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WHAL and WHRK sound quality issues, stray HD observations

tomservo

tomservo

I was up in town today to get a new Insignia HD portable from Best Buy, and did some band scanning with it.

What the heck is wrong with WHAL and WHRK? Both stations sounded like they were running the audio through a metal can. I checked on a different radio, same result. Even on HD, the audio was pretty hollow and echo-y.

Speaking of HD, Clear Channel needs to go smack a computer around. WHRK-HD2 is dead air and none of their other properties' HD-2 stations are showing song title/artist data anymore.

WKNO's audio levels are off. The HD is quiet as a church mouse, which makes fringe reception an exercise in volume control (pardon the pun). Maybe it wouldn't be an issue if their HD signal wasn't so poor. It seems to have most issues of all the "big" stations.

HD actually gave me a pleasant surprise when I stumbled on the last few minutes of the Bama-Arkansas game on WMFS-HD2. I was beginning to think I'd have to make do with a static internet scoreboard on my phone.

Finally, KQK fixed their sync issues. In fact, everyone in the market was on-sync for a change. How rare! :)
 
all the CC stations pretty much sound terrible. 101.1 at times being very bad and the worst sounding of the cluster.
101.9 actually is the best sounding right now in the bunch right now and it's nothing to brag about.

Alonzo (the engineer at CC) told me last summer he didn't even have a radio that could decode the HD2s. It is all handled from Covington
The did and update from ibiquity on WEGR and WHRK that now causes the HDs to go off the air constantly.
He told me they stopped before getting to KJMS. I am not sure about WHAL.
 
This may be slightly OT, but is there any website that will give information on what stations have HD subchannels and their formats? I'd like to find out about getting the Insignia radio, but considering I'm in the Jackson/Dyersburg area, are there any stations doing anything with HD, and would the HD signals in Memphis be receivable here? Thanks!
 
HD-the next best thing for radio's survival in the new information age.
Sorta like AM stereo saved AM
And Quad Stero...remember that?
Are the same programming geniuses that program the FM side programming the HD side?
 
anotherguy said:
This may be slightly OT, but is there any website that will give information on what stations have HD subchannels and their formats? I'd like to find out about getting the Insignia radio, but considering I'm in the Jackson/Dyersburg area, are there any stations doing anything with HD, and would the HD signals in Memphis be receivable here? Thanks!
Click to expand...

That’s a joke, right? It’s hard to keep a Memphis HD signal from dropping back to analog in north Shelby County.
 
I suspected that the HD signals from Memphis probably wouldn't come in where I live, but I haven't been able to find out if anything is avaliable in Jackson or not. I don't believe SL 100 or K-LOVE in Dyersburg are doing anything with HD. If nothing else, is the Insignia radio decent for analog?
 
anotherguy said:
I suspected that the HD signals from Memphis probably wouldn't come in where I live, but I haven't been able to find out if anything is avaliable in Jackson or not. I don't believe SL 100 or K-LOVE in Dyersburg are doing anything with HD. If nothing else, is the Insignia radio decent for analog?
Click to expand...

There's a big review thread on the Insignia portable on the HD Radio section here. I just did a comparo between my older receiver and the one with the new software version. You have to go into a menu to see the version, but new ones should all be 4.00.14 or higher now.

If you get one that works right, it's an excellent analog receiver. I would definitely try it out first by driving around town and seeing how it handles strong adjacents. If it has problems, return it and get another one.

My old unit is a bit defective and gets overloaded/intermod real easy, especially in Memphis. But the HD and RDS work okay. The new one is rock solid on analog and HD, but the RDS simply does not work right and refuses to decode 90% of stations. I may return it if I can make the 100 mile drive back to Memphis later this week.

And no, I don't think there are any stations running HD in Jackson. You probably won't get anything from Memphis at all, either. My experience has been that the coverage maps on Radio-Locator are a good indicator. If you're within the red circle, you will likely get decent reception. Anything outside that is highly unlikely.

The HD Radio Alliance site has listings for the subchannels in Memphis but I don't know how accurate they are.

From my last trip, here's what I remember:

91.1-2 - NPR News/classical
91.1-3 - BBC World Service
92.9-2 - ESPN/Live Coverage Alternate Feed
94.1-2 - Comedy
95.7-2 - Spanish music
97.1-2 - Classic R&B/Hip-Hop (currently dead air)
101.1-2 - Smooth jazz
102.7-2 - Modern rock
104.5-2 - Blues
 
102.7 is no longer modern rock however... it is more of an Active Rock format called Rock Nation.

the rest is spot on.

104.5-2 is by far the best sounding. It has wonderful processing and no swishy cascading codec sound to it.
It has been brought up a few times on here by others about how good the station really is.

never checked signals going north from here.. I loose them all around Senatobia going south.
the class A's i loose between Nesbit and Southaven.

WEGRs HD would have the best coverage North but I don't see it going much farther than south of Ripley.
 
Yeah, they're doing something right with that blues format on 104.5-2.

I think the best sounding station overall is 94.1-1. I think they're also the only ones in the market using higher power, so there may be something software related that gives them an edge, encoding-wise. Unfortunately height is even more important with HD than analog and they don't seem to have much height. I get dropouts from time to time on 240 north of Memphis a lot, but it's solid down to Senatobia for me, usually.

Tonight, I got locks from 101.1, 104.5 and 94.1 while in Oxford, but only in a few places. :)
 
yes but 104.5-1 and analog sound terrible

It's impressive you get some locks in Oxford.. must have had some enhancement on the band tonight or is that normal?

94.1 does sound really good though occasionally it gets a little to bright on some songs. I would hardly complain about it though... My complaint is usually about lack of highs or a distorted high end on most stations.

I would have to guess they are playing from an uncompressed library. If not it's a great sounding one for sure.


I'll be coming down to Como for dinner tomorrow so Ill get to play with the radio some :)
 
Michael said:
yes but 104.5-1 and analog sound terrible

It's impressive you get some locks in Oxford.. must have had some enhancement on the band tonight or is that normal?

94.1 does sound really good though occasionally it gets a little to bright on some songs. I would hardly complain about it though... My complaint is usually about lack of highs or a distorted high end on most stations.

I would have to guess they are playing from an uncompressed library. If not it's a great sounding one for sure.

I'll be coming down to Como for dinner tomorrow so Ill get to play with the radio some :)
Click to expand...

Going to the Como Steakhouse? ;)

The locks I get are from the Wal-Mart parking lot and it's pretty consistent. 101.1 was a new one this time, though. It's up a little hill, but with the newer Insignia portable it goes in and out up Jackson Avenue on the west side of town. Mind you, this is with the audio cable/antenna wire stretched around the rearview mirror; I'd love to know what a full on decent HD car radio would do.

It must be favorable terrain, because on MS-6 west to Batesville there's no trade of HD from any of the Memphis stations. All the Batesville-Oxford stations' towers are along that corridor and play havoc with weaker radios.

I'd be interested to know what you get from Como if you get a chance. :) Usually when I head up that way I'm stuck listening to public radio out of Oxford. I think its HD for me drops out around Hernando or I-69.
 
We ate at Windy City actually.

Wanted to try Tribecca Allie in Sardis but they aren't opened for dinner weeknights.
 
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