AM HD Radio Is Alive and Well (?) in Detroit

[Inundated]

Had family business in Toledo today, so after that was done, I drove north into Michigan.

Didn't have enough time to go past Monroe, so I pulled out my Sangean HDR-14 radio and scanned the AM band to see what put a strong signal that far south. (I had the Sangean with me because my car AM radio is not great, with a lot of buzz on every station except strong locals.)

I got the usual 50 kW Detroit suspects, but saw WFDF/910 (now conservative talk "Detroit's News/Talk Superstation") AND religious talk WRDT/560 get an HD lock!

I wasn't even scanning for HD stations on AM. We have none here in Northeast Ohio...the last one was 1260 in its Radio Disney days. (Wasn't the Adell House of Talk a former RD station?)

[edj]

I rented a car recently with HD radio. WFDF is very shaky in Monroe and north to the western suburbs.

[ChrisWL1980]

1200 WMUZ is also in HD. I imagine all of Crawford's Detroit stations are - not sure about 1340 WCHB as I can barely receive them in analog here, let alone HD.
At night I can get 1210 WPHT out of Philly to flash in HD, but have never had it lock.
And yes, WFDF was originally Radio Disney when it first moved into the Detroit market.

[billmich88888]

what about 950 and 1270, didn't they turn their off?

[MWmetalhead]

Yup. Been off a good 18 months other than a very brief period where it returned on 950 for some unknown reason (that lasted less than a week).

[Ben Zonia]

I've heard WFDF and WWJ with IBOC in Stereo all the way to Pinconning on I-75 in the Daytime. I agree it seems like an unnecessary expense, especially for WRDT 560 and WCHB 1340. I wonder if there is something in their contract with Ibiquity that requires them to have it on at least part of the time.

[ftballfan]

Last Christmas I had WFDF lock in HD up in Manistee at night

[RayQix]

Will have to test this in the vehicle ….. since that’s the only place I have HD terrestrial radio


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[audiophile]

I think AM HD sounds nasty. If the engineers understood the AM codec is only a ~12k bitrate they wouldn't even try running stereo, even if it is "joint stereo" it uses 1k-2k of the 12k. They also need to prefilter the audio AFTER processing to reduce SBR artifacts.

Go read the patents on SBR, then you can understand what it is and how to fix it.

An AM talk station that sounds the DJ is speaking through broken glass is a hard listen.

[RayQix]

Yep at least 910 is in HD


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[audiophile]

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