hd receiver useless at the shore

[oasisrulz]

How the heck can HD get off the ground, I was in Wildwood last week, nothing on HD except JSE but no side channel, and some non-comm....This week in Seaside Heights two HD's, JRZ and the RAT still no side bands....three if you count SOJO with no side band....so that is 3-4 stations in HD at the shore with no sides....meaning nothing to listen to HD wise....I think at this rate HD will surely flop big time....and for the local Philly signals HD has no strength, nothing like HD Television which comes in better than the old signals..10 miles from the Xmtr and they are gone....any solutions lets hear them....Satellite is the way to go if you don't like the normal band menu....

 

[bigtom101]

How the heck can HD get off the ground, I was in Wildwood last week, nothing on HD except JSE but no side channel, and some non-comm....This week in Seaside Heights two HD's, JRZ and the RAT still no side bands....three if you count SOJO with no side band....so that is 3-4 stations in HD at the shore with no sides....meaning nothing to listen to HD wise....I think at this rate HD will surely flop big time....and for the local Philly signals HD has no strength, nothing like HD Television which comes in better than the old signals..10 miles from the Xmtr and they are gone....any solutions lets hear them....Satellite is the way to go if you don't like the normal band menu....

Multicast channels for Rat & JRZ were announced awhile ago - http://www.greatermedia.com/press/detail.php?ID=148. WJLK's HD is still being repaired from an earlier lightning hit, and their HD-2 is supposed to be the "ShoreAlternative" stream that Millennium has up. I wish more multicast channels were available, but getting new automation computers and upgrading STL's to carry more audio channels takes time and money. SoJo would be smart to carry WKXW on a HD-2 and pick up South Jersey listeners who can't get 101.5 in their neck of the woods.

As far as the signal strength is concerned, the IBOC signal is 1% of the analog output power. It takes a much better antenna to pull those signals out of the ether than the rat tail antennas that most radios come with. From my home in Millstone, I can get most of the Philly & NY FM HD signals, along with WJRZ and WSJO using a 4 element yagi antenna. WJRZ has a soid HD signal north to Toms River, WRAT's goes south to Brick and west to Freehold from my travles in the car. The FCC has not decided yet on the power increase for IBOC signals from 1% to 10% of analog power. When WJRZ was at 10% digital power, the HD signal coverage area went up by 51%. With WRAT, it went up 29% (due to lower antenna height, there wasn't as a dramatic improvement as with WJRZ).

I usually listen to WBEN's HD-2 and sometimes WRDW's HD-2. I loved "Classic Lite", but it was replaced with country (blech).

 

[nd2023]

Most people are not going to want to put up an outdoor antenna just for HD radio. I bought a home HD radio last year, and it did not pick up the one HD station I wanted, WRDW-HD2, just 30 miles from Philly. Most of the HD stations it was picking up were not stable. I returned the HD radio the next day, claiming it was defective. This is why HD Radio won't be popular.

 

[JerseyShor]

A friend of mine has a Volvo with HD built in.

Here in Southern Ocean County he gets WJRZ & WSJO very well, in HD 99% of the time.

He can also pull in WMMR about 70% of the time, but almost perfectly west of the Parkway (Ocean Acres/Warren Grove/etc).

WSTW, WIOQ, WBEN, WXTU & WMGK also come in in HD, but very unreliably and switch back and forth constantly while driving.

Ironically he's a rock fan and cannot get WRAT-HD at all south of Lacey and it's very spotty north of there) and cannot get WRFF-HD more than a couple of miles east of the Burlington County border...

 

[radioskeptic]

Note to “oasisrulz”: The secondary channels in FM “HD” multicasting are not “side bands.” They are conventionally called HD-2 and HD-3.

But even the HD-1 signal, which simulcasts the analog program, is not a sideband of the analog signal. Whether there are one, two or three “HD” signals, all of the “HD” material is generated outside the analog FM exciter, and is not an integral part of the analog signal. (In fact, it doesn’t even occupy the channel assigned to the analog signal, but rather the closer half of each first-adjacent channel, often interfering with reception of previously usable first-adjacent signals. And that’s why there’s so much opposition to the proposed digital power increase.)

Note to “bigtom101”: You said,

SoJo would be smart to carry WKXW on a HD-2 and pick up South Jersey listeners who can't get 101.5 in their neck of the woods.

