Dont get me wrong, I love HD Radio, I just wish it wasnt a challange to try to get fringe area stations to be reliable. I'm about 60 miles from what I want to catch to San antonio - About 84 miles to Houston, it pulls in most of the time, but drops out frequently. How can they fix this? Better sensitive radios? One thing I really like about the Radioshack Accurian is that I can DX analog stations that I never caught before with my analog tuners, it has a very good filter in there.
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HD Radio reception...
- Thread starter jras20
- Start date
jras20 said:
DSP is part if the HD spec. As to stations from 84 miles away, I doubt you can hear them with a walkman, a table radio or a normal car radio. I know at least in NY when you go west towards the Pennsylvania state line which is about 73 miles away, you can barely receive NY FM stations if at all, in automobiles. Even in Sparta NJ which is 50 miles away from NYC the signals are spotty at best and NY TV stations can not be received well due to the mountains between the Sparta and NYC. So you are talking about receiving stations from over 80 miles away. You'll need an antenna with lots of gain and enough height to overcome any obstructions in the way. An antenna with enough elements will also decrese the beamwidth and so stations off the sides and back don't interfere.
R.F. Burns said:
Yeah its even a challenge with a analog radio, but I do have a antenna about 20' up FM 12 element antenna from Radioshack, it does pretty well. Is there stronger antennas out there than that one? I want a FM only antenna, to bad Radioshack quit selling those 12 element antennas, I cant find any on their web site any more.
jras20 said:
"HD Radio Effort Undermined by Weak Tuners in Expensive Radios"
"The results were consistent with AM band. Here I pitted the HD radios against the 1941 Zenith. To be blunt the sensitivity of this piece of 65 year-old technology blew the HD receivers away. You can’t get a more stark statement than that... This flaw resides in the choice of tuners inserted into these radios by the companies building them, tuners which all have weak sensitivity. Sensitivity that is so weak their analog reception is inferior to that found in a cheap shower radio and a vintage tube radio. This is inexcusable considering the price point of these radios. Ultimately, this misstep is undermining the aggressive effort to launch this new technology."
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/7002/hd-radio2.html
jras20 said:
Because of the fact that the FM BCB is just above channel 6, a TV antenna, which is a pretty broadbanded device will work for you. Look for a deep finge TV antenna or got his route. http://antennaperformance.com/
DSP is part if the HD spec. As to stations from 84 miles away, I doubt you can hear them with a walkman, a table radio or a normal car radio. I know at least in NY when you go west towards the Pennsylvania state line which is about 73 miles away, you can barely receive NY FM stations if at all, in automobiles. Even in Sparta NJ which is 50 miles away from NYC the signals are spotty at best and NY TV stations can not be received well due to the mountains between the Sparta and NYC. So you are talking about receiving stations from over 80 miles away. You'll need an antenna with lots of gain and enough height to overcome any obstructions in the way. An antenna with enough elements will also decrese the beamwidth and so stations off the sides and back don't interfere.
[/quote]
Yeah its even a challenge with a analog radio, but I do have a antenna about 20' up FM 12 element antenna from Radioshack, it does pretty well. Is there stronger antennas out there than that one? I want a FM only antenna, to bad Radioshack quit selling those 12 element antennas, I cant find any on their web site any more.
[/quote]
Because of the fact that the FM BCB is just above channel 6, a TV antenna, which is a pretty broadbanded device will work for you. Look for a deep finge TV antenna or got his route. http://antennaperformance.com/
[/quote]
Thanks for the link - will check it out, why did radioshack get rid of the 12 element antenna?
I think the reason HD reception won't go that far has to do with only going out to the 60dbu contour by design. Anything past 60dbu(54 in Zone 1)is outside of the protected analog coverage area. You may receive a signal past that point but only if you don't enter someone else's protected coverage area. If you can hear anything, it's considered "bonus coverage" and is not protected from interference. That said, I still receive HD coverage beyond 50dbu in my car!
M
Mike Walker
Guest
When HD craps out, analog is there for "fallback"...so you STILL get the station. This is one of the strongest arguments for HD, and a reason why there should be no talk of shutting off analog. Now when you're listening to an analog station, and the signal becomes unlistenable, what can you do? 
Anyone with an HD radio who lives in a rural location knows there are plenty of situations where HD comes in great, and analog is too noisy to tolerate (of course the opposite is also common). HD and analog compliment one another, and actually EXTEND useful coverage (on FM...I'm NOT talking about AM!) to areas that would otherwise not receive adequate service. Not one of the claimed advantages of HD, but it does often work out that way in the real world.
