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HD Radio

I remember when some home receivers like from Denon or Yamaha had built-in HD receiver in them. Those are pretty much non-existent now. The only HD receiver I got is a decades old rack mount unit made by DaySequerra. Those are mainly for use in the broadcast industry.
 
Sangean still has options- a standalone tuner, a "boombox", and at least one other smaller handheld that include HD. Maybe a clock radio or two as well. Best Buy is still selling a small Insignia HD radio also.
 
Mark Roberts said:
This often is said, and I don't deny it - yet Sangean continues to thrive, Sony still sells radios, and China's pumping 'em out like nobody's business. So where are all these units going if nobody's buying them? "Hobbyists" isn't a sufficient answer because that's not such a big market on its own.
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Sangean makes specialty radios, just like Baofeng and the other Chinese producers. I don't know exactly how many they make per year, but I'd wager it's less than the number of tinny-sounding six-transistor pocket AM radios Hong Kong was dumping into the U.S. market in the '60s.
 
Anyone on just a HD signal making any money? I guess the question is do you know any radio company or format that is currently just on HD having success in sales or ratings?
 
CTListener said:
Sangean makes specialty radios, just like Baofeng and the other Chinese producers.
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I believe the current model of Sangean HD component tuner is the HDT-20. I have the HDT-1, which was the first one, and the HDT-1X, which was an improvement on it. (Anybody want an HDT-1? I haven't used mine in years.)
 
DavidEduardo said:
You can simply add additional DAB transmitters on adjacent channels. Each can have a bunch of additional stations.

Again, as I said, DAB has "worked" where the government controls a significant portion of listening with state radio stations.
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It was my understanding that the DAB radios that have been sold in the EU only have set frequencies. I.E., they tune to one main frequency, and that frequency's digital transmission is divided up into channels, sort of like the SiriusXM satellite receivers. So if they did what you mention, wouldn't they have to come up with new receivers?
 
Don CT said:
What off the shelf radios can you buy with HD capabilities?
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If by off-the-shelf, you mean in stores, I'm not aware of any. But Sangean has several good, and decently priced models for sale at Amazon and Walmart online and other online retailers. I have an HDR-16, which uses the same case as the PR-D5 and PR-D15. It works well for FM and HD, the AM band gets some RFI from the LCD readout, though.
 
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BruceB said:
Surprises me too.Seems like back in the 70s.Every FM station in Cincinnati had their own stick.Was that by choice or were they just ignoring the regulation
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Your guess is as good as mine, but I suspect it probably had something to do with FM still not completely taking off and being run on the cheap. I doubt too many people wanted to invest in big FM towers until they knew people would listen, and running them from a small tower on owned property was probably cheaper.

Mark Roberts said:
This often is said, and I don't deny it - yet Sangean continues to thrive, Sony still sells radios, and China's pumping 'em out like nobody's business. So where are all these units going if nobody's buying them? "Hobbyists" isn't a sufficient answer because that's not such a big market on its own.
Click to expand...

Your guess is as good as mine, but I suspect the radio manufacturing business is a lot like the radio business itself. You can make decent money selling radios if you can sell them at high enough margins to the small percentage of the population that wants them. I can’t imagine, even when people bought radios in greater numbers, that the manufacturers ever saw them as repeat sales.
 
Don CT said:
Are people even buying clock radios anymore, or have Bluetooth speakers taken over that market too.
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The smart speaker I have, which is a pretty nice Google, can wake me up but only with a repetitive beep. It cannot wake me up by playing a certain radio station at a certain time. So I would say that when I want to be awakened by radio I still need a clock radio.
The clock radio also tells me the time without me having to ask.
 
BruceB said:
The smart speaker I have, which is a pretty nice Google, can wake me up but only with a repetitive beep. It cannot wake me up by playing a certain radio station at a certain time. So I would say that when I want to be awakened by radio I still need a clock radio.
The clock radio also tells me the time without me having to ask.
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Most people just look at their phone now for the time.
 
Mark Roberts said:
This often is said, and I don't deny it - yet Sangean continues to thrive, Sony still sells radios, and China's pumping 'em out like nobody's business. So where are all these units going if nobody's buying them? "Hobbyists" isn't a sufficient answer because that's not such a big market on its own.
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I get all this....I really do. There are still plenty of people listening to radio.

But there is a considerable percentage of people, growing every day, that are not listening to conventional broadcast radio.....I offer Spotify, Pandora, YouTube Music, Sirius/XM, and legions of podcasts that are taking up "ear-hours" (hmm...did I just invent a new metric?) that used to be pointed at radio.

That is a big problem, and consolidations, voice tracking, dollar-a-holler spots, and more is not making it any better. The radio industry recently pointed gleefully that "only" 30% of young people get their music from streaming. That is supposed to make us feel BETTER?

Here on Radio Discussions we are an extract....a subset....a microcosm of the world at large. If people everywhere were increasingly dissatisfied with ice cream, and the overall consumption of ice cream was dropping world wide, if you visited the Ice Cream Makers and Eaters Forum, you would see it argued against. That is happening here.
 
I completely agree. I am in the RF industry (Part 90 public safety LMR) and my consumption of broadcast consists of mostly just DXing. I love the broadcast industry and am fascinated by broadcast. That said our entertainment its typically Sirius (although their music selections on most channels gets tiring) and streaming either my own collection of MP3 or spotify/pandora. During storms I might tune into the local news AM outlet (KTRH). My wife couldnt tell you the last time she tuned in to FM and never has listened to AM. We are in our 40s. My son probably has no idea he has a radio in his truck that could pick up AM/FM and hes in his 20s. Him and his wife dont even have Sirius. Its all streaming. Once streaming made it to the dashboard as an app, it was just too easy to log on. No more clunky bluetooth or tethering a phone to the entertainment system. In car celluar makes streaming to appear as just another "band" adjacent to the radio. Add to that the abilty to tell Alexa or Google at home to play from streaming services, there is no need to put a radio in the house. Yes, sure we can ask them to stream our local FMs, but why would we do that when we can just say "Alexa play music by so and so and get the genre and similar artists".
 
BruceB said:
Surprises me too.Seems like back in the 70s.Every FM station in Cincinnati had their own stick.Was that by choice or were they just ignoring the regulation
Click to expand...

The spectrum is pretty crowded around there and with class Cs in Lexington KY, Louisville KY's Class B's and grandfathered C, and Dayton Ohio stations, plus several class A's in the area, to "max out" your station you might have to have a be in a location where there aren't any towers for FCC spacing.

Also why give a competitor rent money. You could always rent space to pager companies, two way providers, and emergency services, etc. I bet some of these sites have some cellular equipment on them now.
 
Don CT said:
Are people even buying clock radios anymore, or have Bluetooth speakers taken over that market too.
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Clock radios probably still sell for a few people GenX and older. Most use their phones as an alarm. I know my former GF's 16 year old used his phone as an alarm, and that was in 2011. It was a flip phone.
 
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