Where's 106.7 HD3

[david]

106.7 HD3 is missing. The excellent New Arrivals channel was heard there. Any news about if this is a technical issue and it will be back... or if Audacy has chosen to remove it?

 

[pjc1961]

The streaming option for "New Arrivals HD" (WNYL-HD2-92.3 NYC) is still working at

https://www.audacy.com/newarrivals/listen#recently-played

Also, a similar version titled "ALT New Arrivals" is at

https://www.audacy.com/stations/altnewarrivals

I'll ask over on the NYC board if 92.3 HD2 is still operating over-the-air.
This could have something to do with the impending flip of WNYL 92.3 (main signal) to a simulcast of 1010 WINS
beginning on Thu. 10/27/2022 at 9 AM ET.
The current Alternative format on 92.3 is scheduled to move to the HD2 signal at that time.
There was no word in the press release on what would happen to the current New Arrivals HD2 feed.

Of course, this could just be a local issue at KROQ.

 

[pjc1961]

New Yorkers have responded: 92.3 HD2 New Arrivals is still on the air.

 

[radiojomo]

New Yorkers have responded: 92.3 HD2 New Arrivals is still on the air.

Do stations actually monitor listenership on HD2/HD3 streams? Wonder how many people still listen to the "stations within the stations," if they ever really did.

HD radio is standard on a ton of automotive infotainment systems and the sound quality is a little better than what most listeners likely experience on a streaming service. But, nowadays, it makes more sense to ask the listener to stream from the station's app or a smart speaker to listen to expanded content.

 

[Jstnpspck]

It's unfortunate KROQ seems to have dropped the HD3, though it falls in line with Audacy's de-emphasis of alternative as of late. I feel like they had a great thing going in that they were optimally using their HD channels (which so so so many stations fail to do)- KROQ on 1, ROQ of the 80's on 2, new alternative on 3. I can't think of any good reason for dropping the 3... saving a few pennies? saving on bandwidth?

Quasi-related (but KROQ related), I was somewhat shocked to hear them playing the most doctor's office-waiting-room edit of "Semi Charmed Life"- "crystal meth" was backmasked, and the entire chunk of the song between "feels like I could die and that would be alright" and the last chorus was taken out. More like the World Famous K-Soft...

 

[pjc1961]

After the format change at 92.3 WNYL NYC (now a simulcast of 1010WINS news radio), there was a reshuffling of their HD signals.
HD1 = News
HD2 = Alt 92.3 (a streamlined version of the alternative format that had been on the main signal)
HD3 = Channel Q

New Arrivals HD is gone from the NYC over-the-air dial.

It is still over-the-air on WQMP-HD3 Daytona Beach/Orlando (which is now the originating station for the online feed)
and on WWMX-HD2 Baltimore.

New Arrivals HD via Audacy website

Streaming URLs:

128 kbps, 44.1 kHz AAC: >>>http://live.amperwave.net/direct/audacy-wqmphd3aac-imc<<< (will open in Firefox but not Chrome)
128 kbps, 44.1 kHz MP3: >>>http://live.amperwave.net/direct/audacy-wqmphd3mp3-imc<<<

 

[yeoldeschool]

HD radio is standard on a ton of automotive infotainment systems and the sound quality is a little better than what most listeners likely experience on a streaming service.

Does that still hold true? Internet streaming bitrates and codecs were abysmal early on, but 128 to 256 kbit/s HE-AAC and AAC-LC streams have become much more common from my perspective. I actually wrote the KROQ CE and PD about 4 years ago, asking why they were still streaming at only 64 kbit/s instead of going to (or offering as a "super HD" alternative) a higher, codec-transparent bitrate, to take advantage of the fact that streaming video platforms had "shoestretchered" most ISP service tiers into permitting high, nearly/totally unlimited bandwidth, even on cellular providers. I basically pointed out that in the years prior, datacenter bandwidth had dropped to near zero in cost, and consumers meanwhile were sitting around watching Youtube videos, television shows, and movies via their ISPs for hours on end, even over 4G, at bitrates ranging from ~600 kbit/s (360p) to 1+ mbit/s (various levels of HD) without any regard to the bandwidth factor, because most providers had stopped cutting peoples' throats for high usage levels. So why not go to 160 or above with AAC-LC and sound fantastic? Anyway, back then, the KROQ CE and PD didn't seem to agree with my logic, but years later, I noticed that their stream for KROQ HD2 had been given a facelift to 128 kbit/s HE-AAC (see for yourself with ffmpeg or your favorite player: http://playerservices.streamtheworld.com/api/livestream-redirect/KROQHD2AAC.aac). And at least when I check out various other sources these days, it seems many others have finally seen the light I saw half a decade ago, and are following suit. Which to me means that online streaming definitely sounds better than IBOC -- and by a mile.

For what it's worth, I was never able to stand the sound of IBOC and actually resented the fact my car tuner had no way to be manually set in analog mode. Maybe I would have found it acceptable in a car (with help from road noise masking) if I were listening to a station dedicating its entire ~94 kbit/s to its HD1 (i.e. no HD2 or above). But every station that I ever listened to in HD had an HD2 (or more) and was always unlistenable to my ears, even with background to help mask the flawed audio's details.

I wonder if the radio industry, today, has lost sight of the apparent fact that IBOC was never designed to utilize these bitrates forever. The "~94 kbit/s ÷ [number of channels]" predicament we're still in was surely meant to exist only during a brief transitional phase, wherein they expected rapid uptake of HD radios, followed by the shutting down of analog, allowing IBOC's bitrates to go much higher. But that hasn't happened. And at this point, I can't imagine the public ever replacing enough of their analog-only tuners (now that it has moved on to being interested primarily in "devices") to permit shutting the analog signals off -- especially with fractions of ratings points mattering. So it seems like IBOC has become stuck in "everything above 2 kHz sounds gritty and slushy" land.

