Eye-On-IBOC

[700WLW]

We now know:

1) 35000 HD radios sold, through 2006.
2) Guesstimate, of 2000 promotional discount radios to stations.
2) Guesstimate, of 10000 in the hands of "gotta-have-it-now" radio geeks (no returns).
3) Guesstimate, of 23000 in the hands of the general public, with 1/4 returned.

Total: Guesstimate, of 28000 HD radios, in hands of the general public.

We also now know, that with 75% of Americans aware of HD Radio, at some level, the number of HD radios sold each year, will probably decline.

To check on-going interest in HD Radio:

http://www.google.com/trends?q="hd+radio"

To check interest in HD Radio versus Satellite and Internet Radio:

http://www.google.com/trends?q="hd+...io",+"internet+radio"&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

 

[audiophile.]

If a station transmits but nobody listens, does make a sound?

 

[700WLW]

If a station transmits but nobody listens, does make a sound?

Even after a $200,000,000 advertising campaign, by the HD Radio Alliance, the popularity of HD Radio, Satellite Radio, and Internet Radio, are just blips on the screen, compared to iPods and MP3s:

http://www.google.com/trends?q="HD+...",++"Satellite+Radio"&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

Interesting, that the popularity of iPods and MP3s have remained consistent, so far - I wonder, how HD Radio will fare, in a year from now. Think, radio is in trouble ?

 

[Tom Wells]

If a station transmits but nobody listens, does make a sound?

If a station transmits, but "radios" cannot decode it, is it radio?

Having so much expenditure in computer processing at the receiving end, with no possibility of "passive" decoding,
makes me want to call digital mode delivery something other than radio.

Like computer streaming, if the mode is incapable of having all the "smarts" at the transmitting end,
with the receiving end working in real-time (not virtually, I mean REALTIME) it is something else other than radio.
Black does not suddenly become white just because a corporation wishes it to be, or even if they "influence" the
"Bureau of color and brightness standards" to declare it so, or equivalent.

A radio emulator, at best, and usable, but kind of like driving a huge RV to the grocery store for supplies, when much less
obtrusive vehicles (or feet) are available.

Sure do wish they'd have come up with a zippy new name for the mode, and not tried to pass it off as Radio.
How about Diggio? At least it's an honest name, accurately describing what's going on.

 

[dbdigital]

If a station transmits but nobody listens, does make a sound?

If a station transmits, but "radios" cannot decode it, is it radio?

Having so much expenditure in computer processing at the receiving end, with no possibility of "passive" decoding,
makes me want to call digital mode delivery something other than radio.

Like computer streaming, if the mode is incapable of having all the "smarts" at the transmitting end,
with the receiving end working in real-time (not virtually, I mean REALTIME) it is something else other than radio.
Black does not suddenly become white just because a corporation wishes it to be, or even if they "influence" the
"Bureau of color and brightness standards" to declare it so, or equivalent.

A radio emulator, at best, and usable, but kind of like driving a huge RV to the grocery store for supplies, when much less
obtrusive vehicles (or feet) are available.

Sure do wish they'd have come up with a zippy new name for the mode, and not tried to pass it off as Radio.
How about Diggio? At least it's an honest name, accurately describing what's going on.

In that context it would have to be defined as radio-the art form as opposed to radio-the analog electromagnetic technology.

It's just like film. More and more "films" are being shot on digital video instead of the photochemical medium traditionally called film. In that case it is film-the art form.

db

 

[Mike Walker]

Tom Wells, while I respect your opinion, oldtime radio guys (myself included) have to just get the hell over the idea that somehow a radio isn't "pure" if there is a cpu inside. Whether the received mode is analog or digital, "computer processing" is the future. Software-defined radios simply offer so many advantages. Look at how easy it was to "toss-in" a feature that before everyone thought was too expensive for the small benefit it seemed to offer...AM Stereo.

Check out the software defined radios from companies like Ten Tec (Tennessee Technology) at Universal Radio http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/commrxvr/0321.html

Sick of having only wide and narrow bandwidth? A software defined radio can give you 10, 20, 50 bandwidth choices. How many do you want? Want to adopt a new standard like HD, or DRM? No need to replace your radio...just bop in some new software (firmware, actually). AGC too slow, or fast? Improve it at any time, in the field. Sync-detector not losing it's lock during deep fades? FIX IT IN SOFTWARE. Your radio becomes infinitely upgradable. Now THAT is value for the money. And this technology will become cheaper, and cheaper. It's already in the Accurian HD radio from Radio Shack, which many of us picked up for a hundred bucks (after rebate).

No matter which side of the HD fence you're on, CPUs are our friends! They are certainly the future!

Was anyone here at the NAB Radio Show in New Orleans in '95? There was a demo of an "AMAX" AM Stereo tuner which used digital signal processing to eliminate noise and interference from things like computer monitors, flourescent lights, dimmers, etc. It was PHENOMENAL. And of course, no commercial product ever came of it. DSP COULD greatly improve analog reception in consumer products!

 

[700WLW]

"Ferrara: Our objective with the iPod, as with the cell phone as with other digital devices, is to become integrated as part of those devices. Right now, one of the items that Apple sells is an accessory. It’s actually a very popular — and [has a] high sell though rate — is their little FM adapter that goes on the iPod. They sell a ton of those things. Our hope is, and working with them and with the technology side of it, that we will integrate HD Radio in all of those devices. It will become part and parcel to everything that’s out there in the digital space."

http://rwonline.com/pages/s.0049/t.566.html

Now, that you have seen, stand-alone HD Radio has been a complete failure, you are shilln' SDRs, since this will be part of the Cartel's focus during 2007 - to push HD radio into other devices ! This is REALLY sickening !

