Chalk up another first for WEOS!
In 2004, WEOS was the first HD Radio signal in western New York state, IIRC. Yesterday I finally got our Larcan DRT-01 & LA-25 tweaked properly, and W212BA is properly frequency-shifting the RX 89.7FM WEOS signal into the TX 90.3 W212BA signal. The cool part? It's shifting the HD carriers, too...so 90.3 is now a functioning HD Radio translator.
I'm only aware of one specific other FM Translator in the country that's doing this: K202BG, relaying KUER (and I think they were a prototype station). So I believe W212BA is the first HD-equipped FM translator east of the Mississippi. FWIW, we have serial numbers #4 for the DRT-01 exciter and #2 for the LA-25 amp.
I haven't done any serious drive testing yet, but just going home to Canandaigua and back (my car radio is a JVC KD-HDW10) I wasn't terribly impressed with HD Radio performance; it only seems to be solid out to the town borders of Geneva (not too surprising, actually) which is maybe a mile. However, I was pleasantly surprised how far the
analog signal went...with a few fadeouts in gullies, I was able to listen to W212BA well past Aloquin, even as far as the turnoff for Rt.247, which is about 10 miles (!!!) and don't forget WBER on 90.5 up by Victor. BTW, for the moment we're a little underpowered; the LA-25 will only cough up 24-25 watts TPO, and our gain is 2.0, so instead of 88 watts ERP we're at maybe 47 or 48w ERP. When Larcan builds a higher powered LA we're swapping it out.
