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WRRK

1

192khz

What is with the multipath or just bad signal?

I'm not even in a distant or fringe area to recieve the signal. Sometimes the rds signal isn't enough to have my radio recieve it. The pilot / stereo signal level must not be enough or maybe it's just bad multipath.

I've tried this on two car radios and about 5 portables and the signal is still faulty in areas that should be perfectly decoded with HD/FM/STEREO/RDS.
 
192khz said:
What is with the multipath or just bad signal?

I'm not even in a distant or fringe area to recieve the signal. Sometimes the rds signal isn't enough to have my radio recieve it. The pilot / stereo signal level must not be enough or maybe it's just bad multipath.

I've tried this on two car radios and about 5 portables and the signal is still faulty in areas that should be perfectly decoded with HD/FM/STEREO/RDS.
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How's your reception of WYEP (91.3)? They transmit from the same location as WRRK albeit at a lower power. WRRK is class B (50 kW @ 150 meters equivalent) whereas WYEP is class B1 (25 kw @ 100 meters equivalent).

If WYEP sounds better than WRRK than I would say it might be an issue with WRRK's signal.

Also, WRRK uses MP3 extended hybrid mode (not related to the audio format at all) for their HD radio signal, which places digital carriers closer to the analog signal than the MP1 mode that most other stations use. Depending on your radio's selectivity these "extended partitions" might be interfering with your analog reception.

92.9 WLTJ and 98.3 WPKV also use MP3 mode if you'd like to compare.

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Their analog signal sounds okay to me. But I can walk to the nearest street corner and see their tower. Though my apartment faces the opposite direction.

Driving, the analog range of WRRK seems good, though I've found my car has an extremely selective FM tuner. My car tuner supports HD radio but not RDS (so I need an HD lock to see artist and song title).
 
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In my opinion their audio is just plain awful. The audio quality went to hell back when they moved from Greentree to the center city tower downtown.

They couldn't get an STL hop from the downtown location so they had to use a different method. I don't know what method they chose in the end but it sounded terrible. I don't know what other changes they made to the airchain at that time.

When their Studios were in Greentree they had some of the best FM audio in the city. I'm not even addressing the HD1 and the sub changes. I've been told their bad but I haven't checked lately. I know they had 3 or 4 sub channels. That would explain the poor audio.

HD Radio is one of the greatest failures of our time. The dog is dying but they keep trying to get new suckers to adopt it.
 
xm41 said:
I'm not even addressing the HD1 and the sub changes. I've been told their bad but I haven't checked lately.

HD Radio is one of the greatest failures of our time. The dog is dying but they keep trying to get new suckers to adopt it.
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Oh yeah, their HD1 sounds about as bad as their HD2 and HD3. It was probably about 9 months ago but I found each was about 30 kbps using my RTL-SDR USB stick with some freeware from a guy who cracked the patent-laden trade secret.

I like HD radio because I find the technology fascinating. I also like the basically commercial-free subchannels. They play a lot of music I wouldn't discover otherwise. But, the audio quality leaves a lot to be desired. They're just trying to cram too much into a small bandwidth.
 
xm41 said:
On a whim I just orders a Sangean HDR-16 HD from Amazon. We'll se if HD Radio has gotten any better, :)
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I guess you're the sucker then šŸ˜! JK, but I do like 92.9's subchannels and 94.5 HD2. I also find WYEP 91.3 sounds way better in HD because they decide the full bandwidth to their HD1.

If the Sangie sucks you can just send it back to Amazon!
 
NewtonSecond said:
Oh yeah, their HD1 sounds about as bad as their HD2 and HD3. It was probably about 9 months ago but I found each was about 30 kbps using my RTL-SDR USB stick with some freeware from a guy who cracked the patent-laden trade secret.

I like HD radio because I find the technology fascinating. I also like the basically commercial-free subchannels. They play a lot of music I wouldn't discover otherwise. But, the audio quality leaves a lot to be desired. They're just trying to cram too much into a small bandwidth.
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I was one of the first people to get XM radio back in 2003. For a few years I absolutely loved it. The sound quality was damn close to CD and the depth of music they played was amazing. Everything came to a crashing halt when they decided to compress the hell out of the bandwidth for the music channels so they can add all the sports channels. XM was designed to be a music service. When they tried to be everything to everyone they shit the bed. Things got even worse when they merged with Sirius and did away with the deep playlists.
 
NewtonSecond said:
I guess you're the sucker then šŸ˜! JK, but I do like 92.9's subchannels and 94.5 HD2. I also find WYEP 91.3 sounds way better in HD because they decide the full bandwidth to their HD1.

If the Sangie sucks you can just send it back to Amazon!
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People can say whatever they want about Amazon, but you could literally return a dead cat and get a full refund. :)
 
xm41 said:
I was one of the first people to get XM radio back in 2003. For a few years I absolutely loved it. The sound quality was damn close to CD and the depth of music they played was amazing. Everything came to a crashing halt when they decided to compress the hell out of the bandwidth for the music channels so they can add all the sports channels. XM was designed to be a music service. When they tried to be everything to everyone they crap the bed. Things got even worse when they merged with Sirius and did away with the deep playlists.
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I'm surprised the hear that XM once sounded good! I have the free trial right now and scrolled through the channels the other day... so much BS! Definitely not going to pay for that.
 
