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HD Radio in Providence

S

Skynet74

I was at Best Buy yesterday fooling around with their HD Radios. Maybe it was Target. One of those stores I was at had HD Radios. Anyway..... first observation is that the reception always sucks in Department stores. But I did tune in a couple of HD stations in Providence. 94 HJY had one and I think B101 did too.

But if I actually took that radio out of the store, how many HD stations am I likely to get? Will I get everything from Providence and Boston? How about the AM's that are in HD from New York. Would I pick them up too? I've heard that the signal range of HD stations is less than analog reception. Does this mean that there is no chance of me pulling in a static free signal of WCBS or WINS? I would like to know what I would pick up on such a radio before I decide to invest in such a toy. Thanks.
 
I could be wrong but I think in order to pick up a clear HD signal, you have to be within 30 miles of the antenna broadcasting it. If you start to leave the "area", the signal of a regular station will go back and forth between digital and analog but an HD2 station will probably just drop out.
 
It depends on the radio, but most HD's don't have the same coverage as an analog signal. You need pretty close to city-grade strength before you get a reliable HD signal. I have a BA Receptor HD, and it's really deaf. I live 20 miles from a Class B FM and can't pull in their HD with just a dipole...I need an indoor antenna. Even with that I can't get HD on a Class B 35 miles away. The Radiosophy HD receiver isn't much better.

mayermike said:
I could be wrong but I think in order to pick up a clear HD signal, you have to be within 30 miles of the antenna broadcasting it.
Click to expand...
 
So let me get this straight. I was going to buy an HD radio with the hope of improved reception. But there is no hope of me doing that because to get the best reception I need to be near the station where reception is already great? hahahaha. OK.... then why do I need an HD Radio then?

Sounds to me like I'll be delaying making such a purchase. I'm not about to spend more than $100 on a radio only to get 5 or 6 additonal stations. The selling point for me would have been static free reception of distant stations. Looks like that's not happening. I'll stick to streaming and get a wireless transmitter for my house instead. Then I'll be able to get thousands of stations on all my radios for the same price as an HD Radio.

Good Luck to HD Radio. It sounds like lousy technology that is going to need all the luck that it can get.
 
The HD Radio Alliance has really buried their heads in the sand. Just go over to the HD radio board... you'll find lots of terrestrial radio apologists over there in serious denial.

The technology is awful and the product is awful. Skynet, you basically summed it up. Why buy an HD radio if 1) there's a good possibility that the signal is unreliable, 2) there's only a handful of HD stations in your respective market, and 3) you're limited to what your market has to offer?

QVC, based in West Chester, Pennsylvania, did a half-hour segment a few months ago that the Alliance was touting as the "turning point" in HD radio sales. They offered three different models for sale. Someone a friend of mine knows who works there says that they grossed $30,000, far below what they had hoped to sell. Needless to say, the HD Radio people are not going to be asked back to QVC. Of the $30,000 worth of radios sold, even if every one bought the bare bones $200 model, that amounts to less HD radios sold than Arbitron radio markets! It was a huge embarassment for the HD Radio proponents.

HD Radio is deader than the corpse of Saddam Hussein.

Skynet, take that money you were going to spend on an HD Radio and get a WiFi radio instead. Someone I know got one from his wife for Christmas, and I was in awe when I saw it. You can pull in any on-line audio stream anywhere in the world on a WiFi radio (without the use of a compuer), and you're not limited to what's available in Providence. The world is at your disposal. Now THAT is amazing technology.

Plus some of the stations that stream are HD-2 channels! So remind me again why we need HD Radio?
 
NHRadio said:
It depends on the radio, but most HD's don't have the same coverage as an analog signal. You need pretty close to city-grade strength before you get a reliable HD signal. I have a BA Receptor HD, and it's really deaf. I live 20 miles from a Class B FM and can't pull in their HD with just a dipole...I need an indoor antenna. Even with that I can't get HD on a Class B 35 miles away. The Radiosophy HD receiver isn't much better.
Click to expand...

For me, it's seemed to really depend on the height of the station's tower. When I had my BA Receptor here in Framingham (20 mi. west of Boston), I seemed to be sort of on the fringe of all of the Pru FMs, even with a dipole antenna: the FM-128 signals were a lot better but those are only 10 miles away. I did get 93.3 WSNE in HD, but none of the other Providence FMs, and 93.7 WMKK, 96.1 WSRS, and 107.3 WAAF were flakey at best. The Receptor was great at separating signals, though; 97.5 WOKQ came in pretty well considering that the upgrade of 97.7 WKAF has really hurt reception of that station around here.

I now have the radio out near Chicago, in a suburb 30 miles north of the city. Nearly all of the signals in Chicago broadcast from either the Sears Tower and the Hancock Center, each of which are substantially taller than the Pru. All of the stations are Bs, broadcasting with 4000-5000 watts or so vs. 20000 on the Pru, but I have no problem at all pulling in all of the signals with dipole placed near a window. When the weather is right, I've also been able to pull in two HD stations from Milwaukee (60 mi. north), and one from Grand Rapids across Lake Michigan.

All in all, if you're in the right location, the reception isn't too bad. But Providence doesn't seem to be one.
 
In Providence, all the clear channel stations (AM&FM) are in HD.
Citadel is sort of hit and miss right now.
WPRO(AM) was in HD at one time. WWLI-FM's HD is on, but not time alligned. WPRO-FM was in HD for a good solid 6 months but it has been off for two weeks now. WWKX was in HD for a short time then disappeared, a month ago or so, it came back for 3 whole days before disappearing again.

WRNI 1290 is in HD.

From Boston, I can reliably receive all the PRU FMs in HD here, with WXKS and WBCN being the most consistant. The FM128 FMs (WBMX, WJMN, WKLB) not as consistant. WFHN is fringe, but then again, so is the analog signal. (WFHN comes in in Riverside in spots).
WGBH booms in in HD. WKAF will lock in when you are north and west of the city, I get it fairly regularly in Rehoboth.
 
WBZ comes in gangbusters in HD. It doesn't drop out for me whenever I drive in the area.
 
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