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102.7 HD2 is off the air

Theater of My Mind said:
Check some of the other threads where Channel Q was being discussed. Maybe members in DFW and Phoenix can see if it's down there too.
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Here in DFW, Channel Q is still operational as of right now. However, there has been no localization at all, including the “KVIL-HD3 Highland Park-Dallas-Fort Worth” Legal ID insert. It’s just blank, like it was here in the very beginning. I’m guessing the automation has been yanked, while we await the end…

A quick rundown of current Audacy subchannels in DFW (as of 3/2 at 4 a.m. CST)

98.7 HD2 - 1080 KRLD simulcast (was Oldies Radio/Smokin’ Oldies)
98.7 HD3 - Defunct (was KLUV Classic Trax)

100.3 HD2 - 1080 KRLD simulcast (was Classic Country KJJK-HD2)
100.3 HD3 - The Bet

103.7 HD2 - The Oasis (Smooth Jazz)
103.7 HD3 - Channel Q

105.3 HD2 - 1080 KRLD simulcast
105.3 HD3 - CBS Sports Radio

107.5 HD2 - Fierro HD (Tejano)
107.5 HD3 - Dalé (Spanish CHR)
 
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They're probably saving money on WideOrbit in particular. I remember several years ago one of their HD subs used another automation system for that very reason.

The origin station was KNX HD2 in Los Angeles. Sometimes the automation would have problems and you would either hear their TOH ID or promos. If you go on TopHour, I sent a Legal ID of that happening on B96 Chicago's HD sub a few years back. It's up there.
 
Nathan Obral said:
Safe to say Channel Q will be shuttered entirely on Monday when the new owners take over KQPS via an LMA.
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I’m not entirely sure about that, considering they’re still on a translator in Seattle, and just heard Jordin Silver (a friend of mine, by the way) promote Adam Lambert’s new album and directing listeners to hear their interview online. It could be retained on the cheap.
 
For the past few days, Channel Q on 92.3 HD3 has been silent. But the display is still showing song titles. So it's not definite at this point that it has been shut down.
 
Barry said:
For the past few days, Channel Q on 92.3 HD3 has been silent. But the display is still showing song titles. So it's not definite at this point that it has been shut down.
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When I was last in New Orleans on 2/16 WEZB HD2 was silent but the text just said Channel Q. In Houston all Audacy stations besides 1 HD1 just have had station branding text for the past month.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
It just goes to show what a failure HD Radio is when the audio goes out on a subchannel in Market #1 and it takes them 3 days to notice and/or fix it.
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It’s not just HD Radio. I’m in market #5 and I hear various issues way too often on regular FM.

One Audacy station even had clicking/popping noises that would happen 5 or so times a minute. This happened late last year and didn’t get fixed for a few months. Not sure where the issue was, but I would’ve probably just left their backup on until it was fixed, as the backup wasn’t affected, nor was the stream. FM and HD were…
 
chriscervantez said:
It’s not just HD Radio. I’m in market #5 and I hear various issues way too often on regular FM.

One Audacy station even had clicking/popping noises that would happen 5 or so times a minute. This happened late last year and didn’t get fixed for a few months. Not sure where the issue was, but I would’ve probably just left their backup on until it was fixed, as the backup wasn’t affected, nor was the stream. FM and HD were…
Click to expand...

There's an iHeart station in Milwaukee, WRNW (The Packers flagship) that clicks and pops all the time. Started 4 years ago a few months after the current format launched. I E-Mailed the RVP who forwarded it to the PD and he gave me an arrogant response along the lines of "I listen more than anybody, and I don't hear it, so it must not exist" So it continues. There's is a serious lacking of engineers lately. If this was a few years back, there would be an engineer clearing that right up without anybody having to say anything. But many clusters don't have engineers now. They have contract people and corporate people looking after several cities at once.

There have not been many new younger engineers in the RF field to replace the ones who are aging out and leaving. iHeart let go of most of theirs, so a lot of them are overworked, taking care of several markets at a time. Everybody is overworked, and these companies cannot find engineers. Audacy is having just as much of a problem finding engineers as most companies are big and small.
 
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I listened briefly to Channel Q this morning. There was a short liner stating "Channel Q is back."
Perhaps the outage was related to the sale of KQPS, which may have been where the programming for the network originated.
BTW, it is not strictly music. There are some brief entertainment news type segments.
 
Barry said:
I listened briefly to Channel Q this morning. There was a short liner stating "Channel Q is back."
Perhaps the outage was related to the sale of KQPS, which may have been where the programming for the network originated.
BTW, it is not strictly music. There are some brief entertainment news type segments.
Click to expand...
Channel Q originated out of Los Angeles. I sent a message through Channel Q’s website when there were some issues here in Dallas and the Artist/Title info wasn’t showing on 103.7 HD3. I received a very prompt and friendly reply from Brian Holt, the PD/Brand Manager, and he said that he’d look into it. He was incredibly awesome and out of all this, I hope he’s doing well. Probably one of my favorite people I’ve ever communicated with and I wish there were more people in the industry like him!

I do try and give stations a friendly heads up when there are any issues. Usually the response takes several days and I understand that, but way too often, there’s no response at all. Not even a quick, “Thanks for letting us know!”
 
