HD on Clearance at Radio Shack

[Savage]

My college ex-roommate (35 year reunion last year!!!) and media broker/finance guru says IBOC-FM is already causing problems with first-adjacents in major markets, particularly in LA and Phoenix (he's in San Diego.)

He predicts a cacaphony if/when the tenfold FM digital increase kicks in - and not just from IBOC hiss. He expects serious, organized opposition from operators of move-ins and other specific cases. The IBOC people got away with the AM mess because (a) so few stations are using the system, especially at night; (b) many group operators such as Citadel and Clear Channel are self-regulating by turning IBOC off at night to alleviate problems voluntarily; (c) AM is such a minor part of the revenue picture nowadays relative to FMs.

When an FM move-in with a market value of $15 million is suddenly worth $5 million, that's when it's gonna hit the fan. Courts and politicians will get into the fray.

Of course the HDRadio.com website is going to claim "plenty of new offerings." What else would you expect? In the real world of retail selling of electronics that just isn't true here. And from other posts it seems to be the case elsewhere.

 

[Tom Wells]

Last week in Omaha, I learned at Radio Shack there is no buzz, and no one's asking about it, and they've never carried the Accurian.
This week in Kansas City, At Radio Shack I learned that the store I visited sold 4 but has had no inquiries or current stock.
At least none of those were returned as defective, according to the store mgr.
Next week Little Rock Arkansas! I'll bet they just love it there.

I looked at the HDradio.com site and see two models of HD car converters that may work with a 1972 car, but the Visteon shows no price...
I am suspicious that inserting such a device into the antenna line will upset the feedline impedance and I will not be able to properly
trim the AM RF trimmer. Does anyone know if these are just jammed into the coax, are do they have proper in/out tweaking/peaking
capacitors as high-quality shortwave converters once had?

I won't degrade the sensitivity of my AM or FM reception to listen to proprietary, encrypted signals.

Where are the converters for 455 khz and 10.7 mhz direct IF decoding?
I'm not really interested in radios with varactor tuning, unless they tune in continuous resolution and control a true RF gain stage also.
I don't know of any such animal, especially one that would also not use square wave detection.

So if these guys can come up with a design that respects proper RF design, I'd buy it.
These things don't appear to.
Where are the dang sensitivity specs or ANY specs on any of these tuners or converters?

Will they accept returns if my problem is the decreased sensitivity of the primary radio function?
I will not accept reduced sensitivity, selectivity or noises injected into my analog.
Can these be returned if they fill the AM band with intermodulation whistles?
If I have to turn off the HD converter to get rid of whistles, does the feedline impedance remain unchanged?
Will I have to physically plug-in and unplug the HD converter each time to avoid noise and or reduced sensitivity on AM?
I will not tolerate warbly whistles, hash or other computer-type noise cr@p. Automatically disqualifies any technology for me.
I'll buy bricks before something that makes radio noise or degrades my own radio.

Where's the designs for plug in tube-socket converters for HD AM where ya plug the converter into the 12SQ7 socket, it runs off the
6.3 v heater current, ya plug the 12SQ7 into the converter socket and then the audio cicuit is fed glorious HD?
Then there'd hafta be designs for miniature tube types and the Octals....and the 4, 5, 6, and 7 pin types....
How about plug-in tube replacements for common detector tube types where the whole HD demod schmear happens in a 12SQ7
ready-to plug in replacement? Same thing for FM tuner detector circuits.

If they're serious about getting HD to take off they must address the existing zillion or so radios people are NOT throwing away
for many reasons, thank you, and none of anybody's business why they might prefer to keep such radios.

Become truly compatible and I will welcome HD. Let a low-data rate FSK tell the radio where to find the enhanced digital in LW or
low Short-wave, use a dang sync signal of some sort, then overlay the digital into/over the analog in a soft / diversity mixer...
Give the end use a knob to fine tune the time phase and blend amount. That's one of the right ways to do it.
I'm sure there are others that wouldn't require invasive sidebands. I'm not concerned at all that the FCC won't relinquish
spectrum for public broadcast use. I'm only seeing the best possible engineering solution that respects existing services in a
civilized manner and does no harm.

