Some infotainment systems show all stations, including HD stations, in a list. You can switch between the list and single station viewing options.
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GM No Longer Installing HD Radios
- Thread starter Barry
- Start date
Stream the KDVR/Fox 31 (Denver) App during any of their live news shows. What local streaming ads they have may be geo-fenced, but I am in the Denver TV Market, FWIW, and yet I still see the same handful of PSAs played multiple times within an hour.
Ironic this was just posted. My local K-LOVE in Yakima just went HD and wiped out 102.9/103.3 for DX. It's strange that new HD stations are still coming on in this day and age, especially with HD Radio going away from new cars, but I assume it's all to feed new FM translators. I believe Radio Nueva Vida is one of the subchannels, and I know Air 1 is on HD2 (already on 89.9 via KHRI/satellite feed).
Except when that lists auto populates long dead HD substations and slaps them into the list.
KISW-HD2 "Metal Militia", KQMV-HD2 "Saigon Radio", KYFQ-HD3 "BBC World Service", KKWF-HD2 "Delta Blues", KHTP-HD2 "A Mountain of Classics" are all still pulled into the list on my 2020 Kia Niro EV from data provided via an outdated DTS AutoStage feed from xperi, same one that feeds the HD radio website full of outdated listings. Causing over half the list to not exist.
What's the point? Is there anyone who still makes the receivers?
Streaming is so much more efficient from both a technical and cost standpoint.
You can use an SDR to see the baseband spectrum of FM stations.
No. The law makes SCAs rather tricky. SCAs were never a service for consumption of the general public, and the things that used to run on SCAs are generally better run as online services. From FCC.gov:
> In general, tunable subcarrier receivers are prohibited because they violate Section 605 of the
> Communications Act of 1934, as amended
No. Why would anyone listen to old style landline telephone audio quality when you can access such content in full fidelity online? Back in the day AM music radio was audiophile heaven compared to FM SCA.
Or a spectrum analyzer displaying the bandwidth of an FM station. Very easy to see the 19 kHz pilot tone, 38 kHz stereo L-R, any 57 kHz data, as well as audio or data on 67 and 92 kHz. Of course HD side bands are quite obvious.
The wording of the law is vague, and doesn’t really clarify what is meant by personal use and benefit. Radio enthusiasts have received and accessed all sorts of non-broadcast content as long as those services have existed. The general rule of thumb was to keep information to yourself and don’t disseminate the content of what you’ve received. Information about station locations and frequencies were common knowledge, available in many magazines and other media.
Yet they were available if you did some digging. A well known example was the FM Atlas business run by the late Bruce Elving, who published the well known FM station guide. He also sold radios modified to receive FM SCA as well as SCA demodulators, many in kit form. I have one of those demodulators from the 1980s, wired it into a portable FM radio. Worked reasonably well, and I was able to hear quite a few SCA services such as background music, ethnic and religious programming, information aimed at doctors, reading services for the visually impaired, as well as a few data streams. No one ever brought down the hammer on Elving, AFAIK.
Dr. Elving himself stated (in the 8th edition of the FM Atlas, 1983):
(quote)
By tuning in SCA you are not in violation of any law; the problem, according to Sec. 605 of the Communications Act. is that you are not to "divulge" the contents of these transmissions. This language is unchanged from the early days of wireless telegrpahy, and has been used as the alleged legal basis to stop the public from tuning in. SCA is no different from the emanations of radar detectors, police and public service-band scanners, and shortwave radios -- all of which are widely sold in stores.
(end quote)
As far as I know, no one ever pushed the issue to see if Elving's interpretation was correct.
Especially if 150µsec pre-emphasis was utilitized, which a few SCA subcarriers did.
But the technology has been superseded.
I have two such receivers. One is a modified GE Superadio III, purchased from a small business in Springfield, Missouri that Bill Pfeiffer, who lived in that area for a while, told me about. It also has two bandwidth-filter settings. Unfortunately, it no longer works. Possibly something in the modification is wrong. That SR III was from the earlier production models of the radio, not the later ones that were far more problem-plagued. The other radio is a modified Sony model bought from an eBay seller. The second to last time I used it, I was still in Oakland. I can tell you how many stations there were with SCA programming that I could receive at my hilltop location: one. KPFA was still leasing a 92 kHz subcarrier to an Indian ethnic broadcaster. This was in 2021. The last time I used it was right after I moved to Denver. How many stations could I find with SCA programming? Zero.
With Internet streams available, why would anyone need SCA?
HD will persist as long as there's a use for it, though the use cases seem tenuous and made-up at times.
I don't know of any indeces but I will tell you that KJZZ is still utilizing its sub-carrier channel for those blind and visually impaired listeners who have never updated their receivers with the HD ones. And (I probably should have mentioned specifics in my last response), the HD channel used for that reading service is provided by co-owned KBAQ-FM, though that station's wattage is nowhere near that of KJZZ's. I do not know about the two satellite stations that carry the Sun Sounds (print reading service name) subcarrier transmissions in Tucson (KUAT) and Flagstaff (KNAU). And, to make matters even more interesting, all three transmissions of the Sun Sounds service are (at least the last time I checked) available online as well.
The University of Kansas has a Radio Reading Service for the blind that its website says is on different stations SCAs, as well as streaming online:
reader.ku.edu
Radio Coverage Area
So, car companies are eliminating HD radio and in some cases AM radio. GM is not supporting CarPlay. It sounds like the plan is to eventually eliminate all free in-car media in favor of a subscription model. Possibly related is the rumored SiriusXM acquisition of iHeart
If GM/Ford/etc. decide to throw away terrestrial FM/AM radio in cars (it's already happening in EVs) and go to Spotify/SiriusXM only, I will find a way to rip that entire console out and put in a Pioneer Supertuner III. Oh, and install a 36" whip antenna tuned for maximum AM and FM sensitivity and reception. Problem solved... take that, car manufacturers!! I will not give in to "ens---ification".
Sincerely, a DXer AND a loyal FM radio listener.
Sincerely, a DXer AND a loyal FM radio listener.
Yes, I'm sure an acquisition rumor that started 3 days ago affected a decision GM announced 3 years ago.
You will not, unless you're OK with not having a speedometer. The current trend in car design is one large screen that contains all the gauges and the infotainment.
Makes buying a used 2000s vehicle all the better, I guess. Problem after problem with my 2018 Buick Encore. Time to let it go and find something better.
I hope the car manufacturers realize that there are still listeners out there to FM radio (and even some to AM. There are still AM stations that are exclusive homes to MLB play-by-play, also NBA.)
Not to mention, there are small parts of the country with no cell phone reception, and SiriusXM drops out. This happened to me traveling US-93 between Salmon and Challis, Idaho, in 2024, using a 2023 Nissan Rogue (Enterprise rental). The ONLY reliable radio reception of any kind was KSRA, AM 960. A nice small-town radio station, complete with lunchtime news/obituaries.
I hope the car manufacturers realize that there are still listeners out there to FM radio (and even some to AM. There are still AM stations that are exclusive homes to MLB play-by-play, also NBA.)
Not to mention, there are small parts of the country with no cell phone reception, and SiriusXM drops out. This happened to me traveling US-93 between Salmon and Challis, Idaho, in 2024, using a 2023 Nissan Rogue (Enterprise rental). The ONLY reliable radio reception of any kind was KSRA, AM 960. A nice small-town radio station, complete with lunchtime news/obituaries.
And two FM frequencies:
