I've been monitoring WWFD's all-HD signal for a few hours today including the day-night pattern/power change. I'm about 3 miles NW of WWFD's transmission facilities, but on the other side of Braddock Mountain. My receiver is a Sony XDR-F1HD HD tuner with a C. Crane Twin Coil Ferrite AM Antenna attached to the AM antenna terminals. Daytime reception of the analog 820AM signal in my location has normally been excellent, while night reception can be noisy probably due to the mountain and the WWFD night pattern.
The AM HD sound quality is comparable to that of the WTLP HD3 signal, with perhaps a bit more lower end audio response (most notable on Bobby Bloom's "Montego Bay"). The AM audio is mono like the HD3s, but unlike the stereo stream. As mentioned elsewhere, the processing is not aggressive, somewhat underwhelming to my ears.
The night pattern switchover caused a 5 second audio drop out, the first I'd heard in several hours of listening. An intense storm moved through the area starting at 8:31PM and for the next 20 minutes, the audio dropped out for 5 second intervals about 10 times. Once the storm had moved through the area, the dropouts ceased. As would be expected with digital audio, the sound quality remained consistent throughout the entire weather event.
(The storm apparently affected Manning's facilities as WWEG, its 4 HD signals and W228AM were broadcasting dead air after the storm moved through. As I type this 2 hours later, WWEG's HD2 through 4 are missing and W228AM is still broadcasting silence.)
I, sitting in my living room with a Sony HD tuner, am obviously not the target audience of WWFD HD. They're looking for HD car receiver listeners, and it will be interesting to hear how the signal survives increasing distance from the transmitter, signal strength variations due to geographic features and nighttime ground/skywave interference. I'm looking forward to reading reception reports from WWFD listeners with auto HD receivers.
The AM HD sound quality is comparable to that of the WTLP HD3 signal, with perhaps a bit more lower end audio response (most notable on Bobby Bloom's "Montego Bay"). The AM audio is mono like the HD3s, but unlike the stereo stream. As mentioned elsewhere, the processing is not aggressive, somewhat underwhelming to my ears.
The night pattern switchover caused a 5 second audio drop out, the first I'd heard in several hours of listening. An intense storm moved through the area starting at 8:31PM and for the next 20 minutes, the audio dropped out for 5 second intervals about 10 times. Once the storm had moved through the area, the dropouts ceased. As would be expected with digital audio, the sound quality remained consistent throughout the entire weather event.
(The storm apparently affected Manning's facilities as WWEG, its 4 HD signals and W228AM were broadcasting dead air after the storm moved through. As I type this 2 hours later, WWEG's HD2 through 4 are missing and W228AM is still broadcasting silence.)
I, sitting in my living room with a Sony HD tuner, am obviously not the target audience of WWFD HD. They're looking for HD car receiver listeners, and it will be interesting to hear how the signal survives increasing distance from the transmitter, signal strength variations due to geographic features and nighttime ground/skywave interference. I'm looking forward to reading reception reports from WWFD listeners with auto HD receivers.
