Keep Central Nevada kinda weird.
The Problem: We have side channels for our FM signal, but we can't afford to upgrade to HD Radio.
Our Solution: We can deliver additional content to receivers enabled with RadioDNS and other in-car metadata platforms. This is also known as connected-car radio, or hybrid radio.
What You Do: Simply select the additional content on your screen, or scan the QR Code on your screen to access it.
I really love the concept of HD Radio—how it delivers images, text, and additional audio streams. However, for a tiny station like ours, the upgrade costs about the same as starting another similarly-sized radio station. It's a financial move that just doesn't make sense, at least for now.
But we have additional "side streams" that we'd love to deliver to our audience. Without HD Radio, the only other option is to find some backchannel—any backchannel—through the internet that could be used to connect to this additional content.
What's that? There is a backchannel? But FM radio is a one way medium!
I've rented many new cars in the past 5 years, and most come with RadioDNS or another metadata platform. This delivers a station image to the car, and on some cars, also offers additional links to supplemental audio (MPEG) content.
These supplemental content links are easy. I just put it in our RadioDNS code that our additional streams are the MPEG content. Then, in the car, you just tap on them. But this only exist in a few of the newest cars.
So the "hack" for the remaining 90%+ of cars is simple. We can send out a station logo image that appears when someone tunes to our station on 103.3. Our logo graphic includes a QR Code, whose function is self-explanatory to the listener. The QR Code points to our additional streams.
For example, a passenger in a car listening to us via FM on 103.3 MHz just scans the QR/logo that appears. That takes them to a page and/or progressive web app that hosts our streams! It might depend on how your brain works, but for some listeners, it might even be easier for them to figure out than how to find an HD subchannel (e.g., tuning to 94.1 and waiting a few seconds for 94.1 HD2 to appear as an option, then bump the dial "up").
And it's developing (and I really love this). RadioDNS, who apparently is thinking the same way as us, is working on adding a link between an FM radio station and its Android Auto App on the connected car dashboard. Another way to deliver additional content! I'm waiting with bated breath on that...
A side benefit to leveraging metadata services like RadioDNS is that when you leave our coverage area, some cars switch you to our online stream so you can continue to listen. You could technically listen to us all the way from Tonopah to Las Vegas, today, in a 2025 Audi Q7 (for example)!
As of this writing, we can't deliver slideshows or images that can change, like on HD Radio. But there are a few changes on the horizon there as well. But right now we can deliver unlimited text to your car's screen via our analog subcarrier, called RDS!
Some in the industry may mock ideas like this, and that's fine. Robert Goddard detailed the mathematical theory of rocket propulsion and even discussed the possibility of reaching the moon in 1919. He was ridiculed by the scientific community and even by an editorial in The New York Times. The New York Times published a retraction of their 1920 editorial in 1969, the day after the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Edit to add: yeah, I just compared this to the moon landing. lol