They tried simulcasting that Trenton talk signal on 97.3 in Millville years ago and it didn’t work. And that was an analog signal on a 50-kw Class B – and they even moved the transmitter about 10 miles ESE (out of Cumberland County) to be closer to Atlantic City. Ocean City, Wildwood and Cape May – and it didn’t attract a significant audience. After all, who wants to hear an obnoxious loudmouth like Jim Gearhart?

 

[ajc_trw]

Note to “oasisrulz”: The secondary channels in FM “HD” multicasting are not “side bands.” They are conventionally called HD-2 and HD-3.

But even the HD-1 signal, which simulcasts the analog program, is not a sideband of the analog signal. Whether there are one, two or three “HD” signals, all of the “HD” material is generated outside the analog FM exciter, and is not an integral part of the analog signal. (In fact, it doesn’t even occupy the channel assigned to the analog signal, but rather the closer half of each first-adjacent channel, often interfering with reception of previously usable first-adjacent signals. And that’s why there’s so much opposition to the proposed digital power increase.)

Absolutely correct, the HD digital carriers do occupy space on both first-adjacent channels. That's why the power is so low, so interference wouldn't be worse.

IMHO if IBOC could place all of its carriers within a broadcaster's channel (between 75kHz & 100kHz from center in the guardband) they could increase power to a level where reception wouldn't be a problem. However, they wouldn't have the bits necessary for multicasting and may run shy in regards to a good quality HD-1.

IMHO any system that steps (very lightly and ineffectively) on neighboring stations is a system not worth doing. :-/

Turning first-adjacents into co-channel interference: seriously WTF?

 

[Pirate_Jim]

Only HD station I get reliably here in Toms River is WRAT ...
WJRZ is sporadic, at best ...
I also get some Philly HD stations, about 75% of the time: WMMR, WYSP, WRDW and WNUW ...

 

[d21ofnj]

It seems that Philly HD stations seem to pick up in the area, but what about the NY HD stations? Any of them come in decent.

 

[oasisrulz]

While driving back to Philly from Seaside last night, I did notice the RAT had a much weaker signal. I remember when they first flipped years ago from WADB, they went as far as the 70-72 circle, now they don't make it much further than Lakehurst...could it be their HD stealing some power....During the female host's show last night, the music was really good, I always hear how the RAT sucks, compared to years back...but I heard new Creed, Days of the New, a GnR cut that was never played, MGMT, Slipk, Sixx AM and plenty of good rock with little talk and commercials. Maybe I caught them on a good night...to get back to subject on my portable HD receiver on the boards nothing was available except the RAT and JRZ, and the JRZ at 100.7 had no HD....

 

[bigtom101]

Most people are not going to want to put up an outdoor antenna just for HD radio. I bought a home HD radio last year, and it did not pick up the one HD station I wanted, WRDW-HD2, just 30 miles from Philly. Most of the HD stations it was picking up were not stable. I returned the HD radio the next day, claiming it was defective. This is why HD Radio won't be popular.

I can get WRDW in HD just fine with the supplied dipole of my Sony XDR-F1HD here in Clarksburg (Millstone). Over in Perrineville where my grandparents live, all the NYC HD stations come in fine with the dipole. If the power increase goes thru, then the need for a yagi for "suburban" reception of HD will be reduced.

I need the 4 element yagi in the attic cause there is a forest of trees in my backyard and the LOS to NYC is right thru the freakin trees.

Then again, I like HD radio and haven't had any of the reception/interference issues that have been mentioned. WKMK is more of a nusiance to my reception of WRKS than WUSL's IBOC sidebands.

 

[tom]

with the supplied dipole of my Sony XDR-F1HD

The Sony has been touted as the best FM tuner ever made ... I think so,
I've purchased six of them so far. The physical design isn't the greatest,
but they work better than anything I've seen so far. (AM and FM!)
Just don't try to use one for an off air monitor at a radio station, the
delay in the digital processing is too long, jocks get confused.

 

[bigtom101]

The Sony has been touted as the best FM tuner ever made ... I think so,
I've purchased six of them so far. The physical design isn't the greatest,
but they work better than anything I've seen so far. (AM and FM!)
Just don't try to use one for an off air monitor at a radio station, the
delay in the digital processing is too long, jocks get confused.

I had WRRC buy three - one for our mobile DJ rack for event use, one for the studio for non studio monitoring, and one for the Trenton Thunder so we could be played in the ballpark. I bought mine as soon as it came out and have loved it ever since. I just got a ChannelMaster 7777 preamp to hook up to the yagi in the attic.....should be interesting to see what it can do then.

