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Another failure for HD Radio

Personally, I would not say it that way. My main complaints with IBOC-- AM or FM-- have to do with interference-- both to adjacent channels and to the host analog signal. By way of example, our local classical station went HD and totally screwed their pristine analog signal. Yet most of the station's listeners are listening in analog and they are the ones keeping the lights on. That's too bad.

That said, as someone who actually cares about audio quality and earns a living in that business, there is no way that a low bit rate digital signal can be described as "high definition" audio (as many HD radio stations routinely do). Without an HD-2, it's sorta OK sounding (but not by any means high fidelity)! With an HD-2, it's a low quality signal no matter what you do. All you can do is make it sound worse if you don't know how to process correctly. And it appears that many stations do not.
 
I think it's interesting to note that digital radio is not just faltering here but is laying an egg all over Europe according to this blog.

http://grantgoddardradioblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/digital-radio-european-update.html

http://grantgoddardradioblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/austria-media-regulator-puts-dab-radio.html

http://grantgoddardradioblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/france-digital-radio-already-dead.html

http://grantgoddardradioblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/germany-national-public-radio-to-end.html

It seems country after country on that continent is shutting down DAB due to expense and a decided lack of consumer interest. So what exactly was the digital imperative for radio? Oh yes, 'everybody else is going digital and radio has to also or face being left in the analog cold.' I think that, in essence, is what Struble was saying on bended knee.

Perhaps a smarter approach would be to ask consumers what they really want.

C5
 
Carmine5 said:
I think it's interesting to note that digital radio is not just faltering here but is laying an egg all over Europe according to this blog.

Perhaps a smarter approach would be to ask consumers what they really want.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting those links.

Evidently, European listeners are satisfied with the service they receive from analog FM, and extensive use of RDS probably has a lot to do with this. Most car radios in Europe now take advantage of the Alternate Frequency (AF) feature which allows the receiver to tune automatically to the clearest signal in a particular area. In regions of rough terrain (for example, southern Bavaria and Austria) many broadcasters have filled the major "shadows" with service from low power translator and repeater stations, so the receivers simply "hand off" to the next frequency like a cell phone.

I would like to see greater use of AF here in the US, but HD Radio apparently does not support it; the diversity time delay makes it practically impossible. Of course, I wouldn't expect iBiquity to embrace an open standard that provides radiotext and traffic messages at far less expense.

Surprisingly, one of the $80 low-end "VR3" aftermarket car radios sold at Walmart has AF, but it's impossible to find on more expensive HD-capable products.
 
Play Freebird said:
Evidently, European listeners are satisfied with the service they receive from analog FM, and extensive use of RDS probably has a lot to do with this. Most car radios in Europe now take advantage of the Alternate Frequency (AF) feature which allows the receiver to tune automatically to the clearest signal in a particular area. In regions of rough terrain (for example, southern Bavaria and Austria) many broadcasters have filled the major "shadows" with service from low power translator and repeater stations, so the receivers simply "hand off" to the next frequency like a cell phone.

I would like to see greater use of AF here in the US, but HD Radio apparently does not support it; the diversity time delay makes it practically impossible. Of course, I wouldn't expect iBiquity to embrace an open standard that provides radiotext and traffic messages at far less expense.

Surprisingly, one of the $80 low-end "VR3" aftermarket car radios sold at Walmart has AF, but it's impossible to find on more expensive HD-capable products.
Click to expand...

Alternate frequency might work well in Europe, where a lot of broadcasting is comprised of state run networks, and therefore they are all playing the same program. Maybe this would work for NPR, but even that network has a lot of different formats. The very best an AF list would do would be to select the same format, so the listener would hear a different song within the format. The format list on RDS was very abbreviated and inadequate.

I've seen RDS display on a new car radio I have - the song title is about the only useful thing about it. I'd prefer to have a narrower IF bandwidth and less interference on first adjacent frequencies than RDS.

If HD had been implemented truly "in channel", it would have displaced RDS, SCA, and all other secondary services. They can all be handled very well by HD radio. Forcing all of those secondary service users to buy HD radios would have actually spurred sales of the new technology, and complaints would be zero because there would be no first adjacent interference.
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
Alternate frequency might work well in Europe, where a lot of broadcasting is comprised of state run networks, and therefore they are all playing the same program. Maybe this would work for NPR, but even that network has a lot of different formats. The very best an AF list would do would be to select the same format, so the listener would hear a different song within the format. The format list on RDS was very abbreviated and inadequate.
Click to expand...

Private broadcasters in Europe also make extensive use of RDS. In Germany, for example, many private stations were assigned multiple frequencies within a "Land" (state) or Kreis (similar to a county). We're starting to see the same situation here in the US with translator networks.

In regions of flat terrain and big Class C FM facilities (think Florida or east Texas). I agree AF wouldn't provide much of an advantage, but in hilly terrain such as we have in the Northeast, it's adoption could make radio much more mobile-listener-friendly.

In upstate NY and PA, numerous FM simulcasters could make use of this feature immediately. These networks are comprised of stations under common ownership, running the same programming (with the possible exception of legal IDs and weather forecasts) fulltime across a wide area. I'll name just a few:

WAMC public radio - coverage map: http://www.wamc.org/coveragemap.html

Family Life Network: http://www.fln.org/mediafiles/coverage-map.png

WKRZ 98.5 in Wilkes-Barre, simulcasting on WKRF 107.9 in the Poconos

Rock 107 in Scranton, simulcasting on two other Class A stations and some translators

"Froggy" in the Pittsburgh market, heard on multiple frequencies in the commercial FM band

WRTI in Philadelphia

And I can think of some in Florida; Z-88.3 in Orlando comes to mind.

Even the small network of three translators that simulcasts our AM station would benefit from AF, if our listeners just had receivers! We've been transmitting AF data for nearly a year -- and in drive tests across our market, I found my Delco RDS prototype receiver handles the handoffs beautifully.

RDS is indeed compatible with hybrid IBOC, but AFAIK there's no provision in the HD Radio standard for alternate frequency switching. One problem is the ~8 second delay in digital lock after changing the receive frequency.
 
Play Freebird said:
Carmine5 said:
I think it's interesting to note that digital radio is not just faltering here but is laying an egg all over Europe according to this blog.

Perhaps a smarter approach would be to ask consumers what they really want.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting those links.
Click to expand...

You're welcome. I found the blog to be an eye-opener. Of course, this hasn't discouraged Bob Struble from "carpetbagging" the world, trying to sell IBOC to any country that will listen. HD Radio is already being tested in Poland, Romania, Switzerland and the Ukraine.

But, for the most part, digital radio appears to have failed in Europe.

C5
 
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