HD Radio in the Car reception

[jras20]

I'm looking at the JVC car HD radio now, I might get it. Not sure yet though. I wish I could improve my Truck radio reception in general first before I get HD.

 

[KB1OKL]

I'm looking at the JVC car HD radio now, I might get it. Not sure yet though. I wish I could improve my Truck radio reception in general first before I get HD.

From HD-Anonymous or HDA: Insanity is doing the same thing expecting different results.

 

[strangelove]

Terrain and FM have never gotten along very well, I could only imagine what mountainous or hilly areas do to an IBOC signal. I'm here in South Florida so it's flat as a dime and I can get HD stations that are 60 miles away.

 

[oldjohnny]

I'm looking at the JVC car HD radio now, I might get it. Not sure yet though. I wish I could improve my Truck radio reception in general first before I get HD.

From HD-Anonymous or HDA: Insanity is doing the same thing expecting different results.

Not in this case. I tried getting one of those external HD radio at first on my car (An add-on if you will), and reception was not all great, maybe say 35 miles on Houston stations. When I installed the JVC KD-HDR1, I started to catch HD on FM for 45-50 miles. I completely loose HD around the 65-70 mile marker. AM is definetily improved, AM would lock in the city, but it would be a pain outside the city, with the JVC, I am now able to receive WBAP in my car while driving around all the way to College Station TX. (And yes, I still hear engine noise before it locks, so this means I can still improve the signal and get better coverage on HD)

The one thing that still gets me is that my XDR-F1HD is not able to lock in WBAP at all. I locked in KRLD once at the early morning hours once, but other than that, nothing.

But I do acknowledge this, HD Radio has to be re-engineered and changed. It's not to late to pull back since not many people have bought HD radios.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

KD-HDR1, I started to catch HD on FM for 45-50 miles. I completely loose HD around the 65-70 mile marker.

As I recall, the original car FM stereo radios would drop stereo at - guess what - about 50 miles. Even today, the very tallest tower and 100 kW over flat terrain has some stereo dropouts at 50 miles, but receiver technology has progressed to the point - with stereo blend to mono - that you hardly notice the difference. Even at 100 miles and beyond - as much as 130 - it is possible to get a really listenable signal before you are over the event horizon. These advances have been driven by receiver - not transmitter - improvements, and I have every reason to believe HD will be the same way. All that is required is consumer acceptance. HD advocates like to compare the acceptance of FM stereo to HD, so this is a legitimat comparison. IF HD catches on with consumers, in 30 years HD range, based on receiver improvements alone, should match analog range - if you factor in the occasional problems that exist today more than 50 miles out. HD may always be worse, but that is because of the lock time. It is long in comparison to signal swing times. But 50 plus miles is outside of the market for most stations - unless you are in the suburbs of Dallas or Houston or similar markets - and outside of market reception is not guaranteed by the FCC.

 

[jras20]

KD-HDR1, I started to catch HD on FM for 45-50 miles. I completely loose HD around the 65-70 mile marker.

As I recall, the original car FM stereo radios would drop stereo at - guess what - about 50 miles. Even today, the very tallest tower and 100 kW over flat terrain has some stereo dropouts at 50 miles, but receiver technology has progressed to the point - with stereo blend to mono - that you hardly notice the difference. Even at 100 miles and beyond - as much as 130 - it is possible to get a really listenable signal before you are over the event horizon. These advances have been driven by receiver - not transmitter - improvements, and I have every reason to believe HD will be the same way. All that is required is consumer acceptance. HD advocates like to compare the acceptance of FM stereo to HD, so this is a legitimat comparison. IF HD catches on with consumers, in 30 years HD range, based on receiver improvements alone, should match analog range - if you factor in the occasional problems that exist today more than 50 miles out. HD may always be worse, but that is because of the lock time. It is long in comparison to signal swing times. But 50 plus miles is outside of the market for most stations - unless you are in the suburbs of Dallas or Houston or similar markets - and outside of market reception is not guaranteed by the FCC.

Yep even Houston drops at 50miles its still clear but the FM stereo goes out ever so often. Sometimes the radio will skip over some of the stations even. (analog)

 

[jras20]

Well kind of to sum this thread up, I don't believe I will upgrade to HD radio in my truck. I'll probably just keep my analog factory radio in. It does a good job. HD Radio does great in the home, but in the car it does not do well.

 

[Savage]

If the much-squeezed-for 10x increase in digital IBOC power goes through, HD-FM will do even "less well in the car." Especially for analog listeners. Or, put another way: "virtually all of the listeners."

It's hard to imagine even the dullest corporate-suit cluster manager willingly signing on for a 30% coverage reduction just to hang onto the creaky, slowing HD Bandwagon a little while longer. Along with incurring the half-mil or so in capital costs, permanent and irreversible increases in operating costs (despite the dimming prospects for whether HD will ever actually fly in the marketplace) and increased pressure on overburdened engineering people.

