Yes Patrick, WHP does use IBOC but only during the day when the station is nondirectional. The program director told me it would be very expensive to modify the night time directional array for IBOC and I guess Clear Channel didn't think it was worth the cost. If IBOC had become more popular the modifications might have been done. I wonder if the station pays less for an IBOC license since it isn't on all the time.
In a number of AM stations IBOC is only on daytime. WHJJ-920 (Clear Channel) and WDDZ-550 (Disney) didn't use IBOC at night. Both had too small a bandwidth for night pattern. We tried it at night at WDDZ. The distortion was so severe it wouldn't even decode in the transmitter building or in the parking lot. Current WBZS-550 (Salem) will not be using IBOC at all. FWIW, there was not one complaint about IBOC being gone on 550. I suspect that if the WHJJ-920 IBOC fails it may not ever be repaired. Probably won't be missed there, either. It's a talk station so sound quality is less important.
For WDDZ to use IBOC at night they would have had to replace the towers and most of the antenna tuning parts. Would have been a quarter million dollars, according to an estimate.
Craig Healy Providence, RI _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org To Post a message: [email protected]
