WJFK launches first HD Radio quadcast

L-R - CBS Engineers Jeff Loughridge – Market Chief Engineer, Erich Steinnagel-Regional Director of Engineering, Glynn Walden Sr. VP of Engineering at official HD4 launch

Yes, when you are all-talk, HD Radio’s sound quality is good enough for four separate signals: CBS Radio has launched “The FAN Sports Network,” the first four channel HD Radio digital multicast station in the country.  WJFK-FM, 106.7 The Fan is now offering sports followers in the Washington, D.C. area subscription free access to CBS Radio’s biggest sports radio stations in the Northeast including Baltimore’s WJZ-FM (HD2), New York’s WFAN (HD3) and Philadelphia’s WIP (HD4).

Harris Broadcast provided ‘JFK with the complete transmission system to support this inaugural HD4 station.  Through the use of the HPX30 transmitter, WJFK is able to broadcast its sports quadcast within the new FCC-authorized power level.

Said Chris Oliviero, VP/Programming, CBS Radio, “This industry milestone is a great way to further promote and distribute the premier programming on CBS Radio’s exclusive portfolio of sports radio stations.  Washington D.C. is home to a diverse range of sports fans, many originally from other parts of the Northeast, making WJFK an ideal home for this breakthrough quadcast.  We’re thrilled to offer local audiences various opinions and insights from the best sports stations up and down the East Coast.”

RBR-TVBR observation: The now-allowable HD Radio power increase makes HD multicast channels more robust. Music stations as well as Talk FMs will find that power increase will provide more stable reception. Typically, the most robust digital reception begins with the HD-1 signal; and drops off some with the HD2 and HD3 signal. The HD4 has a bit less error correction.

Note: We tried the channels here in the DC area 3:30 PM 3/8. All three multicasts came up with the proper station IDs, but the HD-2 through HD-4 signals played only a blank carrier signal. We assume they're fine-tuning the engineering.

They were all on later in the day. The reason was SAS was doing an upgrade to the studio routing systems at the radio stations and had to periodically shut down portions of the system to make the upgrades. Everything is fine now.

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