HD and thr Leslie Report

[Chuck]

A little light reading for everyone. I think this pretty well sums things up. Keep in mind that this is from Radio World, who generally supports HD radio.

» IBiquity, Greater Media Say Drive Tests Show 'Serious Digital Coverage Deficiencies'
Even –6dB above the current power level would provide little improvement, they say

http://www.radioworld.com/article/83752

» Indoor Reception 'Impossible' to 'Non-Existent,' Say iBiquity and Greater Media
Generally, the closer that testers went to the core of each building, the worse digital reception was
http://www.radioworld.com/article/83756

» I Take a Listen to Prototype HD Portable
Vast difference between indoor and outdoor digital reception
http://www.radioworld.com/article/83760

I'm amazed, but happy that they actually published this.

 

[KB1OKL]

Duh, are they just figuring this out? I suppose their next demand, er request is going to be for the FCC to have a digital shut off date for our "inevitable digital future"? Greater Media huh, I think I'm going to find myself a new ISP.

 

[Savage]

Yes, yes. And as rbruce and others have noted extensively here, -10 dBc wouldn't improve things much either.

-20 to -10 dBc is ONE decade of signal strength. It's negligible in the real-world scheme of receiving conditions and receiver quieting.

Mostly, the power increase will achieve: huge increases in objectionable interference. Self, and adjacent-channel.

As far as I'm concerned that's not a bad thing in the long run. It will seal the fate of what's left of HD Radio so we can all move on to something which will work. Assuming, arguendo, that we need digital radio, a proposition about which I remain skeptical.

 

[JohnnyElectron]

Yep, I read that too: "...Testers concluded that in many types of buildings, digital reception is "simply impossible" on IBOC table radios and "nonexistent" on the new class of portable receivers about to be introduced ..."

So what IS the answer? HD doesn't work on the AM band without extreme interference. A 10db increase on FM will increase the adjacent channel interference there just as bad as it is on AM now. AND, as we are finding out with HDTV, the VHF signals DON'T go as far as projected, nor do they penatrate buildings as well as UHF. In other words, instead of trying to get VHF TV channels 5 & 6 for digital FM - which would be fine IF they get enough power, maybe we should have been trying to snag some of the old UHF TV channels instead, and bought out Sirius during a 'fire sale' before their satellite TV buddies did.

 

[Savage]

Great question, Johnny. And I'm going to propose an answer which I'm sure will scandalize some/certain posters here.

How about we Leave Well Enough Alone?? In other words - let radio be analog.

Instead of stupidly, blindly, pointlessly tossing it all away in pursuit of some nebulous digital will-o-the-wisp, let's use the gigantic advantage radio has in already having a robust, reliable and decades-long field-proven delivery system and hundreds of millions of reliable, easy-to-use receivers already in the hands of the public. You know, the radios consumers think sound and work just fine. This is a "plus" most media marketers would die for. Good Gott Im Himmel - we're ALREADY ubiquitous! Just WHAT is the problem HD supposedly fixes??

WHY throw it away? WHY suggest to the consumer who lives at the foundation of this almost unbelievably dominant structure, that the device 98% of Americans use and enjoy every day (the good old RADIO) is somehow outmoded, less-than-functional or somehow no longer desirable?

The HD Alliance promos which attack radio programming and analog broadcasting relied upon by virtually everyone are just so incredibly stupid - it's mind-blowing.

It would be a great day for radio if the time came when HD went away, and this fine website took down its "HD Radio" discussion board because it had become unnecessary.

 

[Play Freebird]

Great question, Johnny. And I'm going to propose an answer which I'm sure will scandalize some/certain posters here.

How about we Leave Well Enough Alone?? In other words - let radio be analog.

I returned last week from a trip to central Europe where I attended the Friedrichshafen hamfest and did some sightseeing in the Alps. (I had to use up a bunch of credit card "flyer miles" this year or else lose them.)

My rental car was a Diesel Ford Focus with a very nice factory-installed RDS FM/MW/LW radio, which provided more features than any of the aftermarket HD receivers available here in the US:

• Automatic retuning to simulcast FM stations and translators (using the RDS AF feature)
• A current list of all FM stations serving each German, Austrian, and Swiss region I drove through. I could also obtain information about MW and LW stations via FM RDS.
• A list of current traffic reports sorted by route number. The radio included a GPS navigation system, so exact locations of slowdowns could be displayed in color on the moving map
• I could choose to have the traffic reports spoken, or the receiver would turn up the volume when live traffic reports were aired on the originating FM station

And, of course, the eight-character name of the station was displayed, along with title and artist data sent by Radiotext.

All of this was made possible by reliable, open-source RDS, which has been available to American broadcasters for over twenty years, free of royalties. It's now possible to purchase a fully functional RDS encoder for less than $200.

So exactly why are we messing around with IBOC, when it would be much more cost-effective to make better use of the analog broadcast standards already in place (RDS, AM stereo, and "AMAX") and save the DSP technology to improve receiver performance?