MPB Oxford problems?

[tomservo]

Is something going at the MPB Oxford site today?

My father just complained that he didn't wake up on time because the 90.3 MPB signal was off, and just now I've noticed it's almost completely absent here in Grenada.

Jes curious…

 

[DouglasB]

Is something going at the MPB Oxford site today?
My father just complained that he didn't wake up on time because the 90.3 MPB signal was off, and just now I've noticed it's almost completely absent here in Grenada.
Jes curious…

From their website:
MPB is in the process of replacing our decades old FM antennas. WMAV Oxford, WMAU 88.9, Bude and WMAB 89.9 Mississippi State are operating with reduced power to allow for maintenance and installation of the new antenna. We appreciate your patience while we upgrade the service to listeners of MPB.

 

[tomservo]

*smacks forehead*

Stupid me. I forget sometimes that MPB is one of those organizations that actually makes use of their website to share that kind of information.

I wonder if we'll see any improvement in coverage with new arrays? WMAV is definitely one of the larger signals in the state as is.

 

[richllewis]

I wonder whether the replacement of radio antennas is to get a better antenna to broadcast in HD radio? I wonder this because of the fact that MPB is the only broadcaster in Mississippi that has HD Radio in most places in the state proper away from Memphis and some parts of the Mississippi Gulf Coast where HD Radio stations can be picked up out of New Orleans and Mobile and in Jackson with WJSU giving them competition in the Jackson Metro Area? In Meridian, they already got the new antenna up.

 

[tomservo]

I'm surprised anyone can get HD signals from NO and Mobile along the coast.

 

[RadeoEngineer]

I wonder whether the replacement of radio antennas is to get a better antenna to broadcast in HD radio? I wonder this because of the fact that MPB is the only broadcaster in Mississippi that has HD Radio in most places in the state proper away from Memphis and some parts of the Mississippi Gulf Coast where HD Radio stations can be picked up out of New Orleans and Mobile and in Jackson with WJSU giving them competition in the Jackson Metro Area? In Meridian, they already got the new antenna up.

The answer is somewhat yes. All of MPB's FM antennas are older and due for replacement, and it's being done as part of the project to include HD at their facilities.

 

[tomservo]

I wonder whether the replacement of radio antennas is to get a better antenna to broadcast in HD radio? I wonder this because of the fact that MPB is the only broadcaster in Mississippi that has HD Radio in most places in the state proper away from Memphis and some parts of the Mississippi Gulf Coast where HD Radio stations can be picked up out of New Orleans and Mobile and in Jackson with WJSU giving them competition in the Jackson Metro Area? In Meridian, they already got the new antenna up.

The answer is somewhat yes. All of MPB's FM antennas are older and due for replacement, and it's being done as part of the project to include HD at their facilities.

I guess WMAV is the only one of these three that already went HD before the antenna replacement? I don't have an HD-capable radio (who does?) but I can ‘see’ the HD signal on my car radio's signal strength meter. It shows a signal on first adjacents of active HD stations. WMAV's HD signal often dropped off the scale ~25 miles south of the TX site along MS-7, so I know it couldn't have been very reliable outside of Batesville and Oxford.

I'd be interested to know what kind of power/antenna/height this auxiliary setup is using at WMAV. The coverage seems comparable to WTNM, a class A licensed to nearby Water Valley. The signal meter never pegged out fully on my drive from Grenada to Oxford on Friday, even though at a few points I was line-of-site with the tower.

(As an aside, the signal meter has no scale so I really don't know how it compares to real-world signal strengths, but it seems to bottom out at around 40 dBu and max out at around 80 dBu on FM, and I have no idea on AM.)