Anyone with an HD radio who lives in a rural location knows there are plenty of situations where HD comes in great, and analog is too noisy to tolerate (of course the opposite is also common). HD and analog compliment one another, and actually EXTEND useful coverage (on FM...I'm NOT talking about AM!) to areas that would otherwise not receive adequate service. Not one of the claimed advantages of HD, but it does often work out that way in the real world.
M
Mike Walker
Guest
Then jras20, that is a dx catch I would treasure. I hope you recorded it! EVERYONE who dxes as a hobby should keep a recorder handy!
M
Mike Walker
Guest
Indeed jras20. I look forward to my first AM HD DX "skip".
Mike Walker said:When HD craps out, analog is there for "fallback"...so you STILL get the station. This is one of the strongest arguments for HD, and a reason why there should be no talk of shutting off analog. Now when you're listening to an analog station, and the signal becomes unlistenable, what can you do?
Just listen to the station's internet streams. Thousands of stations are available, worldwide, to anyone with a computer and decent internet connection. ;D
M
Mike Walker
Guest
Yeah...just listen to the station's internet stream in your car. Or at your desk at work (GREAT way to get fired...using corporate bandwidth for entertainment!) That'll work!
Now some internet streams sound great. Others, and streams from some of my favorite stations, are only broadcast at 24kbps mono (when their on-air signal is in stereo in noise-free HD!) The HD not only sounds orders of magnitude better, but I can get it ANYWHERE.
Another tip: thousands of stations, including many I listen to (MOST of the ones in my area) don't webcast, and never have. Many of those that do actually have SILENCE when breaking for commercials! Nothing holds an audience like two to four minutes of DEAD AIR! Let's get real...there are lots of great options on the 'net...WHEN service is available. But NOBODY can rely on the internet to offer EVERY station they want to hear, at a quality level they find acceptable. For that reason, the internet is NOT exactly a viable option!
Now some internet streams sound great. Others, and streams from some of my favorite stations, are only broadcast at 24kbps mono (when their on-air signal is in stereo in noise-free HD!) The HD not only sounds orders of magnitude better, but I can get it ANYWHERE.
Another tip: thousands of stations, including many I listen to (MOST of the ones in my area) don't webcast, and never have. Many of those that do actually have SILENCE when breaking for commercials! Nothing holds an audience like two to four minutes of DEAD AIR! Let's get real...there are lots of great options on the 'net...WHEN service is available. But NOBODY can rely on the internet to offer EVERY station they want to hear, at a quality level they find acceptable. For that reason, the internet is NOT exactly a viable option!
Mike Walker said:
Silence is often better then being battered by annoying commercials (instant tune outs). Lack of commercials is a free benefit, not a disadvantage!
Bitrates are being improved (held down temporarily for those few who still have dialup connections) and the same aacPLUS encoding used by HD radio is already here on the net (see below).
Stations that don't webcast, should start getting with the future of worldwide commerce and broadcasting.
The red glow is in honor of, and to match all the red herrings HD supporters post here.
http://www.wrti.org/streaminginformation.html
http://www.slate.com/id/2112548/
http://www.tuner2.com/
http://www.bestoldies.com/
and many others.
M
Mike Walker
Guest
My guess would be that most HD listening is, or soon will be, IN THE CAR, where most radio listening has always occured. Even so, I don't have a computer in my bedroom! To listen to HD radio, I merely turn it on. To listen to an internet stream (in my bedroom) I must fetch either my PocketPC or laptop, turn it on, log into my network, find the URL of the staiton I wish to hear, wait for it to buffer, etc. DESCRIBING it takes quite a bit longer than just turning on a radio. And actually doing it takes longer still!
SUPERCASTER said:Mike Walker said:When HD craps out, analog is there for "fallback"...so you STILL get the station. This is one of the strongest arguments for HD, and a reason why there should be no talk of shutting off analog. Now when you're listening to an analog station, and the signal becomes unlistenable, what can you do?
Just listen to the station's internet streams. Thousands of stations are available, worldwide, to anyone with a computer and decent internet connection. ;D
This post is going no were, I thought I might could get a little help but now it has gone off the topic. But thanks Mike for the info.
HD radios don't have to be purchased, set up, turned on, tuned in or buffer?
What about all the HD Radio bother with extra external antennas and spotty, intermittant reception with analog fall back?
What about all the HD Radio bother with extra external antennas and spotty, intermittant reception with analog fall back?
Mike Walker said:
Yea, the annoying switching between weak HD/IBOC signals and the stronger analog signals - at least with my $10 - $25 analog radios, the signals are almost always there, with no annoying switching. Great argument in favor of HD/IBOC !
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