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A tip of the hat to Sangean

C

Chuck

Our small non-profit FM radio station streams on the Internet. For logistical and financial reasons, the streaming computer sits in the file server room of our local wireless Internet service provider. By necessity, we receive the signal off the air via a tuner located in the same rack room. This is a less than ideal situation. Between all the file servers and a plethora of wireless Internet radios, the interference is horrendous. Most cheap FM radios don't work at all when they are anywhere near the location.

We've been using a Dayton Industries FM tuner that is intended for translator duty. It is coupled to an external FM Yagi. Until last week, it had been "acceptable" but not always what we wanted. Recently our ISP installed some more radios and computers that made the situation intolerable, unless you really like heterodynes and beat notes superimposed over the program material. In desperation, I decided to try my Sangean HDT-1 in place of the existing tuner. The difference is amazing. It is still subject to interference from co-channel skip conditions, which seem to be at a peak in Texas at the moment. Nonetheless, this radio made a huge improvement in the streaming signal. I'm impressed. It is a great analog tuner. If he HD part is of use to you, just consider that to be a bonus.

I have the HDT-! running on a very large UPS system, so hopefully, it will not lose power and revert to the "off" position. That would not be fun, since it is about a ten mile drive each way to pay it a visit just to push the "power" button.

Still, the tuner's ability to reject interfering signals is quite impressive.
 
I would suggest then if you don't appreciate HD then you should lean towards the HDT-1X. It has the ability to shut the HD Reception off so that it in essence becomes a DSP Analog radio.

The HDT-1X is also comming better aligned and is producing between 2 and 4 dB of better sensativity.
 
I just had a propaganda moment. Just imagine Chuck standing next to the HDT-1 giving it a thumbs up. ;D

"The best analog HD Radio on the market!"
 
MasterTheseus said:
I just had a propaganda moment. Just imagine Chuck standing next to the HDT-1 giving it a thumbs up. ;D

"The best analog HD Radio on the market!"
Click to expand...

Maybe I should take a picture.... :D
 
At the risk of stating something you may have already done, I would recommend posting your request on the Engineering topic and see what they can come up with.

My recommendation is to find an old old Macintosh or Marantz vacuum tube analog tuner and see how that works. They are generally immune to noise and front end overload. Plus they have the advantage of coming back up on frequency after a power failure :)

Or move the tuner out of the room and drive an analog audio feed to the computer.
 
Chuck said:
Our small non-profit FM radio station streams on the Internet. For logistical and financial reasons, the streaming computer sits in the file server room of our local wireless Internet service provider. By necessity, we receive the signal off the air via a tuner located in the same rack room. This is a less than ideal situation. Between all the file servers and a plethora of wireless Internet radios, the interference is horrendous. Most cheap FM radios don't work at all when they are anywhere near the location.

We've been using a Dayton Industries FM tuner that is intended for translator duty. It is coupled to an external FM Yagi. Until last week, it had been "acceptable" but not always what we wanted. Recently our ISP installed some more radios and computers that made the situation intolerable, unless you really like heterodynes and beat notes superimposed over the program material. In desperation, I decided to try my Sangean HDT-1 in place of the existing tuner. The difference is amazing. It is still subject to interference from co-channel skip conditions, which seem to be at a peak in Texas at the moment. Nonetheless, this radio made a huge improvement in the streaming signal. I'm impressed. It is a great analog tuner. If he HD part is of use to you, just consider that to be a bonus.

I have the HDT-! running on a very large UPS system, so hopefully, it will not lose power and revert to the "off" position. That would not be fun, since it is about a ten mile drive each way to pay it a visit just to push the "power" button.

Still, the tuner's ability to reject interfering signals is quite impressive.
Click to expand...

I haven't posted in weeks but thought this might be an opportunity to help you out. I own both the HDT-1 and the 1X. I agre with Master. The 1X with its properly aligned line out jack is a better choice and not a major price difference between the two. I would suggest you buy a good sized UPS and use that as a backup for the tuner. It's a low consumption device and a decent UPS should provide enough backup to cover all but the longest power outages.
 
K6JHU said:
At the risk of stating something you may have already done, I would recommend posting your request on the Engineering topic and see what they can come up with.

My recommendation is to find an old old Macintosh or Marantz vacuum tube analog tuner and see how that works. They are generally immune to noise and front end overload. Plus they have the advantage of coming back up on frequency after a power failure :)

Or move the tuner out of the room and drive an analog audio feed to the computer.
Click to expand...

I did move the Dayton out of the file room into a utility closet. That helped a lot, but the recent addition of the new equipment still got into it. It is still there, "just in case." Some signal is better than none. The worry-some part is lots of people have access to that utility closet. With the Dayton, you have to open the cover and change frequencies with a a dip switch. With anything else, it might be tempting to change the channel "just to see what happens." The file server room is secured by a pair of locking doors with limited key access. The Sangean is working well in the file server room, sitting in the same rack as a bunch of routers and file servers.
 
R.F. Burns said:
I haven't posted in weeks but thought this might be an opportunity to help you out. I own both the HDT-1 and the 1X. I agre with Master. The 1X with its properly aligned line out jack is a better choice and not a major price difference between the two. I would suggest you buy a good sized UPS and use that as a backup for the tuner. It's a low consumption device and a decent UPS should provide enough backup to cover all but the longest power outages.
Click to expand...

I appreciate the suggestion R.F. Perhaps I need to buy a 1X. Right now, the HDT-1 is plugged into an 1100 watt UPS, which is shared with the streaming computer. I haven't put a watt meter on it, but I think it should run for a while. There is supposed to be a generator that kicks in in the event of a power failure, but in the last two major outages, it has failed to work. Since we are getting free rent, it is a little difficult to complain to the landlord.
 
Chuck said:
R.F. Burns said:
I haven't posted in weeks but thought this might be an opportunity to help you out. I own both the HDT-1 and the 1X. I agre with Master. The 1X with its properly aligned line out jack is a better choice and not a major price difference between the two. I would suggest you buy a good sized UPS and use that as a backup for the tuner. It's a low consumption device and a decent UPS should provide enough backup to cover all but the longest power outages.
Click to expand...

I appreciate the suggestion R.F. Perhaps I need to buy a 1X. Right now, the HDT-1 is plugged into an 1100 watt UPS, which is shared with the streaming computer. I haven't put a watt meter on it, but I think it should run for a while. There is supposed to be a generator that kicks in in the event of a power failure, but in the last two major outages, it has failed to work. Since we are getting free rent, it is a little difficult to complain to the landlord.
Click to expand...

At the CES we had a gentleman from Berkeley University come and test the load watts and the standby consumption of the HDT-1. I believe that while on the HDT-1 only consumed 8W. Maximum allowed by the power supply is 10W. Not much at all.
 
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