Stupid is as stupid does. It's stunning how far big group radio will go to preserve a handful of high-echelon overinflated egos. Bob Anderson, the saviour of Avis Rent-A-Car and the guy who invented the legendary "We Try Harder" marketing campaign, wrote that "every organization needs a Vice-President In Charge Of Killing Bad Ideas." Boy, does the radio industry need one.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

If the much-squeezed-for 10x increase in digital IBOC power goes through, HD-FM will do even "less well in the car." Especially for analog listeners. Or, put another way: "virtually all of the listeners."

You are preaching to the choir ---

The thing that concerns me most about a 10x power increase that the highest power on the Eastern seaboard is 50kW analog, only 500W HD. It scales down from there. In the West, 100kW with 1000W HD. Neither power level is particularly strong in tropo or E-layer skip. But you increase those powers tenfold, then during strong tropo and e-skip events, substantial energy will get transferred into the atmosphere and show up across the country. The situation is bad enough as it is - we happen to be in a lull period for various types of skips (rotten timing), but this is cyclic - and if stations are plagued by normal or excessive amounts of skip, which is more realistic than the lull period now, they are going to have e-hash from distant FM stations to contend with. VERY annoying to listeners if the capture ratio blanks them out and brings in the hash instead.

I had a glimpse of that on vacation in Florida last summer. Virtually every night has the atmosphere re-settling after daytime ocean front thunderstorms. The e-hash, even at present IBOC powers, was skipping and destructive, even to station I know I was within the 1mV contour. Let loose 10 times the power, that last night scenario is going to be a disaster. There isn't a lot of listening going on at midnight, maybe, but there is probably more than you think among young professionals that tend to stay up. And that e-hash on FM is just as annoying as it is on AM.

HD power increase = bad idea. It is a bad idea on AM, and re-shaping the FM band in AM's image is stupid beyond words!

 

[jras20]

How about get rid of HD Radio all together and start something new on a different frequency. I think that will fix it all.

 

[Play Freebird]

The thing that concerns me most about a 10x power increase that the highest power on the Eastern seaboard is 50kW analog, only 500W HD. It scales down from there. In the West, 100kW with 1000W HD. Neither power level is particularly strong in tropo or E-layer skip. But you increase those powers tenfold, then during strong tropo and e-skip events, substantial energy will get transferred into the atmosphere and show up across the country. The situation is bad enough as it is - we happen to be in a lull period for various types of skips (rotten timing), but this is cyclic - and if stations are plagued by normal or excessive amounts of skip, which is more realistic than the lull period now, they are going to have e-hash from distant FM stations to contend with. VERY annoying to listeners if the capture ratio blanks them out and brings in the hash instead.

You are absolutely right, and its not just sunspot-related E-skip that causes problems.

Philadelphia has two Class B FM stations which are short-spaced to co-channel facilities atop the Empire State Building in New York. The ESB stations have an analog ERP of about 6 kW, but when the band opens due to ducting and other forms of tropo skip (quite common this time of year), interference to the Philadelphia stations can be heard only 10 miles from their transmitters. At 20 miles away, this interference can become strong enough to completely override their signals. So I know that IBOC digital sideband powers in the 2.5 to 5 kW range have potential to do lots of damage.

The remaining Class B stations in Philadelphia have first-adjacent neighbors in New York and/or Baltimore-Washington. I expect significant problems if they and their neighbors are granted the proposed 10 dB digital power increase.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

Bob Anderson, the saviour of Avis Rent-A-Car and the guy who invented the legendary "We Try Harder" marketing campaign, wrote that "every organization needs a Vice-President In Charge Of Killing Bad Ideas." Boy, does the radio industry need one.

In absolute agreement, but...wasn't that Bob Townsend (author of "Up the Organization," one of the best books ever written about corporate management)?

IIRC he wrote that every company needs one person who reports only to upper management. This person would be present at every meeting where the company's direction and focus were discussed, and his sole job was to stand up and yell, as loudly as possible, "bulls**t!!" repeatedly whenever anything was proposed that would divert the company's energies and focus from where they should be.

 

[Savage]

Absolutely right, Hair, and I stand corrected - Townsend, not Anderson. "Up The Organization" is a book I've read, bought and given away a hundred times since it was published 30+ years ago. It's a great look at how to run a company successfully, make money, have fun and do it with respect and humility.

Among the gems in UTO:

a. Reserved parking lots for execs are a no-no. If you're so freaking important, you should be the first one there every morning. Same thing for private elevators and executive dining rooms. Eat in the cafeteria; you meet the nicest people down there.

b. A great lesson there for HD fans who are constantly drooling all over themselves about providing MORE CHOICE !!! via subchannels: Townsend related how he came up with a monumentally stupid idea for discount compact car rentals, which would run up expenses while cutting drastically into Avis' core business. He said he was enthusiastically pitching the idea to his managers when a guy named Stepnowski stood up and sank the whole concept with a single sentence: "I don't know what you guys call this, but it's what we Pollacks call 'pi**ing in the soup.'"

c. I loved how he handled going on vacation - instead of appointing some busybody/assistant to take over for him while he was away, causing myriad internal problems, he just gave the little guy in the mailroom a rubber stamp with instructions to stamp every internal memo and return to sender: "I'm away. Please handle this in your own style and don't tell me what you did when I get back. B.T." He said he never had a problem to deal with when he returned.