Seattle HD Radio Systems Fried and Locked to 94.9 FM

[seattlefollower]

Apparently the drivers can at least adjust the volume of their console so if they want silence, that is possible.

My question after reading both KUOW-FM's explanation and the Seattle Times article on the matter is "why can't the FCC step in and ask them to turn off their HD transmitter?" I'm not an engineer, but I believe the Xperi HDRadio portion of a station's hybrid-digital signal is optional and can be turned off, right?

I'm sure in Utah, one of the pub-casters would "die" for such a ratings/signal boost.

KUOW: We Didn't Mean To Ruin Your Mazda's Stereo

[kenglish]

I wonder what would happen if they just disconnect the car's antenna and battery, then reconnect the battery only, and re-tune to some other frequency.
That's how we always fix weird TV problems.
I read that the station may have sent some graphics without the proper codes. That may have been misinterpreted as something meant to change the software.

[CAwasinNJ]

In the coverage I've seen it seems to be the logo graphic the station was sending, which jives with what you said Ken. Looking at it from a software programmer's point of view that makes 100% sense to me. Without going into too much detail, malformed data that is interpreted by a computer have been a constant source of problems in the Windows/Mac/Linux space for decades. The result is usually that the computer crashes. The logical thing for the infotainment system to do if it crashes is to reboot, which is what I've read these radios are doing. The problem happens when it finishes rebooting and tries to go back to what it was doing before. It reloads the graphic, crashes, lather, rinse, repeat. My immediate thought was the same as yours Ken. Disconnect the battery and let the entire memory clear out and start over. The radio won't remember what it was doing and probably won't have permanently stored the graphic anywhere (because that would be dumb) and everything goes back to normal. According to GeekWire, KUOW stopped sending the problem graphic on Jan 31, so it should no longer be an immediate problem. According to a statement from Mazda to GeekWire, the problem was that the graphic had no extension. That makes sense to me too. As a side note, whoever it was at whatever dealer that was suggesting it had something to do with 5G cell service has zero clue about how any of this works and shouldn't be speculating about anything.

To answer SF's question, yes any station can turn off their digital transmitter at any time for any reason.

I've actually had a concern for years that something like this might happen on a TV signal, though digital radio didn't occur to me. In this case it apparently wasn't malicious, but somebody certainly could use a flaw like this that way. I can pretty much guarantee there are many more flaws in all HD radios that haven't been found yet. The saving grace is that it would be difficult to get access to transmitter infrastructure to launch an attack.