Interesting how Mr. Manning noted in his first article (not linked): "I complained that I wasn't able to tune in WHAS' digital signal from my home. I had set up the radio in my living room, near a window... After the column was filed, I brought the radio downtown to my office at the C-J and it worked perfectly..."
The 50kw 840 WHAS transmitter site is just east of the Louisville urban area, and has an exceptional signal over a very wide area. In that region, it is second only to WLW. The Louisville Courier-Journal offices are near center-city... But the author (understandably) doesn't indicate the location of his home where HD reception of the very powerful WHAS signal was a bust. Assuming he lives within 30-60 minutes of his office--this speaks very poorly of even the metro coverage potential of AM IBOC.
While reviewing the BA Receptor HD, I traveled to a point in east-central Indiana where four powerful 50kw AM signals (offering daytime IBOC) are very easy to hear clearly on any radio. In the order of signal strength, they are 700 WLW (Cincinnati); 1070 WIBC (Indianapolis); 1190 WOWO (Fort Wayne); and 840 WHAS. While the infamous adjacent-channel IBOC "modem noise" was well beyond apparent, not one of these strong signals triggered the HD reception circuit in the Boston Acoustics radio. Even placing the Terk AM Advantage tuned loop antenna near the BA made no difference.
The IBOC interference is present... The HD signal isn't... How efficient :-[
