HD Callsigns

[Scott Fybush]

Larry Weil wrote:
> I was talking to a friend in New York City about HD radio there.  He was 
> telling me that WINS (AM) is on the HD-2 stream of one of the FM 
> stations there.  He wasn't sure which one.
> 
> What he told me that was surprising is that the HD-2 stream has a 
> totally different callsign than either WINS or the FM station.  We 
> thought this unusual, neither of us thought that the FCC separately 
> licenses the HD-2 and HD-3 streams, nor assigns them callsigns.
> 
> Can anyone shine any light on this situation?

Last time I was in NYC, WINS was on the HD-2 of WWFS 102.7, ex-WNEW. Is 
it possible that your friend in NYC wasn't aware that the main channel 
on 102.7 changed calls from its longtime WNEW to WWFS when it changed 
formats last year? Or that WINS is still using the old WNEW calls in its 
ID? (Unlikely, I think, since the FCC's mandate for legal IDs on the 
HD-2 didn't go into effect until just a couple of months ago, by which 
time 102.7 was already WWFS.)

And, no, the FCC doesn't separately license HD subchannels. They are 
indeed covered under the main station's license.

s