HD DX

[Len14043]

Why the hell are you trashing the S350 700? I specifically said I WAS NOT TALKING ABOUT THE S350! It ain't a "communications receiver", it's a nice little portable radio. Do you even know what I said? Your comment has NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT I WROTE. Typical...all "transmit" and no "receive". Nobody ever learned anything while "transmitting".

In answer to the earlier question (sorry I didn't reply earlier), yes ALL HD streams in my file except for the first (classical...WDAV) were "multicast" stations that I believe were splitting their bandwidth 48khz/48khz. I agree...96kbps HD sounds phenomenal! Like owning a megabuck supertuner...only it's a cheap table radio!

All radios, in one form, or another, are communications receivers.

Hey 700, if you purchase an HD radio, you may be able to hear WLW in HD at the time of your local sunset. Isn't there a daytime only on 700 in your area?

 

[Mike Walker]

700 writes "All radios, in one form, or another, are communications receivers."

UH, no they're not. A communications receiver is a specific type of radio receiver with special characteristics...including the ability to receiver ALL MODES in bands under 30mhz (AM, USB/LSB, CW), multiple bandwidths, enough stability and with tuning steps fine enough to do ECSS (exalted carrier single sideband...which is using the BFO to replace the carrier...25hz or lower tuning steps work well), synchronous detection (which basically does what ECSS does, only automatically...replacing the fading/damaged carrier with a stable, locally generated one), sync selectable sideband (YES THERE ARE radios with sync detection, but no sync selectable sideband...the Accurian HD is one, the older Sony SRF-A100 another...and these are definitely NOT "communications receivers"), and jacks to connect external antennas for ALL received bands (my Drake receives everything from 500khz to 30mhz, plus FM (in stereo) and VHF Air Band)...as a bare minimum. Better ones have many more features than these, including IF output (which allows external detectors such as those from Sherwood to be used, or perhaps a DRM add-on). "Communications receivers" almost never have their own antennas...it is assumed that someone buying one will be using an external antenna.

To use a comparison from studios (my arena)...all studio monitors are speakers...not all speakers are studio monitors (studio monitors, like communications receivers, have special characteristics...like ruler-flat response...which make them particularly suited to their job). Perhaps an even better analogy...all HD radios are "radios". Not all radios are HD!

 

[Len14043]

Mike, 700 seems to saying that you can get a decent radio for a low price. But after that point, you have to spend incrementally more for small improvements.

 

[Mike Walker]

I understand your interpretation Len, but what he seems TO ME to be saying is that cheap radios can do everything that expensive ones can, and that there's NO benefit to more sophisticated and expensive receivers...clearly an indefensible position. Take dynamic range as one parameter. Typically it's 30-50db in a portable (or less), as much as 100db (or more) in a "communications receiver".

Hook a typical portable to, say, a 200' outdoor longwire antenna and you'll get overload "images" all over the dial. Do the same with a communications receiver, and you'll hear weak stations on those previously empty spots on the dial, NOT false "images" of stations which actually broadcast in different, harmonically related frequencies.

 

[700WLW]

I understand your interpretation Len, but what he seems TO ME to be saying is that cheap radios can do everything that expensive ones can, and that there's NO benefit to more sophisticated and expensive receivers...clearly an indefensible position.

Show me, where I stated that - I just stated, that the capabilities of many receivers, especially the piece-of-garbage S350, are way over-blown. Take for example, the $10 Sony ICF-S10MK2 hand-held analog-tuned AM/FM radio - the results of this test, were that the Sony hear 94% of the stations of the 25-times more expensive ICOM R75:

http://www.radiointel.com/review-sonys10mk2.htm

Take for example, the Chinese-made Grundig/Tecsun/Eton S350, which has been way over-hyped on many SW sites:

"What is the most over rated radio that you have ever owned?"

http://www.radiointel.com/results2.htm

And yes, all receivers/radios, are communication receivers, of some sort.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I don't know about your Sony, but for $10 it sounds like a great buy. I heard great things about the Sony SRF-84. I personally own two Sony ARF-A1's and for the size, I've never had a more sensitive AM. I was astonished during a DX test in the Crosbyton Canyon to get two Dallas AM stations in C-Quam stereo with no help. They had static, but a modest loop antenna solved that problem. Unfortunately one started having problems with a co-channel 350 miles away, but the stereo was perfect. But that was C-Quam stereo, NOT Ibiquity, which I seriously doubt could make it anything close to 290 miles. Of course the listening conditions for 10's of millions of rural western people are insignificant compared to the needs of New York City.

