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The first FM HD turn on I've heard in a while

tomservo

tomservo

With all the talk of how HD is shrinking in numbers, I guess it's worth noting the rare turn on.

In this case, it's WQKS in Montgomery, Alabama. They installed HD for the express purpose of running two subchannels on recently acquired translators. Montgomery now says hello to "Lite 100.5" on the HD2 and "Yo! 107.1" on the HD3.

It'll be interesting to see what lengths Montgomery's one or two HD radio users have to go through to decode the station, as it runs a eyeball-searing 900 watts of analog power. ;D

This brings the total number of HD stations in Bama's capitol city to four, for a total eight subchannels added, if I'm not mistaken. (WXFX carries two feeds, of sister AMs running talk and sports; WQKS with the two new feeds carrying soft AC and classic urban now; two from pubcaster WVAS carrying urban-oriented programming like blues, gospel, jazz, hiphop and public affairs; and two from WTSU Troy, carrying Classical 24 and BBC World Service.)
 
"They installed HD for the express purpose of running two subchannels on recently acquired translators."

Precisely. ANALOG translators.

Pardon the cynicism, but given the main-channel's limited ERP, my bet would be that your estimate of actual HD-subchannel listeners is somewhat optimistic. I would peg the HD2 and HD3 audience at.....precisely ZERO almost all of the time.
 
Zach said:
They installed HD for the express purpose of running two subchannels on recently acquired translators.
Click to expand...

At this point, that's the only really good reason I can come up with to install HD. Almost all listening will be on the analog translators. The HD is merely the STL system. It's too bad the FCC won't let you do this with FMeXtra. The net listener result would be the same (actually better, since it doesn't cause interference). It would just cost a lot less to implement and operate.

The only other reason would be to cause interference to a co-channel HD station that is currently causing problems with your signal. Sort of a Mutually Assured Destruction plan….
 
I actually saw someone using an HD Radio the other day!! Well, kinda. I was riding in the brand-new Ford Expedition that this vendor of ours has - and this thing was loaded to the gills! It had EVERYTHING, including a nav screen that offered radar and real-time traffic. And, his stereo was equipped with HD. I knew because I saw the little icon. What were we listening to? WBBM 780.

When asked about it, the owner knew it was an HD radio, but didn't seem to understand what that meant. He did know that, at times, it made his news station sound like an FM signal. But, while driving along I-94 from downtown to the north suburbs, the HD was starting to cut in and out as soon as we hit Skokie. And later, with thunderstorms in the area, each static crash resulted in the digital signal dropping out and taking 2-3 seconds to recover. Each time it did this, it was jarring - you'd go from flat audio to overly processed stereo.

Lastly, I can guarantee you that this guy had no idea that there are HD-2s and HD-3s on FM. None. He just thinks it is an enhancement and has mixed feelings about it. He got it merely as part of the package. And this guy is a bigtime rocker - but listens to the all newser for traffic reports when driving.

If this is the best that Ibiquity can do, they're done.
 
Makes me wonder, with only 900W of analog power, I wonder how far out the HD subchannels (90W?) go out, that is, outside the Montgomery city limits.
 
BRNout said:
Zach said:
BRNout said:
If this is the best that Ibiquity can do, they're done.
Click to expand...

I hope you showed him how to disable the HD so it doesn't cut in and out in the fringes.
Click to expand...

Can you even do that? Neither of my HD setups allow for this.
Click to expand...

In the car stereo world, I'm pretty sure you can. I fiddled with the lock out on a JVC at Best Buy a while back. It was buried in some menu. I should hope all HD radios in the car would be the same.
 
It seems plans to turn on HD in Des Moines for Citadel have been shelved. Although I don't know how accurate the HD Radio website is, it seems they finally updated it. Nearly all Citadel FM's in Des Moines have been listed as going HD as well as launching several HD2's as "coming soon" for several years, and now they are no longer listed at all.
 
Casey said:
It seems plans to turn on HD in Des Moines for Citadel have been shelved. Although I don't know how accurate the HD Radio website is, it seems they finally updated it. Nearly all Citadel FM's in Des Moines have been listed as going HD as well as launching several HD2's as "coming soon" for several years, and now they are no longer listed at all.
Click to expand...

The Citadel stations in Birmingham that were listed as coming soon have been scrubbed as well. Hmm.
 
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