 

[Chuck]

Check out the software defined radios from companies like Ten Tec (Tennessee Technology) at Universal Radio http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/commrxvr/0321.html

As far as I can tell, software defined radios are our future. What's not to like? The problem is Ibiquity who, at least to this point, has made their system proprietary. Without making it open source, HD has some problems. It's one of my major beefs with the system as it stands. It's all about money, not about serving the public. There is something wrong with that.

Call me old fashioned, but I was brought up to believe that if you did a good job at whatever it is you do, the rewards will follow. They always have for me. Ibiquity has the cart before the horse.

 

[Tom Wells]

quote author=Mike Walker link=topic=59531.msg417911#msg417911 date=1168101
somehow a radio isn't "pure" if there is a cpu inside. Whether the received mode is analog or digital, "computer processing" is the future.

Software-defined radios simply offer so many advantages. Look at how easy it was to "toss-in" a feature that before everyone thought was too expensive for the small benefit it seemed to offer...AM Stereo.

Check out the software defined radios from companies like Ten Tec (Tennessee Technology) at Universal Radio http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/commrxvr/0321.html

Sick of having only wide and narrow bandwidth? A software defined radio can give you 10, 20, 50 bandwidth choices. How many do you want? Want to adopt a new standard like HD, or DRM? No need to replace your radio...just bop in some new software (firmware, actually). AGC too slow, or fast? Improve it at any time, in the field. Sync-detector not losing it's lock during deep fades? FIX IT IN SOFTWARE. Your radio becomes infinitely upgradable. Now THAT is value for the money. And this technology will become cheaper, and cheaper. It's already in the Accurian HD radio from Radio Shack, which many of us picked up for a hundred bucks (after rebate).

No matter which side of the HD fence you're on, CPUs are our friends! They are certainly the future!

Was anyone here at the NAB Radio Show in New Orleans in '95? There was a demo of an "AMAX" AM Stereo tuner which used digital signal processing to eliminate noise and interference from things like computer monitors, flourescent lights, dimmers, etc. It was PHENOMENAL. And of course, no commercial product ever came of it. DSP COULD greatly improve analog reception in consumer products!


]
Regarding a CPU in a radio, they always are (so far) inadequately filtered. Square waves have no business within 3 ft of a radio.
They are barely civilized enough to deal with audio.

I have two radios with continuously variable IF and a Collins 390 with steps from 100hz to 16 kkc.
Good radios are nice, but like fine musical instruments, the good ones cost money, and purists do prefer the real thing still over
digital convenience and cheapness. Because music and the human voice as an instrument were so familiar to those at the time radio was
born, as so many more people played then, it is natural the development of radio led to hi-fi ends.

I have used many types of radios, built several including a complex portable 3-band tube regenerative IF supehet of my own design ,
and can easily add any such "hacks" into real radios.
I have almost always found the older radios to tend more toward being purer in result, after a tune up, and "hot rodding the detector and AF system" up to speakers for hi-fi. Almost all the newer radios sound "squashed flat" to me, wish I could better define it.
There are certainly some transistor and IC-design radios I have that sound good, it's just a trend that newer stuff just ain't musical.

Software defined radios, like so many other economic "that's good enough" expendiencies, are the marketer's success stories in getting
people to accept something that is much cheaper to produce, and "almost as good".

My rental car in Houston this week was incapable of hearing any weak AMs over the 30db of noise from all the the digital noise from car controls, and I 've had many a rental where the radio display clock noise was all over the dial making squeals.

All that said, bring back AMAX standards. All for the good, and DSP in the audio chain is what should have been implemented on AM.
I accept and welcome the real improvement that can be made at detection, and the audio.
It should be possible to keep digital noise from an audio module out of the RF, if they care to use some METAL around the CPU, and
fillter the power to it like it needs to be.
Of course, there needs to be but ONE simple KNOB to regulate this, not a bizarre interface screen.
The small time loss here is acceptable, and such a system could be selectable on/off.
I really enjoyed the little bit of CQUAM I heard in the 90's, and hope it rebounds.
I never, ever found an AM stereo receiver available to buy on shelf, anywhere.
Or,as I wanted, an after detector adapter with stereo amp for your existing AM tuner.

As a luddite, I am way-slow to accept newfangledness as result of my employment fixing such fripperies.
And I chose old fashioned problems for myself whenever possible, as I trust the laws of physics far more than any
software and cpu solution to engineering.

 

[700WLW]

Just like table-top HD Radio, SDRs are way too expensive, and would never sell, in any great quantities.

 

[tedex]

Check out the software defined radios from companies like Ten Tec (Tennessee Technology) at Universal Radio http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/commrxvr/0321.html

As far as I can tell, software defined radios are our future. What's not to like? The problem is Ibiquity who, at least to this point, has made their system proprietary. Without making it open source, HD has some problems. It's one of my major beefs with the system as it stands. It's all about money, not about serving the public. There is something wrong with that.

Call me old fashioned, but I was brought up to believe that if you did a good job at whatever it is you do, the rewards will follow. They always have for me. Ibiquity has the cart before the horse.

DRM may be the HD killer. Better sound in the same bandwidth, multimedia delivery, etc.