Which leads me to this. The latest O&O processors (among others) have made substantial improvements in their analog HF clarity and fidelity since IBOC was introduced. Is it possible to configure an IBOC encoder to not encode an HD1, so that tuners always grab the main audio from the analog signal, leaving the HD2 service (and above) to hog all the digital bandwidth for themselves? If this was in fact possible, then that is how I would run my stations -- if I owned a cluster or two. At the height of the processing wars, the radio industry nitpicked over every half-decibel of loudness, and fretted over every half-decibel of audible distortion. Entire careers and fortunes were made (Bob's, Frank's, etc.) inventing miraculous techniques to mask distortion vs. the desired loudness levels of the day. Why, then, the radio industry doesn't see hugely audible IBOC codec artifacting as today's uncancelled clipper distortion blows my mind. I see codec artifacts as "distortion uncanceled coding." To me, broadcasting 30 kbit/s HD1+HD2+HD3 is the equivalent of driving pre-emphasized treble 12 dB deep into a diode in 1955. And even then, at least analog clipping is made of harmonics and sum/difference inharmonics that are somehow related to the audio going non-linear. Coding artifacts, by comparison, sound completely artificial. They're also worse because they're continuously present whereas analog clipping is only audible during the particular milliseconds something is going over the clipping threshold. With all that in mind, I would have to think -- and again, especially with what the latest analog processing can do to keep the HF sounding competitive with digital -- that any sane station with a compelling non-afterthought product on its HD2 should be trying to turn off its HD1 in order to revolutionize the sound of the HD2 in the same way the Optimod 8100 revolutionized the sound of loud analog FM by canceling away all its audible distortion. Because, again, it just seems like an analog shut-off is never going to happen on FM. And without that shut-off, doing what I'm proposing (if possible) would be the second best thing, in terms of finally getting away from the horrid temporary IBOC bitrates we're all hearing.

P.S. I always sort of suspected these temporary bitrates (~94 kbit/s ÷ [channels]) may have been why IBOC's designers and the main processor manufacturers apparently came to an agreement whereby each HD waveform would be limited to -6 dB except for short-term transients (and possibly slightly less leaning on the multiband compression), with tuners playing the HD output +6 dB louder than the analog whenever they switched back and forth. It's almost like they needed to force every HD signal to sound "noticeably more alive and punchy" spectrum-wide to impress lay listeners as a distraction from how gritty and slushy its high spectrum actually sounded -- again, during the low bitrate transition period. I mean, yes, the HD also lacking the HF energy loss caused by the analog's pre-emphasis limiting would have also been impressive by itself. But had that been the only audible improvement, people's attention would have been drawn directly to and only to the very part of the audio drowning in artifacts. So I always figured that the 6 dB headroom allotment was agreed upon to help sell the system during its difficult transition period -- to make the codec noise medicine go down. Because once the analog finally did go away (and the bitrates went up), I always figured that at least one station in every market would eat that entire 6 dB in order to achieve 200% loudness vs. its format's competitor, forcing everyone else to sound shockingly quiet, and thereby forcing everyone else to double their loudness levels as well -- ending the improved dynamic range of HD once and for all. Anyway, if my instincts are correct about this headroom having been a way of helping mask the temporary bitrates' audible downside (one they knew the industry wouldn't be able to resist gobbling up forever), then I suppose this little postscript can serve as further evidence that the bitrates we hear on-air weren't meant to be around this long.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Does that still hold true? Internet streaming bitrates and codecs were abysmal early on, but 128 to 256 kbit/s HE-AAC and AAC-LC streams have become much more common from my perspective.

Absolutely not. Streaming services are almost always at a higher bit rate than a HD2 or HD3 channel, because of the limitations of IBOC.

Arguably that's been the case since the dawn of HD, although such bit rates would not have been possible through the mobile networks of the time.

 

[yeoldeschool]

You seem to be agreeing with me, not disagreeing. Did you miss where I said "Internet"?

 

[PTBoardOp94]

"Absolutely not" is the answer to the question in the quotation. I didn't read every word of the dissertation you provided.

 

[Lou_S]

Is it possible to configure an IBOC encoder to not encode an HD1, so that tuners always grab the main audio from the analog signal, leaving the HD2 service (and above) to hog all the digital bandwidth for themselves?

Nope. The FCC requires the first HD channel to duplicate the main channel programming.

 

[yeoldeschool]

Nope. The FCC requires the first HD channel to duplicate the main channel programming.

What if that FCC requirement were eliminated?

What I was asking was whether IBOC encoders can be configured to produce broadcast signals that cause all receivers to stay with the analog signal and never try automatically switching to digital when the user tunes to the main frequency. If it were possible to do that, then each station could completely omit any HD1 stream from its mux. Then they could dedicate 100% of their digital bandwidths to their HD2s so their HD2s could actually sound good.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

What if that FCC requirement were eliminated?

Then many existing HD-capable tuners would be unable to tune the analog program, because tuners assume this rule is in place.

 

[yeoldeschool]

Then many existing HD-capable tuners would be unable to tune the analog program, because tuners assume this rule is in place.

Then that's a terrible design. Laws and regulations can change arbitrarily at any time. I had presumed that somewhere within the IBOC standard, there would have been a stipulation telling receiver designers something like "firmware MUST tune the analog version if the user chooses service #1 but the mux doesn't contain an HD1." To not code for this condition (because a potentially-ephemeral law says it should never exist) is what you one would ordinarily refer to as a bug. Especially when that condition might exist by accident regardless of FCC regulations (e.g., an encoder that barfs and stops including an HD1 mux ... now you're "off the air" to everyone with such a receiver even though your analog signal is still there).