleeds" sometimes on adjacent stations.

I researched the FCC website and apparently the FCC allows the digital emission but no rules have been implemented on going all digital as without a analog signal, or equipping a whole town with HD radios, you wouldn't be able to "serve the public"... basically double edged sword

 

[autopilot9]

Here's a question for you experts - can a station broadcast in digital mode only? What if the analog broadcast had some sort of technical problem, could only the digital signal be legally transmitted?

With the current equipment, no. There's no way to turn off analog and broadcast only in HD.

Legally, no idea.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on the technical aspect. You can run in digital mode only. Most stations have a separate transmitter just for digital. Some even have a separate antenna.

However…… I don’t think that it is legal to do it. And I dont really know why you would want to.