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WCCC-FM HD-2 = Beethoven Radio

R

rcs

As of 2pm this afternoon, WCCC-FM (106.9 MHz) is carrying WCCC-AM's Beethoven Radio classical format on its HD-2 channel. This will provide much greater coverage than that provided by the 490 watts day used on 1290 AM and of course will be a serious improvement over the stations extremely low power night time signal.

With WCCC-AM sharing many listeners with Public Radio, and with NPR's huge support and promotion of HD Radio, having classical on a HD-2 channel in Hartford makes sense. Even more so when one takes into account the fact that Connecticut Public Radio has greatly cut back on classical programming.
 
WCCC-HD2 seems to be having the same intermittent audio problems that I noticed on other HD2s earlier this week. Frequent dropouts.

Incidentally, the HD2 streams of WHCN and WKSS are still off the air this morning. WDRC seems to have fixed whatever was ailing its HD2, however.
 
Hi CTListener,
We had about a five minute audio outage on both our AM and HD-2 stations at around noon today due to an automation issue. Other than that I haven't heard any other dropouts. I'be been listening a lot but can't listen all the time of course. Can you let me know the approximate times of the drop outs?
Where are you when you hear the drop outs? Remember, when HD-2 reception gets bad your receiver will mute so if you are on the edge of our HD coverage area, which of course is much smaller than the FM analog reception area, perhaps this is what you are experiencing.
If you are in range of our 1290 Am signal, check that frequency whenever you hear the drop outs since both signals share the same feed at the tower site.
I appreciate the feedback.

John
 
rcs said:
Hi CTListener,
We had about a five minute audio outage on both our AM and HD-2 stations at around noon today due to an automation issue. Other than that I haven't heard any other dropouts. I'be been listening a lot but can't listen all the time of course. Can you let me know the approximate times of the drop outs?
Where are you when you hear the drop outs? Remember, when HD-2 reception gets bad your receiver will mute so if you are on the edge of our HD coverage area, which of course is much smaller than the FM analog reception area, perhaps this is what you are experiencing.
If you are in range of our 1290 Am signal, check that frequency whenever you hear the drop outs since both signals share the same feed at the tower site.
I appreciate the feedback.

John
Click to expand...

This was around 8 a.m. The dropouts were brief, but were definitely there. The signal went from five bars on my Accurian receiver to nothing at all, then back to five bars again at least three times during the half hour I was listening. I'm less than five miles from West Peak in Meriden and I get perfect reception from all the Hartford/Waterbury/New Haven HDs, including WTIC, WPLR (although they don't have an HD-2) and WKCI, so it's not a matter of being in a fringe area.

Anyway, I've had WCCC-HD2 on for the past 15 minutes and it sounds fine, so it looks like the problem is solved. 1290 doesn't really make the trip down here, so your HD-2 stream is a welcome addition to the dial.
 
CTListener,
I'm glad to hear that reception of the HD-2 signal is good in your area. The high level of RF from the West Peak stations can really wipe out the front end on some radios as I'm sure you know. I guess the Accurian must be a pretty good radio. What kind of antenna are you using?
We're going to be doing some testing of the HD-2 over the next week or so so don't be surprised if you hear some other styles of music from time to time. Don't worry though, we're committed to Classical music. The real question is what to put on our HD-3 channel?
 
when was the HD-2 turned on. when I was going home friday night, WCCC was non existent in southern VT and very choppy in northern MA where it comes in usally clear. It was not until springfield that was was comming in clearly. could the HD-2 being turned on be a major factor that has caused this signal weekness?

rcs said:
CTListener,
I'm glad to hear that reception of the HD-2 signal is good in your area. The high level of RF from the West Peak stations can really wipe out the front end on some radios as I'm sure you know. I guess the Accurian must be a pretty good radio. What kind of antenna are you using?
We're going to be doing some testing of the HD-2 over the next week or so so don't be surprised if you hear some other styles of music from time to time. Don't worry though, we're committed to Classical music. The real question is what to put on our HD-3 channel?
Click to expand...
 
We put on HD-2 on the 17th. However, this would not have changed our coverage as we are just splitting up the bits that make up our HD signal a bit differently. Prior to that date, we were devoting all 96k of our HD stream to The Rock. When we added HD-2 we devoted 32k to Beethoven Radio and the remaining 64k to The Rock.

I was up in Greenfield on Saturday morning and noticed that most of the Connecticut stations were noisy. I attributed it to propagation, probably a tropo opening that lasted overnight. We have lots of listeners up thet way and a few die-hards in Southern Vermont. I haven't heard a peep from them so I bet things went back to normal later in the day on Saturday as is usually the case with tropo ducting.

John
 
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