• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Why are HD alt channels not advertised?

bulwnkl

bulwnkl

Hi, I’m new to this site. My wife has had HD radio reception in her vehicle(s) for a few years, but I only very recently got an HD radio. I love it! I’m curious about a couple things, though.

First and mainly: Why don’t any of the stations here promote their HD sub-channel offerings in any way? For that matter, why don’t they promote or even talk about HD broadcasts at all, even on the main channel? I _may_ have heard a single mention on KEZ of their ‘Breeze’ HD2 channel, but no better than I recall it, I may have simply heard an announcement on that channel that it was HD2. LOL. It appears to me that there will continue to be little or no demand or support for HD radio so long as listeners continue to have no idea it’s even there, let alone how much better it can sound.

Another question I have is why some HD sub-channels here sound very good (KJZZ’s HD2 jazz channel is an example), whereas others are decidedly poor (KOOL’s HD2, KROQ(?), is an unfortunate example here).

Anyway, ‘hi!’ :)
 
Welcome to radiodiscussions.

I can understand why many stations don't promote their HD subs if the subs are leased to other stations or companies.
They would be promoting the competition.
 
Quite a few Ancient Modulation stations that are on HD~Too frequencies do promote them. KFYI is goin' all out to identify theyselves with 95~Five HD~Too. But you're right, most FM's don't promote their HD~Too and HD~Three channels. Our hunch is they don't want listeners on their primary channel to wander off.
 
If you venture over to the station websites, they often have buttons to streams of their HD2s. For example, KMLE is promoting their HD2 that's programming artists appearing at Country Thunder. So there can me method to the madness.
 
You know what, you're right. I hadn't seen it, but KOOL does indeed mention their HD2 channel on the website. They list it as the 70s channel, which is HD3, but at least there's _some_ kind of acknowledgement that they have an additional broadcast available. (-: Streaming is not for me for several reasons, so perhaps it didn't really occur to me to search station sites for info about HD alt broadcasts. Thanks for that.

As an aside, I went to KESZ / KEZ website a couple(?) weeks ago to try to send them a note to say 'thanks' for turning on the HD transmitter (or back on, or whatever), but I could find neither an email address nor a web-based contact form. Plus, they apparently have no one who answers either the business phone or the studio phone, so I dropped it after a couple or three days. If they read this, I guess they'll know I was happy to hear the significant sound quality improvement.
 
DrAkbar said:
Quite a few Ancient Modulation stations that are on HD~Too frequencies do promote them. KFYI is goin' all out to identify theyselves with 95~Five HD~Too. But you're right, most FM's don't promote their HD~Too and HD~Three channels. Our hunch is they don't want listeners on their primary channel to wander off.
Click to expand...

The two biggest AM's missing from HD2/3 are KTAR 620 and KGME 910. An engineer at iHeart told me that they didn't want to add KGME to KEZ's HD3 (even with their brand-spanking-new transmitter with the latest bells and whistles) because he didn't want to degrade the main channel. So, why is iHeart leasing the HD3 of 95.5 out to KNLB in Lake Havasu City (it's been silent for more than a week though)? 620 would be a no-brainer on 92.3's HD3 (not 98.7 because they seem to lower the power of their HD and shut off the delay during live play-by-play, even away games, when a delay would be an advantage to TV viewers who don't want to hear Steve or Bob on FSAZ).
 
HD2,3 quality

bulwnkl said:
Hi, I’m new to this site. My wife has had HD radio reception in her vehicle(s) for a few years, but I only very recently got an HD radio. I love it! I’m curious about a couple things, though.


Another question I have is why some HD sub-channels here sound very good (KJZZ’s HD2 jazz channel is an example), whereas others are decidedly poor (KOOL’s HD2, KROQ(?), is an unfortunate example here).
Click to expand...

Some of these channels are received using bandwidth limited audio over IP devices, then not all HD-2 and 3 channels are allocated the same bandwidth in the HD scheme depending on station preferences. For example, KBAQ (89.5) only allocates minimal bw to Radio Bilingue and Sun Sounds, so that our main channel sounds very good in HD. There's only so many bits to go around. And then there's how a station processes the audio that can make a great diff in the HD realm.
 
I agree that the KBAQ HD-1 channel’s quality is indeed _very_ good! What you describe concerning the specific programming on the HD2 & 3 channels there makes perfect sense to do. I hadn’t thought much about the potential for source material to have been highly compressed before it’s received for broadcast here. Is IP-supplies material common in broadcast radio today?
 
EricStein said:
The two biggest AM's missing from HD2/3 are KTAR 620 and KGME 910. An engineer at iHeart told me that they didn't want to add KGME to KEZ's HD3 (even with their brand-spanking-new transmitter with the latest bells and whistles) because he didn't want to degrade the main channel. So, why is iHeart leasing the HD3 of 95.5 out to KNLB in Lake Havasu City (it's been silent for more than a week though)? 620 would be a no-brainer on 92.3's HD3 (not 98.7 because they seem to lower the power of their HD and shut off the delay during live play-by-play, even away games, when a delay would be an advantage to TV viewers who don't want to hear Steve or Bob on FSAZ).
Click to expand...