Anyway- the fact that the Sony needed help from a loop antenna highlights the problem. The size of the radio fundamentally constrains the size of the ferrite bar antenna. Sony makes some great stuff. So does GE - just about anything with their brand name is a good little unit. But only GE took it to the next level and put some real DX circuitry inside the Superadio. There have been quality issues, but it is just about the most sensitive AM tuner you can buy off the shelf. And with a little tinkering with the RF circuitry - flirting a bit with the threashold of instability - I've been able to get mine almost as good as a Hammarlund SP-600 JX with a longwire antenna. Now if you think you can find something anywhere at any price more sensitive than the Hammarlund - good luck. Yet it has a rival in a properly tuned up and modified GE Superadio 3 - and that is with no external loop. With a 4 to 5 foot loop - I've gotten every 50 kW station within 1000 miles in the DAYTIME, plus some lesser power stations that have good transmission sites on lower frequencies.

 

[Mike Walker]

I tried several SRF-84s "back in the day", and always had bad luck with 'em. Obvious distortion, no real tuning point where the radio "locked on" for best reception, stuff like that. I guess I was spoiled by the SRF-A100. Now THAT's a great radio.

So many people have written such great things about the SRF-84, however, that I must've just been unlucky, and gotten only "the bad apples". Correct me if I'm wrong, but ALL C-Quam radios have sync-detection, don't they? There is an obvious "lock" with the SRF-A100. I never got that "lock" sensation (where it obviously locks on) with the SRF-84.

 

[DoogieDown1]

I guess I was spoiled by the SRF-A100. Now THAT's a great radio.

You ain't lying! Takes three double-A batteries, and makes them last for-EVER!

And by looking at it, you would never guess its weight. It's heavy (reassuringly so) for its size.

I've actually got the SRF-A200. Same radio, but produced for Austrailia. Got it on eBay a couple of years ago in mint condition. The fav of my collection. And the analog tuning allows me to null out IBOC hash... ha!

 

[Len14043]

I guess I was spoiled by the SRF-A100. Now THAT's a great radio.

And the analog tuning allows me to null out IBOC hash... ha!

Every one of my radios can null out the IBOC hash. I didn't realize that was a problem. ???

 

[Mike Walker]

While I love my SRF-A100, I submit that NO radio can "null out IBOC hash" if it's coming from the same direction as the desired broadcast. Say here in NC I want to listen to a station in Virginia, but there's a NYC station 10khz away that's IBOC. BAD NEWS!

I know...AM IBOC stations aren't supposed to be on (with IBOC) at night. But we all know that sometimes they are.

I'm NOT anti-digital radio. The FM system works great for me EVERY DAY. But I'm pro DIGITAL RADIO, not pro Ibiquity. Hell, if FMExtra were to become dominant tomorrow, I'd buy one of those. It would be simple enough to make a radio that receives both systems...especially since existing HD Radios are "software defined". Just change the parameters of the software/firmware. But those who complain about the "artifacts" of digital radio (and everybody can hear them at low bitrates), but ignore the often HORRENDOUS artifacts of analog radio (hisses, buzzes, multipath distortion, narrow stereo image, dynamic loss of high frequencies, clipping distortion, etc.) are, well, full of fecal matter.

About 20 years ago I was in the car with a lady I worked with at WWWC in Wilkesboro NC (1240AM). She was confessing to me that preferred to listen to FM (even though she worked at an AM statiion) because "the sound was so much better". I started giggling. "What are you laughing at?" she asked. I pointed at her car radio...tuned to a Charlotte FM station...80 miles away, with HORRIBLE multipath distortion and noise. "THAT SOUNDS BETTER THAN THIS?" I asked, switching to our clean (new transmitter and processing) AM signal (which at that time also played pop/rock music). She looked at me and said "well....you might have a point"...then laughed herself. It's like lp records. Poeple have listened to analog radio (lp records) so long they convince themselves "it sounds great" when by any objective measure, it's got LOTS of problems. TONS OF 'EM! And I'm not pickin' on analog. EVERY technology has it's limitations and drawbacks! Let's be realistic!

 

[1q2w3e]

HD (DX) should be banned, just think how stations are getting hammered with white noise on these openings...

Actually with the capture ratio in the FM receiver your so called hash would not appear. I have never run into such a situation, even at peak E skip times. Or even in Chicago where they run a 97.1 and a 96.9, both running HD. No Hash problems.