HD Radio in Bozeman

Since I've written a fair amount about HDTV in Bozeman, I figured I should put down my thoughts on HD Radio in the local area.

Prior to a trip home to Seattle earlier this year, I upgraded my vehicle's stereo to a JVC KD-HDR30 HD Radio equipped deck. I've been very happy with it, having used it extensively for CD-MP3 playback, connection to a portable MP3 player and of course HD Radio.

Out in Seattle the number of HD choices is almost overwhelming. I particularly found KNDD-HD2 (1077 the end) rather enjoyable, seeing as it played just 'local' music (which apparently includes Portland) without commercials.

In Bozeman, as you would expect, choices are not so numerous. In fact they number just two.

The first, and the one that I almost always have my radio tuned to is our local NPR affiliate, part of Yellowstone Public Radio (YPR), KBMC-HD (though it shows as KBMC-FM on my stereo). Interestingly, it is the only HD station listed by iBiquity (HD radio's creator) for Bozeman.

In terms of HD quality/features, the HD feed is noticeably clearer than their analog feed. They seem to have periodic bouts of downtime with the HD transmitter, where my deck is able to pick up that there is a digital signal (along with the call-letters), but is never able to lock onto the feed. In those cases I am forced to listen to their analog feed. Sigh.

They also have struggled with synchronizing the HD and analog transmitters, and as of late they are almost but not quite there. They have no program information transmitted with their HD feed, simply a static "YPR | Yellowstone Public Radio | Bozeman, MT" scroll. They also have no HD2 stations, which I certainly hope they will rectify soon (BBC News or NPR Talk please!).

In Googling around I also found a link talking a bit about how the system KBMC transmitter was set up.

The second HD station in town is our local Christian music station, 99.1 KCMM. Their HD feed is even less featured than KBMC's. It has no text sent with the station except for it's call-letters. Interestingly, the HD feed sounds drastically different than the analog feed. While the analog feed is very compressed (low dynamic range) and has some of the most over-emphasized bass I've heard on radio, the HD feed sounds as if it is coming straight out of the sound engineer's mixing board and skipping the compressor and EQ for the analog feed. One side effect of that, is that it appears to be almost half the volume of the standard station. So when it goes from analog to HD, you have to turn it up 10db to get the same volume, and when you lose the analog signal (or switch stations) you rush to turn it down before your eardrums implode.

Well, that's an overview of the HD Radio options in Bozeman, which are even sparser than the HDTV options. Until next time!

Snapshots of Each Channel

So here are some snapshots from each channel I can receive, along with the program I recorded it during for the HD channels. For the SD channels I'm not actually sure what each program is, as I never really watch them :-). All of these images were taken from the original transport stream using VLC with the Linear deinterlace filter on. Without further adieu, here they are (be sure to click on each image to see it at full resolution)!

KBZK-DT CBS (Numb3rs)


KBZK-CW CW (Unknown, feel free to leave a comment with what the show is)
KUSM-HD PBS (Nova)

KUSM-DT PBS

KTVM-HD NBC (Monk)

OTA HDTV in Bozeman

In case you didn't know, I am a bit of a home theater aficionado. While I am also a college student with no money, I have assembled a reasonable quality system using my computer as it's foundation. One way I introduce new new media into the system is through Over-The-Air (OTA) HDTV signals. The standard via which you recieve these signals is called ATSC.

As I am going to school at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, I unfortunately do not have the same sort of selection of HD channels that I would have back in Seattle. Fortunately though there is still some high-definition material on the airwaves. Below is a chart comparing each channel.

Bozeman HDTV Summary

Name	Type	Channel	Program	Res.	Progressive	Dolby 5.1?	Bitrate (Mb/s)
KUSM-HD	PBS	8	9.3	1080	No	No	14.27
KUSM-DT	PBS	8	9.4	480	No	No	3.03
KBZK-DT	CBS	13	7.3	1080	No	No	14.47
KBZK-CW	CW	13	7.4	480	No	No	2.73
KTVM-HD	NBC	34	6.1	1080	No	Yes	15.37

The bitrate readings were taken using TSReader Lite over a 5 minute period.

Important to me is the fact that only KTVM, our NBC affiliate, has audio in 5.1 Dolby. The rest have Dolby Surround compatible 2 channel downmixes. From what I have heard from the broadcast engineers, this is because of EBS regulations, and a lack of funds to purchase the required 5.1 Dolby encoder.

In terms of HD material, the KUSM-HD has beautiful HD material on the air 99% of the time. If I ever need to show someone how good HD can look, usually I'll pull them up.

None of the channels have local news in high definition, though anything that is on primetime usually is broadcast in HD.

You may be wondering where ABC & Fox are. The reason for their absense is the fact that they are not broadcasting digital signals yet, and are not expected to until the cutoff date. More worrying is the fact that even in Billings, where they are being broadcast digitally, neither one is in high definition. I intend to contact each of them and find out what their plans are for broadcasting digitally after the cutoff date.

Well there is a quick rundown of the different Over-The-Air digital options for Bozeman, Montana.

Edit: when I get a chance, I'll upload images of each channel during primetime.
Edit2: Woohoo! I got past Blogger's attempts to screw up my table.