Loud and clear: Howard University's radio station goes digital.Howard University's WHUR (96.3FM) is leading the way to the next big thing: high definition radio. The adult contemporary station is the first commercial radio station in the Washington, D.C., market to broadcast using this digital signal, which provides superior sound-quality, the same way HD television provides better picture quality. For now, this improvement allows WHUR listeners to hear a clearer analog signal An analog or analogue signal is any time continuous signal where some time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity. It differs from a digital signal in that small fluctuations in the signal are meaningful. and will eventually send compact disc quality through the airwaves airwaves Noun, pl Informal radio waves used in radio and television broadcasting when HD radios are brought to market in the next two years. "A lot of African Americans African American Multiculture A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. See Race. spend a lot of money on their sound systems and HD receivers will cost only about $200 for your car. From that standpoint this is not even a gamble, we are just an early adopter," says Jim Watkins Jim Watkins, an Ohio native, is the co-anchor of the weekday edition of CW11 News at Ten on WPIX-TV. He joined the station in 1998 after three years working at WNBC-TV in New York. , WHUR general manager. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the developers of HD radio technology, iBiquity Digital Corp., only 300 stations throughout the U.S. have converted to digital so far, and the radio conglomerates A Conglomerate is the term used to describe a large corporation that consists of diverse divisions. Conglomerate companies tend to be large multinational corporations with operations in multiple regions of the world. are slow to adapt. "We thought it would have been more big market stations embracing this, but it's been all over the map," says iBiquity CO0 Jeff Jury, noting that the first to switch to digital was an FM station in Detroit. "It will take close to a decade to convert all the stations, but we expect stations in metros with big populations to convert in the next two to three years." Watkins says the timing was right for WHUR to convert because its transmission system was a bit antiquated. "The antenna was the same one I put in when I was chief engineer in 1971," laughs Watkins. But more seriously, Watkins says the investment, which at minimum cost, $30,000 to $90,000, made fiscal sense. When fully developed, HD radio will allow text messaging Sending short messages to a smartphone, pager, PDA or other handheld device. Text messaging implies sending short messages generally no more than a couple of hundred characters in length. to be sent to a listener's sound system. This will allow stations to send listener's artist and music title information, in addition to providing another advertisement outlet. "We are the only stand-alone station in the market," says Watkins. "We are competing against Clear Channel and Radio One. Anything we can do to get an edge, we have to go for it," Watkins rationalizes, |
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