Wheatstone Partners With DaySequerra to Correct HD Radio Diversity Delay
Story Highlights
Wheatstone has announced yet another partnership for eliminating diversity delay errors between HD digital and FM analog signals. In 2015, Wheatstone partnered its audio processing technology with Belar’s FMHD-1 modulation monitor to create the first precise, real-time solution for aligning HD and analog FM diversity delay. Now, the lead audio processing manufacturer has teamed up its audio processing line and its Automation Control Interface (ACI) with DaySequerra’s new M4.2 TimeLock HD Radio receiver to eliminate delay errors between digital and analog signals on the fringes of HD Radio coverage.
ACI is the network-centric control protocol built into Wheatstone audio processors, including its popular new FM-55 and flagship AirAura spectral audio processors. This powerful feature, unique to Wheatstone Vorsis processors, enables processor parameters to be controlled by other, non-Wheatstone equipment via an Ethernet network within the radio station itself, or from anywhere in the world.
To remove time delay-related blend errors between digital and analog signals in HD Radio fringe areas, Wheatstone’s ACI protocol application works in concert with DaySequerra’s M4.2 TimeLock HD radio receiver to maintain perfect FM/HD time alignment.
The M4.2 continuously measures FM/HD time alignment errors and transmits any necessary diversity delay corrections back to the Wheatstone on-air processor. The end result is a consistent and seamless HD blend between analog and HD whenever HD Radio coverage is less than robust.
“The number one complaint we get from engineers is this problem of imperfect blending between the standard analog FM and HD Radio signals,” says Mike Pappas, VP of Market Development for DaySequerra. “By getting our firmware completed and tested with Wheatstone processors, we now have a way to solve this problem easily and cost-effectively for a large number of stations using their existing Wheatstone processors.”
By combining the Wheatstone processor’s ACI protocol and its diversity delay feature with the measurement capability of the M4.2, broadcasters no longer need to run their program audio through yet another device in the air chain just to maintain precision HD time alignment.
“Because all of our on-air processors already have the ACI protocol built in, a simple software upgrade opens up access to the HD diversity delay being controlled by the M4.2,” explains Jeff Keith, Senior Product Design Engineer at Wheatstone. “By using their existing Wheatstone processor and not adding to the air chain, broadcasters can keep the signal path pure and simple.”
Firmware updates to the M4.2 TimeLock are available here. Wheatstone’s AirAura X3, FM-531HD, VP-8IP, and FM-55 processors support HD Diversity Delay Control.