Why are they leading 95.5 HD# to KNLB? Because its money! And because I'm presuming KNLB uses it to feed translators they couldn't be able to legally feed without the HD3
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
Why are they leading 95.5 HD# to KNLB? Because its money! And because I'm presuming KNLB uses it to feed translators they couldn't be able to legally feed without the HD3
Click to expand...

I understand why iHeart leased out an HD3–and they have two side channels on 95.5 while the main channel still sounds good. My question is/was why won’t they do the same to KGME (simulcast it on an HD2/3) as they do for KFYI? KNIX has no side channels, but they supposedly use the bandwidth for traffic services .
 
I may be wrong but I think that 910 in Phoenix is now the only AM station in Arizona that uses HD. 1450 in Tucson used to but they appear to have dropped it. I can't imagine any station in one of the smaller markets shelling out the extra cash for AM HD.
 
"I agree that the KBAQ HD-1 channel’s quality is indeed _very_ good!" But ... before they added the HD channels, the were excellent.
 
CAVEMANager said:
I may be wrong but I think that 910 in Phoenix is now the only AM station in Arizona that uses HD. 1450 in Tucson used to but they appear to have dropped it. I can't imagine any station in one of the smaller markets shelling out the extra cash for AM HD.
Click to expand...

860 KNAI just turned their HD back on, but it doesn't decode well. KFYI is sporadic (long periods of it being on, followed by long periods of it being off).
 
EricStein said:
I understand why iHeart leased out an HD3–and they have two side channels on 95.5 while the main channel still sounds good. My question is/was why won’t they do the same to KGME (simulcast it on an HD2/3) as they do for KFYI? KNIX has no side channels, but they supposedly use the bandwidth for traffic services .
Click to expand...


Who knows? they do, they have a reason and thats all that matters. I'm sure with something like this, there's some internal thinking we radio geeks aren't aware of
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
Who knows? they do, they have a reason and thats all that matters. I'm sure with something like this, there's some internal thinking we radio geeks aren't aware of
Click to expand...

Whatever that reason is doesn't make sense. Hubbard is simulcasting their joke of a sports station on 100.7 HD2, so why isn't iHeart doing the same with a station that is slightly more relevant?
 
bulwnkl said:
I agree that the KBAQ HD-1 channel’s quality is indeed _very_ good! What you describe concerning the specific programming on the HD2 & 3 channels there makes perfect sense to do. I hadn’t thought much about the potential for source material to have been highly compressed before it’s received for broadcast here. Is IP-supplies material common in broadcast radio today?
Click to expand...

Very much so! In fact, KJZZ HD2 comes to us from Pittsburgh via a Barix reflector service. I know that KOOL-HD2/KROQ is also AoIP delivered (likely Barix). KOOL HD3 is played out from a local automation computer, with very good. source material. KBAQ HD-2 is via NPR Satellite, but even with a favorable wind, mostly sounds like crap right out of the receiver.
 
Very interesting!
In the evenings when KJZZ HD-1 and HD2 are playing the same program, is that from the same remote source? When I compare those back-to-back, there is clearly a difference in the sound. I assume that is related to the bandwidth allocation difference between the HD-1 and 2 transmissions?
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
Why are they leading 95.5 HD# to KNLB? Because its money! And because I'm presuming KNLB uses it to feed translators they couldn't be able to legally feed without the HD3
Click to expand...

I couldn't figure out for the life of me why a Havasu station would pay the pretty penny iHeart must be charging for this. Then I realized they are a "non profit" religious broadcaster. A look at all the translators they blanket the state with (https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/finder?call=knlb&x=13&y=0&sr=Y&s=C) and hanging a collection plate on the microphone must be damn good business. For a "non profit" of course. *eye roll*
 
beauduran said:
I couldn't figure out for the life of me why a Havasu station would pay the pretty penny iHeart must be charging for this. Then I realized they are a "non profit" religious broadcaster. A look at all the translators they blanket the state with (https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/finder?call=knlb&x=13&y=0&sr=Y&s=C) and hanging a collection plate on the microphone must be damn good business. For a "non profit" of course. *eye roll*
Click to expand...

Not as common here, but HD-to-translator leases are more common in other markets, particularly for ethnic and religious broadcasters. EMF also uses them.

In Tucson, KLPX's HD3 feeds a 92.5 translator. The programming is provided by Grupo Larsa Comunicaciones, the largest radio broadcaster in Sonora. Larsa doesn't have to worry about setting up a 75-25 company or asking for a declaratory waiver (the traditional and more recent ways Mexican broadcasters control US stations).

As for KYOT HD3, New Life owns KYOT's only dependent translator, K240DC in the White Tanks (Buckeye).
 
Last edited:
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom