I did not know this. What is the traditionally-defined word for that stuff that we all heard a lot where I grew up (waaaayyyy out in the country), that got worse and worse as you got farther and farther from an FM transmitter? It's a kinda white noise-like sound. We called it static.
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The Beginning of the end for HD Radio
- Thread starter stewie
- Start date
I did not know this. What is the traditionally-defined word for that stuff that we all heard a lot where I grew up (waaaayyyy out in the country), that got worse and worse as you got farther and farther from an FM transmitter? It's a kinda white noise-like sound. We called it static.
They haven't made the 'walkman' portable satellite receivers for quite a while, have they? I had one as an XM subscriber a very long time ago. They had some tabletop options then, too. As I recall, they were like docking stations for the walkman-type receivers. The trouble was always drilling holes and running antenna wiring to get the antenna a view of the sky and then get that to wherever your 'radio' was.
And every time I'd go to NY, I checked to see if it was back. Several times I had to have it disconnected yet again. Finally, an order was made to simply remove and dispose of the unit.
I bought one of the walkman-type portables that strapped to one's arm. I tried using it to ride my bike around town and it cut out so many times I never used it a second time.
That is just fringe area fading.
That’s how I used mine, a lot. I didn’t have that trouble riding my bicycle to work and back for a while. There weren’t any tall buildings or anything where I lived then.
I had one of the arm band HD receivers in the Bay Area. It worked great, right up to the point where it was stolen... Since then, I've moved. Unfortunately, my only HD station (WMPN) is far enough away to make the HD reception kind of questionable for those little headphone antenna style receivers. These days I just use HD in the home and car, which works fine.
I've wanted an armband HD 'walkman' for some time. The signals here should be plenty strong for them to work most of the time for me (a couple I'm sure won't, as they struggle even in the cars near the house). However, what little feedback I could find made it seem like they last a certain amount of time (I forget; a year? Two?) and then 'burn out.' Since they're out of production, Audiovox or whomever can't replace them even if they're under warranty.
...originally I was talking about a 'walkman'-style XM radio, though. Those Pioneer units seemed to be fairly durable. At least mine was.
...originally I was talking about a 'walkman'-style XM radio, though. Those Pioneer units seemed to be fairly durable. At least mine was.
I think they called them "Stiletto radios." Elton John did the ad campaign.
If you were in a major metro, it is likely there were terrestrial repeaters. Where I live, there are none and there are loads of NIMBY regulations against towers. My cellular gets one bar of signal, and I have tried all three major carriers.
May I suggest a Zune HD?
Don't laugh...
Zune HD had amazing FM and digital reception.
Used and refurbs are sold on eBay, there's still an active user community on Reddit, and guides for resetting/updating firmware without the device needing to connect with long decommissioned Microsoft servers.
All of the above. There is no "one-size-fits-all" approach.
There are a few bright spots for listeners, mostly in major markets...
AM stations simulcast on FM HD-2/3s are useful if you have HD radio in the car and want to hear those stations clearly without messing with your phone/apps to do it
Audacy runs New Arrivals on the HD2 of some of its Alternative stations, and it sounds very good. Alternative fans can quickly toggle back and forth between the main "Alt' channel and HD2 without buffering delays for a mix of older and new songs.
iHeart and Audacy both run LGBTQ formats on HD2 in some markets. There are some niche formats like that which lend themselves well to the subchannels.
After a format flip the purged format often lands on an HD2 channel. It's usually an automated shell of its former self but at least the music lives on to fill the format hole left behind. The former country station in NYC, now on HD2, even has personalities
WBLS in NYC has run a couple of artist-specific formats on its HD2 recently. They're currently running a month-long Notorious B.I.G. tribute. Some of us believe it's placeholder content until they lease out the channel, who knows? But in any case you can't stream an artist-specific channel like that due to DMCA rules, however you can do it over the air on an HD2.
Then of course there's the public radio situation, where there is an overabundance of content and a shortage of ways to present it. So some public stations use their HDs to present formats or shows that don't attract enough funding for the main channel.
I think HD Radio provides FM radio broadcasters with choices in programming. If they want to re-arrange, it's just some re-programming of the channels. It's not necessarily a choice requiring physical changes to their transmitter facilities.
With AM HD, it's a choice of quality and legacy listeners. Going all-digital gives better quality to listeners that have the radios. Remaining on analog AM keeps your existing audience from having to change equipment, though that audience may be in decline.
Of course the big thing is capitol cost. Updating the transmitter facilities for HD Radio requires a financial commitment to that future. Not all broadcasters can afford it, and their audiences may not be demanding it.
As for streaming, well the listeners need some kind of subscription. At a minimum, you need to subscribe to, or freeload from somebody else's Internet connection. You may have to register, and maybe pay for some kind of streaming subscription on top of the Internet connection. With a radio, you just turn it on, and tune into a station. Not all listeners want to, or will register, just to listen to some audio programming.
For fun, while cruising in my car earlier today, I flipped on HD mode on the FM tuner for the first time in nearly a year.
Lo and behold - WMXD, WJLB, and WLLZ here in SE Michigan (iHM owned) completely removed all HD2 and HD3 streams. WKQI, which didn't have any HD2 or HD3 streams a year ago, still has none. The only iHM station to have HD-only 'side channels' was WNIC (which still carries "Sunny" on its HD2). WMXD and WLLZ each previously had HD2 & HD3 offerings, and I want to say WJLB had an HD offering previously.
WDRQ (Cumulus), which used to run its main station in HD1 and until a couple years ago had an HD2, still has HD completely turned off. Its sister station, WDVD, still has HD on and is still running 760 WJR on its HD2. However, the audio levels were so low it was virtually unlistenable!
Beasley has removed most of its in-house HD-only programming. 94.7 WCSX's HD2 & HD3 are now farmed out to third parties (Woodward Sports and Smile FM, respectively). 105.1 WMGC no longer offers an HD2 or HD3 stream.
Oh, when I listened to the primary HD channels, I was greeted with plenty of tinny sounding digital audio artifacts. In nearly every case, the audio sounded worse than the companion analog FM channel and reminded me of Sirius XM.
As soon as I pulled into my driveway, I turned HD mode back off. As an audio consumer, at least where I live, I fail to see its value.
I will see Audacy will still running WWJ on the HD-2 of WXYT-FM, Smooth Jazz on the HD-2 of WDZH, and programming for the LGBTQ community on the HD-3 of WDZH (audio sounded terrible). On WOMC HD-2 they were running Oldies and on its HD-3, they were airing local musicians. So, they are pretty much the only company - at least locally - putting any effort into developing unique HD content. Their reward for such efforts? Probably $0 or almost $0 for their top line. Why even bother? The resources devoted to those efforts could be more productively deployed elsewhere.
Lo and behold - WMXD, WJLB, and WLLZ here in SE Michigan (iHM owned) completely removed all HD2 and HD3 streams. WKQI, which didn't have any HD2 or HD3 streams a year ago, still has none. The only iHM station to have HD-only 'side channels' was WNIC (which still carries "Sunny" on its HD2). WMXD and WLLZ each previously had HD2 & HD3 offerings, and I want to say WJLB had an HD offering previously.
WDRQ (Cumulus), which used to run its main station in HD1 and until a couple years ago had an HD2, still has HD completely turned off. Its sister station, WDVD, still has HD on and is still running 760 WJR on its HD2. However, the audio levels were so low it was virtually unlistenable!
Beasley has removed most of its in-house HD-only programming. 94.7 WCSX's HD2 & HD3 are now farmed out to third parties (Woodward Sports and Smile FM, respectively). 105.1 WMGC no longer offers an HD2 or HD3 stream.
Oh, when I listened to the primary HD channels, I was greeted with plenty of tinny sounding digital audio artifacts. In nearly every case, the audio sounded worse than the companion analog FM channel and reminded me of Sirius XM.
As soon as I pulled into my driveway, I turned HD mode back off. As an audio consumer, at least where I live, I fail to see its value.
I will see Audacy will still running WWJ on the HD-2 of WXYT-FM, Smooth Jazz on the HD-2 of WDZH, and programming for the LGBTQ community on the HD-3 of WDZH (audio sounded terrible). On WOMC HD-2 they were running Oldies and on its HD-3, they were airing local musicians. So, they are pretty much the only company - at least locally - putting any effort into developing unique HD content. Their reward for such efforts? Probably $0 or almost $0 for their top line. Why even bother? The resources devoted to those efforts could be more productively deployed elsewhere.
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