 

[SoulCrusher]

While driving back to Philly from Seaside last night, I did notice the RAT had a much weaker signal. I remember when they first flipped years ago from WADB, they went as far as the 70-72 circle, now they don't make it much further than Lakehurst...could it be their HD stealing some power....During the female host's show last night, the music was really good, I always hear how the RAT sucks, compared to years back...but I heard new Creed, Days of the New, a GnR cut that was never played, MGMT, Slipk, Sixx AM and plenty of good rock with little talk and commercials. Maybe I caught them on a good night...to get back to subject on my portable HD receiver on the boards nothing was available except the RAT and JRZ, and the JRZ at 100.7 had no HD....

I just looked at their playlist, and I swear that this station is the proverbial dog chasing its tail. The station IDs and the bulk of the playlist have largely remained the same for the station's entire 14 year run.

As far as the music was concerned - can't say I'm impressed that they're playing the new Creed. The time I heard them play it, the DJ was talking about how good Scott Stapp looked with his leather pants ... I just have to say that if a band has members that wear leather pants, that's a deal-breaker for me, because you know you're getting meathead rock. Anyway, this song is surprisingly edgy for them, but I'm thinking the album will be filled with "With Arms Wide Open" sound-alikes - they want to reclaim that "Mom Rock" throne that Nickelback currently sits on.

MGMT? My guess is that it was a fluke getting played on their new music feature that runs at 8 PM. Bands like that generally don't fly on stations that actually play new Lynyrd Skynyrd music, like The Rat does.

As for Slipknot, it was likely either requested or their song that sounds like a Stone Sour outtake ("Dead Memories"). They normally never play them. After all, this is the station that gave heavy airtime to songs like Daughtry's "It's Not Over", 3 Doors Down's "Here Without You", Buckcherry's "Sorry", Hinder's "Lips Of An Angel", Aerosmith's "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing", and other wuss-rock titles.

WRAT, for all its warts, would be much more tolerable if they took a hint from The Breeze and adopted a "No Repeat Workday/Work Week" policy. The rock audience in Monmouth/Ocean deserves better than what they currently have ... I won't even mention all the virtually identical classic rock stations around - oh, wait, I just did. I gave up on WRAT years ago because I kept hearing the same songs day in and day out, and unfortunately, it seems like they mostly haven't broken that pattern.

Also, Delmarva's got a station in WZBH (93.5 The Beach) that does a rock format the right way. I wish WRAT sounded like this. Lots of new music, not much repetition, changing up the imaging to keep things from getting stale, and nothing is off limits ... unlike WRAT, they actually play Static-X, Nonpoint, Five Finger Death Punch (and not some lame no-screaming edit like WRAT played), OTEP, and others.

 

[oasisrulz]

I don't know if you have an HD receiver but if you do try to pull in WRFF-HD-2 and WSTW-HD-2 fantastic off the wall Alternatives. I don't know with a good antenna if you can pull these in, but its worth a try with all the crapola on the dial at the Ocean County beaches and inland areas.....

 

[Radio411]

HD RADIO WAS/IS A "Cluster Frig" right from the gate. The logistics may have appeared to be quite enticing on paper for the new technology but in reality is has just caused even MORE of a mess on the FM band. I can see the notion of providing alternate programming from the main channel (without hindering that revenue stream) but many of these stations, the ones that *DO* have multicast channels are off the air for days at a time all too often. Sadly that really is pretty telling as to how the staffs at these stations perceive the technology. Too many glitches, next to horrible marketing, and miniscule coverage areas I mean REALLY??? 1/10th of the Analog carriers coverage area?? Yeah this was destined for disaster from the very beginning. Maybe these transmitters can keep the Motorola C-Quams company on the dusty shelves in transmitters shacks across the country.

Shame too it was one of the LAST cards terrestrial radio had to offer decent & DIFFERENT programming to its listeners...

Whenever I hear a song ad nauseum that I HATE I tell myself "Gee this one MUST 'TEST WELL'!!"

:

 

[oasisrulz]

What do you suggest to improve HD radio...I was happy to buy my HD and unload my Sirius/XM stuff, but I am very unhappy with HD and I live 6 miles from all the X-mtrs....I think the next thing is small puters and bringing the internet feed with you. I posted before about a eatery called the Nifty Fifties which is an oldies type diner...they had WMID playing over the sound system, they are located in Delaware County and I was shocked and asked the owner if he had a special antenna and he said he was streaming on line which was fantastic.....and I know there are phones you can access the internet so you can take any type music with you that is the way to go....