NewtonSecond said:
Oh yeah, their HD1 sounds about as bad as their HD2 and HD3. It was probably about 9 months ago but I found each was about 30 kbps using my RTL-SDR USB stick with some freeware from a guy who cracked the patent-laden trade secret.

I like HD radio because I find the technology fascinating. I also like the basically commercial-free subchannels. They play a lot of music I wouldn't discover otherwise. But, the audio quality leaves a lot to be desired. They're just trying to cram too much into a small bandwidth.
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How do I get the hd sdr software?
 
xm41 said:
People can say whatever they want about Amazon, but you could literally return a dead cat and get a full refund. :)
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They do, however, have an algorithm that looks at your purchase history, analyzes returns on a number of criteria (defective, wrong size/fit, did not like, etc.) and determines when a customer is "normal" and when they are doing things like ordering a dress shirt, wearing it to a wedding and then returning it the next day.

I've never had a return questioned, but I order over 1,000 things a year and have been a customer since I bought my first book about 25 or 26 years ago. The good thing is that they have so many customers and so much experience that they can create such an algorithm that is fair and effective.

One of the interesting things is that shoplifting is becoming so extensive at retail and Amazon can "discount" items because they don't have "shrinkage" and cover the shipping and more and yet sell below local retail in most cases.
 
192khz said:
Yep! The only stations not doing hd are mainly 99.7 which sounds terrible, 104.3, 105.5, and 107.3
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One of the biggest reasons that HD Radio is a failure is that it shot itself in the foot when launching. The first lineup of radios with HD Tuners were flat out terrible. Even before consumers could buy them reviewers were publishing reviews complaining about how terrible they were. I know people that worked in electronics retail at that time and the told me the new HD Radios were the number one returned item that year.

Eventually manufactures started making decent tuners but by then it was too late.

The Sony XDR-F1HD is not only HD, but it's one of the most sensitive and selective FM tuners ever made. It's AM performance is only so-so, (anytime an AM tuner comes with a external plastic wire loop antenna you know it's going to suck).
 
xm41 said:
One of the biggest reasons that HD Radio is a failure is that it shot itself in the foot when launching. The first lineup of radios with HD Tuners were flat out terrible. Even before consumers could buy them reviewers were publishing reviews complaining about how terrible they were. I know people that worked in electronics retail at that time and the told me the new HD Radios were the number one returned item that year.

Eventually manufactures started making decent tuners but by then it was too late.

The Sony XDR-F1HD is not only HD, but it's one of the most sensitive and selective FM tuners ever made. It's AM performance is only so-so, (anytime an AM tuner comes with a external plastic wire loop antenna you know it's going to suck).
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Also, this applies to any station that is doing hd: Once your out of the local signal and starting to head where your distant from the Transmitter you'll most likely loose your hd signal unfortunately.
 
192khz said:
Also, this applies to any station that is doing hd: Once your out of the local signal and starting to head where your distant from the Transmitter you'll most likely loose your hd signal unfortunately.
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I remember seeing an article about a 5 watt station, I think it was a high school station running HD because they got a grant to put in new equipment. A real case of having more money to spend then common sense. :)
 
Apparently WPSU and WPSX (the State College NPR affiliate) use HD radio on all l of their translators. I was in Clearfield the other weekend was was stunned when my car locked onto an HD signal from their 104.7 translator!

From their website: Frequently Asked Questions - HD Radio

I've read that translators can use a frequency shifting technique to just shift the frequency of the parent without having to buy a new HD transmitter (and all the associated fees for the trade secret), but I'm not sure if this is actually what WPSU/WPSX is doing.
 
xm41 said:
The Sony XDR-F1HD is not only HD, but it's one of the most sensitive and selective FM tuners ever made.
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It's too bad that radio had overheating issues though. And like $200 used on eBay, and extra time, effort, and/or money if you want to upgrade it to handle the heat (there is a guy you can pay $100-200 to replace components with better rated ones and add a fan).

I wish Sony would've improved the design or licensed it to someone else when they left the HD radio market. The Sangean HDT-1X (which I got for about $100 used on eBay) blends stereo to mono extremely agressively on weaker (analog) signals, though reports say it performs similarly to the XDR-F1HD on HD signals.

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Image source: Sony XDR-F1HD

If it weren't for the issues I would spend $200 on it used, though I'm not in that case it would be more like $400 used! If only I'd gotten it for $50 bucks new with the rebate, though I was probably too young to even know what HD radio was at that point.
 
NewtonSecond said:
It's too bad that radio had overheating issues though. And like $200 used on eBay, and extra time, effort, and/or money if you want to upgrade it to handle the heat (there is a guy you can pay $100-200 to replace components with better rated ones and add a fan).

I wish Sony would've improved the design or licensed it to someone else when they left the HD radio market. The Sangean HDT-1X (which I got for about $100 used on eBay) blends stereo to mono extremely agressively on weaker (analog) signals, though reports say it performs similarly to the XDR-F1HD on HD signals.

View attachment 2114FMdx
Image source: Sony XDR-F1HD

If it weren't for the issues I would spend $200 on it used, though I'm not in that case it would be more like $400 used! If only I'd gotten it for $50 bucks new with the rebate, though I was probably too young to even know what HD radio was at that point.
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The XDR-F1HD is one of those famous flukes like the Realistic Minimus 7 speakers. It turned out better than it was supposed to be. I have the Sony XDR-S3HD table radio model that I use for FMdxing. It's got the same tuner without the heat problems. They can be had on eBay for under $100. Of course none of them come with the damn remote. :)
 
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