 

[KB1OKL]

Geez, Tom, you mean to say that you don't think that the 800,000,000 analog radios in use today are not going into the landfill ;D? You mean "radio with a boob job" is not compatible with all these radios? I think some not very sound thinking went into this mess. Incidentally I have a bunch of boatanchor radios that would need various types of tube plug ins for glorious IBOC, can't wait until iNiquity gets into the tube business.

 

[Carmine5]

I bought my Accurian at Radio Shack nearly TWO YEARS AGO for 99 dollars. That ain't news!

As for the "post IBOC era", better check HD Radio Dot Com! PLENTY of new HD offerings from BIG companies. Including a new component tuner priced at a hundred bucks from Sony, bunch o' receivers, and Apple getting in the mix. Far from dying, HD is moving forward steadily. I hadn't been to the site in a few weeks, and was quite surprised at all the new models.

Sony and Apple beat Accurian (in terms of brand recogniation) any day!

I think it's safe to say that this is about as close as Apple is going to get in terms of marrying radio with iPod:

http://gizmodo.com/383947/the-99+cent-ipod-radio-cheapo-knock+off-of-the-year

C5

 

[SUPERCASTER]

I bought my Accurian at Radio Shack nearly TWO YEARS AGO for 99 dollars. That ain't news!

As for the "post IBOC era", better check HD Radio Dot Com! PLENTY of new HD offerings from BIG companies. Including a new component tuner priced at a hundred bucks from Sony, bunch o' receivers, and Apple getting in the mix. Far from dying, HD is moving forward steadily. I hadn't been to the site in a few weeks, and was quite surprised at all the new models.

Sony and Apple beat Accurian (in terms of brand recogniation) any day!

I think it's safe to say that this is about as close as Apple is going to get in terms of marrying radio with iPod:

http://gizmodo.com/383947/the-99+cent-ipod-radio-cheapo-knock+off-of-the-year

C5

If there is any future for HD radio, it's at the dollar store.

 

[Mike Walker]

The "future of HD Radio" SHOULD be "at the dollar store"...with affordable products, the kind people actually buy. But you might note that it's also "at the thousand dollar store", as HD is adopted in more HIGH END products (home theater receivers, tuners designed for installation in high-end custom systems, etc.) I know you intended a pun...to indicate that HD products are being discounted everywhere. This you conclude from the natural phasing out of a couple of two-year old products. But one can reach this conclusion only by ignoring the new, premium products...MANY OF THEM, from larger manufacturers (Sony and Onkyo, vs. Accurian and Boston Acoustics? Hardly an even swap!), which are taking their place!

 

[KB1OKL]

If there is any future for HD radio, it's at the dollar store.

You forgot to include garage sales and the Salvation Army.

 

[pqgeorge]

IMHO, maybe it's time for the FCC to revisit FMeXtra, the full-quality digital FM radio system that uses the existing SCA bandwidth that ALL FM stations have and does not upset the "neighbors" (a.k.a.-the adjacent channels). The current IBOC system is questionable both in terms of coverage and cost of implementing. The cost of a complete IBOC system, about $75,000+ (never mind the $25,000 license fee you need, just to run the damn thing). If you are the owner of a big conglomerate of over 1000 stations, it's a drop in the bucket. For the rest of us, it's almost virtually impossible to pay for the cost of such a device. The cost of FMeXtra, $15,000 with NO extra licensing required. Hey, at that price, even the smaller college or high school stations can get on the digital bandwagon (even the 10 or 100 watters!). FMeXtra has the same multi-casting properties as IBOC, but without all the mess (interference). No question, radio needs to go to the digital age. But, I truly question if IBOC is the answer. With today's economy hitting the skids (a.k.a.-truly sucking "pond water"), IBOC's overall cost seems highly exorbitant. Bring the cost down to earth, and maybe ...... well, who knows.