 

[bigtom101]

Too many glitches, next to horrible marketing, and miniscule coverage areas I mean REALLY??? 1/10th of the Analog carriers coverage area?? Yeah this was destined for disaster from the very beginning. Maybe these transmitters can keep the Motorola C-Quams company on the dusty shelves in transmitters shacks across the country.

Not 1/10th the coverage, just 1/100th of the analog power. WJRZ & WRAT have reliable HD coverage out to their 60 dBu service contour, and given that WJRZ's HD power is 30 watts (WRAT's is 90), it ain't that bad. Hopefully the FCC will approve the power increase to 10% of analog power, and that will match the total listenable analog coverage area.

 

[amfmsw]

The 10% power level is proving to be not feasable, until analog is ditched (which it will probably do someday just as TV). NPR Tests show too much sideband interference. They're now ratcheting back to 6% on the tests. This is FM of course. Several articles in R-W and www.rwonline.com

AM, as it is right now, is a disaster with IBOC. A drive through or near Philly with all of the AM IBOC generators on is just way too much, nearly wall-to-wall hash when tuning between stations. Seek & Scan is rendered useless on most radios as it stops on the sideband hash. Nightime? Well when you have sister stations in Boston and Pittsburgh interfering with each other... Although legally limited to 10Kc bandwidth, the IBOC uses nearly 30Kc upper and lower.

 

[PhoenixPark]

All in all, a very interesting debate about "HD" radio. For us over 60 types, it echoes eloquently from the early days of FM and FM stereo. The early FM radios had rotten sensitivity, poor stability and next to no adjacent channel selectivity. FM stereo came along and unless you had a state-of-the-art antenna and/or lived on top of the station's stick, you were doomed to static and multipath distortion. Changes were due and they came with the use of horizontal and vertical polarisation along with receivers that packed the real power into the front ends with super-stable solid state circuitry. The earliest solid state sets were a little primitive, but when it was discovered that a well-designed solid state receiver could be built-in as an affordable car radio, the entire picture changed abruptly. The same as the car radio saved local radio during the TV revolution beginning in 1948, effective car radios pushed Major Armstrong's prediction forward regarding FM's dominance over AM. AM HD? It is a cruel imposition on the band and will wipe out more and more local AMs that have been fighting to stay alive and serve their audiences. Even with the best available receiver technology, you will never, ever get this "AM HD" thing off the ground without wiping out the last vestiges of radio that has always served its audience best -- local and live.
Rich Phoenix, RMC
President, NJ Radio Museum

 

[bigtom101]

The 10% power level is proving to be not feasable, until analog is ditched (which it will probably do someday just as TV). NPR Tests show too much sideband interference. They're now ratcheting back to 6% on the tests. This is FM of course. Several articles in R-W and www.rwonline.com

AM, as it is right now, is a disaster with IBOC. A drive through or near Philly with all of the AM IBOC generators on is just way too much, nearly wall-to-wall hash when tuning between stations. Seek & Scan is rendered useless on most radios as it stops on the sideband hash. Nightime? Well when you have sister stations in Boston and Pittsburgh interfering with each other... Although legally limited to 10Kc bandwidth, the IBOC uses nearly 30Kc upper and lower.

NPR's tests say one thing about interference, Ibiquity's say another. I haven't had any of the interference problems that NPR has talked about in the study, but then again every tuner I use on a regular basis these days is a DSP based unit with HD Radio. My personal feelings are that stations should be able to go up to 10% if they want, but anything between 1% and 10% should be allowed.

As far as AM HD goes, I have mixed feelings. The sound quality is nice (NO NOISE!), but it still doesn't solve the fact that at night it still has issues, and it still goes kaput near powerlines and in tunnels. I put on WABC one day for my twentysomething buddies (who cant spell FM let alone AM), and they were blown away by the sound quality. I think that IBOC by day & C-QUAM by night would be a nice compromise, but the truth is that we have way too many AM stations crammed on the band with weak signals and tight patterns that are making the AM band less viable. Trying to listen to music on a AM station that isn't a 50kw powerhouse is a stretch these days with how many stations are on the band.

Just my thoughts...YMMV...etc etc.