Exclusive to this report: Broadcast Electronics wants to test conditional access for data applications related to HD Radio and it plans to begin real-time testing of navigation data on Emmis station WKQX(FM) in Chicago after NAB.
BE Vice President of Studio Systems Ray Miklius says the WKQX test will be a little different than the current audio testing of conditional access at WUSF(FM), Tampa.
“Navteq will provide some Chicago-area data to transport,” Miklius told me. That real-time traffic data is streamed with the HD Radio signal and interpreted by a navigation system and then mapped onto a display.
“On the HD Radio Importer, you provision audio channels and data pipes. We will provision a data service … and allocate some bit rate (for the traffic data) within the extended hybrid mode.” That bit rate would likely be somewhere between 4 to 8 kilobits per second.
Ibiquity calls sending this type of data Large Object Transfer, he said.
BE, NDS, Ibiquity and WKQX will also test whether the permissioning process works, such as provisioning a data channel, getting the serial number off a receiver and enabling it via NDS, which provides the ability to take an ecrypted channel and unencrypts it, to finally sending the data.
“On the receiver side, we’ll make sure the data got there and that it was a robust delivery,” Miklius said.
He wasn’t sure how long the testing would take, but said the system would be tested at during the day and night.
Paul Brenner is the WKQX engineer involved in the test.