Barry said:
I listened briefly to Channel Q this morning. There was a short liner stating "Channel Q is back."
Perhaps the outage was related to the sale of KQPS, which may have been where the programming for the network originated.
BTW, it is not strictly music. There are some brief entertainment news type segments.
Click to expand...
The news updates are being updated, just talked about a story from tuesday and they do have liners stating "Channel Q is back Coast to Coast" on the web stream.
 
JeremyAndrews said:
There's an iHeart station in Milwaukee, WRNW (The Packers flagship) that clicks and pops all the time. Started 4 years ago a few months after the current format launched. I E-Mailed the RVP who forwarded it to the PD and he gave me an arrogant response along the lines of "I listen more than anybody, and I don't hear it, so it must not exist" So it continues. There's is a serious lacking of engineers lately. If this was a few years back, there would be an engineer clearing that right up without anybody having to say anything. But many clusters don't have engineers now. They have contract people and corporate people looking after several cities at once.

There have not been many new younger engineers in the RF field to replace the ones who are aging out and leaving. iHeart let go of most of theirs, so a lot of them are overworked, taking care of several markets at a time. Everybody is overworked, and these companies cannot find engineers. Audacy is having just as much of a problem finding engineers as most companies are big and small.
Click to expand...
I don't doubt there are problems with their signal and/or audio chain. But non-engineers usually hear the problems but don't understand how much time and effort (i.e., "grief") it takes to troubleshoot them. Just like in medicine, the prime directive is "First do no harm." Don't knock the signal off the air. Don't take pieces of the audio chain out of service if you can't patch in a functionally-equivalent piece of equipment in its place that is known to work property and be configured correctly. And the engineer has to be able to do that element-by-element until the malfunctioning piece is isolated. In an era of ultra-tight budgets, they may not have spares for every element, and may not be able to function without that element in the chain. If they switch to an auxiliary transmitter to troubleshoot an issue in the main xmtr, that may reduce ERP and thus coverage area. They may know which is the offending piece of gear but have to wait until a spare can be liberated from a sister station, or a vendor can provide a replacement. It gets complicated really quickly. And in a digital audio chain (which many are these days), the issues may be even harder to isolate.
 
Weiserguy said:
I don't doubt there are problems with their signal and/or audio chain. But non-engineers usually hear the problems but don't understand how much time and effort (i.e., "grief") it takes to troubleshoot them. Just like in medicine, the prime directive is "First do no harm." Don't knock the signal off the air. Don't take pieces of the audio chain out of service if you can't patch in a functionally-equivalent piece of equipment in its place that is known to work property and be configured correctly. And the engineer has to be able to do that element-by-element until the malfunctioning piece is isolated. In an era of ultra-tight budgets, they may not have spares for every element, and may not be able to function without that element in the chain. If they switch to an auxiliary transmitter to troubleshoot an issue in the main xmtr, that may reduce ERP and thus coverage area. They may know which is the offending piece of gear but have to wait until a spare can be liberated from a sister station, or a vendor can provide a replacement. It gets complicated really quickly. And in a digital audio chain (which many are these days), the issues may be even harder to isolate.
Click to expand...

There's several ways to narrow it down. 1. It happens when EAS is active (EAS should be the last thing in the audio chain) 2. It happens when the Aux transmitter is in operation. 3. It does not happen on the stream.

It's probably either the processor or the EAS unit.

Either way, after nearly 4 years of it, it's not a priority when there is not enough engineering. They usually get corporate people once a year to fix some things.

They have posted jobs for engineers that never got filled.

Just not enough people. It's simple as that. It's not just one cluster or station, it's many.

If companies want engineers, they need to take better care of them. A lot of them get taken advantage of.
 
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Theater of My Mind said:
I don't think there are any commercials either, are there?

Prior to Alt 92.3 on this subchannel, there was the New Arrivals Channel -- also commercial-free if I recall correctly. And prior to that it was K-Rock on auto-pilot under previous ownership, which was frankly a fantastic sounding jukebox...but also commercial-free.

I have never understood the business model of some of the HD jukebox subchannels. Not that I want to see them go away but I'm surprised many of them weren't turned off long ago.
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Despite shutting a number of HD subschannels around the U.S., Audacy just launched in Denver CO, an HD subchannel called Front Range Country. It plays Country songs from the 90's. I listened to it for a while online and was surprised that it had long strings of commercials. Many of them were for local businesses in the Denver area.
I wonder how Audacy was able to get so many advertisers on board for this. If they can do this for other HD subchannels, they may become a profitable segment of their business.

Front Range Country
 
Barry said:
Despite shutting a number of HD subschannels around the U.S., Audacy just launched in Denver CO, an HD subchannel called Front Range Country. It plays Country songs from the 90's. I listened to it for a while online and was surprised that it had long strings of commercials. Many of them were for local businesses in the Denver area.
I wonder how Audacy was able to get so many advertisers on board for this. If they can do this for other HD subchannels, they may become a profitable segment of their business.

Front Range Country
Click to expand...
Becasue it has a FM Translator and is not HD only.
 
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Barry said:
I listened briefly to Channel Q this morning. There was a short liner stating "Channel Q is back."
Perhaps the outage was related to the sale of KQPS, which may have been where the programming for the network originated.
BTW, it is not strictly music. There are some brief entertainment news type segments.
Click to expand...
Would it make sense to move it to 102.7 HD2 and then have more bandwidth for it and Alt 92.3?
 
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