Miami's Digital Subchannel Offerings

I recently reviewed the HDR-16 portable digital radio in the "DX and Reception" sub-forum.
As usual, not all the HD subchannels are the same as the last time I was able to receive them.
For those of you who remain exclusively analog, here is a list of the digital subchannels I could receive.
My list only includes stations I could receive from within my RF shielded apartment,
and therefore does not include stations outside of downtown Miami or the antenna farm.
Gone are WSBR, WWNN, XtraHD, Reach-FM, Sputnik Radio, and DANU radio on FM-HD, and Radios Caracol and Disney on AM-HD.
I have no idea why WQAM and WINZ are each on two digital stations.
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WQAM (560) _______ 96.5.2 & _99.9.2
WIOD (610) _______105.9.2
WAXY (790) _______104.3.2
WINZ (940) _______ 94.9.2 & 103.5.2
Classical WLRN ___ 91.3.2
Extreme Hiphop ___ 99.1.2
Party 93.1 _______ 93.1.2
Radio Disney _____ 99.9.3
Revolution 935 ___100.7.2
SoulFire 105.1 ___105.1.2
The Bull (104.7) _ 93.9.2
Today's Life _____101.5.2
Totally 80's _____ 97.3.2

Correction...Danu Radio is back on 103.5.2 (in Ruski).

Maybe because cluster management has no imagination?

I found your post very interesting and timely. If I were in South Florida there would probably be just one HD-2 station on that list I would be interested in.

The post is timely because I just bought a new car stereo, more like an A/V system really and I made sure it had HD radio. It comes with a host of other options too provided you have a cell phone with a good data plan. The quality through the phone is so good I think the broadcast stations have something to be concerned about, especially from the crowd who wants to hear uncensored music (not me).

Mike Sheridan said:

If I were in South Florida there would probably be just one HD-2 station on that list I would be interested in.

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And which would that be?
My first would be Classical WLRN
and my second would be Soulfire.

ai4i said:

And which would that be?
My first would be Classical WLRN
and my second would be Soulfire.

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Likely "Today's Life" I worked at a soft A/C station from 1990-1994 and really enjoyed the music.

Now how about a Smooth Jazz station?

Mike Sheridan said:

Likely "Today's Life"

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Life would be my third choice.
A\C stations of that era (Today's Life does not play todays music) are similar to stations like SiriusXM's Love.
What I find educational about Soulfire is that my young listening habits were racially segregated
(no WAME or WMBM for this white boy)
and I was never aware that many of the songs I enjoyed on WQAM & WFUN were actually R & B.
Premerger XM had a channel called Soul Street which played R & B of the fifties and sixties very much like Soulfire,
but post-merger, the channel became Soul Town which airs much later stuff.

Has the audio quality on the Miami HD stations improved over the years? Not to be a complainer but when I purchased a replacement stereo for my car I made sure to buy one that did not include HD. When I last had it from 2008 until about 2011 I liked having more stations to listen to but the audio quality at the time wasn't very impressive. For example, WMIA would sound fine on analog but when the HD locked on it was as though a steamroller had taken a pass or two over the audio leaving it flat and lifeless with no real punch. I had essentially the same experience with other FM stations and the few AM stations that broadcast HD were pretty much a lost cause anywhere near powerlines or even city buses. Is it any better today?

strangelove said:

Has the audio quality on the Miami HD stations improved over the years? Not to be a complainer but when I purchased a replacement stereo for my car I made sure to buy one that did not include HD. When I last had it from 2008 until about 2011 I liked having more stations to listen to but the audio quality at the time wasn't very impressive. For example, WMIA would sound fine on analog but when the HD locked on it was as though a steamroller had taken a pass or two over the audio leaving it flat and lifeless with no real punch. I had essentially the same experience with other FM stations and the few AM stations that broadcast HD were pretty much a lost cause anywhere near powerlines or even city buses. Is it any better today?

Click to expand...

Most stations today use the same processor for analog and HD. An attempt is made to make the transition to HD seamless. There are still stations who use separate processors and the audio "complexion" does not match. These stations are shooting themselves in the foot, same as not properly syncing the HD sample timing to the analog host audio. Car dealers are turning off HD in new cars because of the complaint you're making and that is bad. HD radio *could* be a great technology and good for the business IF everyone implements it correctly.

The one true advantage of any digital platform is its infinite S/N ratio.
There could be other issues,
but the noise floor at the end of an infinite abyss is not one of them.

I also wonder why 93.9 WMIA, owned by iHeart, doesn't do Smooth Jazz on its HD channel, considering that was the home for many years of Love 94, a popular Miami Smooth Jazz station and considered one of the leaders in the format. OK, Smooth Jazz might no longer be viable as a regular format. But for HD, why not? iHeart has a Smooth Jazz service. When you listen on line, it gives its legal ID as "WCHD HD2 Kettering." WCHD, licensed to Kettering, Ohio, is the iHeart Top 40 station for Dayton. So Dayton gets a Smooth Jazz HD channel, even though I don't remember any long-serving Smooth Jazz station in that market or nearby Cincinnati. But Miami doesn't get one?

You get the feeling these HD channels are hit or miss, depending on the whim of the PD or GM.

"Radio Snail" is back to being the only AM in the market to creep and crawl in HD.
Snail traduce a la palabra Española, Caracol, a mil docecientos sesenta kilociclos.

DavidEduardo said:

Stations using processors with a stereo generator and pre-emphasis incorporated have to use a separate digital processor for HD.

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The processor can be the same but they may use different processing paths.
An Omnia9/11, Optimod 8600/8700 all process both HD and analog. The HD path separates at some point before clipping and the stereo generator.

DavidEduardo said:

The Miami station focuses on the interests of the very large Colombian community.

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Un caracol es un caracol es un caracol...LOL!

They have a saying in Columbia...
"Mi caracol es su caracol"

Back to seriosity though, the snail's website lists them on 99.2 in Bucaramanga and 104.0 in Cali.
How do they get those oddball frequencies?

I stepped outside of my RF shielded abode and heard subchannels on the only Palm Beach market station with a presence this far south.
HD-2 is 850 WFTL and HD-3 is something in Haitian Creol.

As for strangelove's question,
Yes, the commercial stations squash the HD-1s just as much as the analog.
You do not like dynamic range, do you?