HD Radio Auxiliary Transmitters?

[chriscervantez]

I’m just curious if there are any stations that have HD backups or if that’s not a thing? Here in Dallas, there are at least a couple stations that I’ll catch every now and then where there will be no HD subchannels, no text in the Artist/Title fields and no station logos. This usually happens late at night and by the morning, the subchannels, text and logos/album art are back.

 

[secondchoice]

If you're going to do any kind of heavy duty maintenance you would usually do it at night. Are the stations on the same tower? If so, I figure they're probably doing something at the main tower site which requires and them to use an auxiliary transmitter tower site that doesn't have HD and RDS capacity.

 

[xmtrland]

It depends on how the station is set up. If they have separate HD and analog FM transmitter then maybe they are working on the HD antenna/transmitter.

If they have an HD transmitter that does the main analog FM and HD transmission and kept the old analog FM transmitter as a backup. Then maybe they are running the analog transmitter when they are working on the main HD/analog transmitter. Even if they have a second AUX site, that site may not have an HD transmitter, just analog.

Over time the group I work for was able to replace the old analog transmitter at our separate aux site with an HD/analog transmitter so we can run HD from the main site and Aux site. However we still have an analog only transmitter at the main site as a backup to the HD main, but have not needed to run it in several years since we can switch to the Aux site and keep the HD running.

To answer your question. I think stations will replace the auxiliary equipment with HD if the budget allows.

 

[Kelly A]

To answer your question. I think stations will replace the auxiliary equipment with HD if the budget allows.

Exactly. For as much time as most stations have to rely on backup sites/transmitters anymore, the additional cost of HD for backups is a tough ROI.