iBiquity's In-Store HD-Radio Demos

[wkbam1690]

Speaking of AM interference, I just re-lamped our office with the new-fangled CFL or Compact Fluorescent Lamps, which will eventually become the Federally dictated mandatory replacement for good old incandescent lamps. The noise these things produce is unbelievable. It has completely destroyed any AM listening inside the building. Using a GE Super Radio as a test device, I have to get about 10 feet outside of the building to receive any AM signals, at which point several come in very well. Step inside and it is nothing but a digital shrieking noise, all across the band.

I wonder how HD will stand up to this? (I can guess....)

When incandescent bulbs are outlawed, only outlaws will have incandescent bulbs.

 

[pocket-radio]

You'd think they'd push the stores like ‘Wal-Mart” to install an outside antenna. Or even buy it and have it installed. It can't cost that much? So it leads me to think there is something smells? Maybe iBiquity is concerned consumers won't be that impressed with the lack of content or stations compared to satellite radio. Or if you live outside the city grade signal maybe customers won't hear anything.

Why does HD smell like am stereo? It could have worked. I know it’s different, but gee wiz with so much at stake and the investment required by broadcasters and consumers you’d think they’d get this right. And so far they’ve really screwed this thing up. I know one thing HD doesn’t have 10 years to evolve into something like FM did. Radio is being attached from any angle and the wiz bang gadgets just keep on coming! Once wireless internet access in everyplace and standard in vehicles radio will have real competition.

 

[8638]

You'd think they'd push the stores like ‘Wal-Mart” to install an outside antenna. Or even buy it and have it installed. It can't cost that much? So it leads me to think there is something smells? Maybe iBiquity is concerned consumers won't be that impressed with the lack of content or stations compared to satellite radio. Or if you live outside the city grade signal maybe customers won't hear anything.

Why does HD smell like am stereo? It could have worked. I know it’s different, but gee wiz with so much at stake and the investment required by broadcasters and consumers you’d think they’d get this right. And so far they’ve really screwed this thing up. I know one thing HD doesn’t have 10 years to evolve into something like FM did. Radio is being attached from any angle and the wiz bang gadgets just keep on coming! Once wireless internet access in everyplace and standard in vehicles radio will have real competition.

There's one big difference between AM stereo and HD. AM Stereo WORKED, and didn't interfere with adjacent channel reception, nor degrade monaural sound quality! Back in the 90's, I used to listen to 1190 WOWO from Ft. Wayne, Ind. at night in Raleigh, NC. Stereo lamp always lit, and sounded really good through the little Radio Shack AM stereo tuner. I'm not even considering the purchase of an HD radio or tuner, as most of the stations I listen to are over 50 miles away, and, from what I read, won't decode.

AM stereo came too late to save the band. In actuality, had Sarnoff not driven Armstrong to suicide and influenced the FCC to move the FM band from its original allocation, FM might have taken off far earlier. RCA got really fat on all those royalties paid on the 'All-American Five' tube radios that were built.

 

[Savage]

Amen Brother Don. What HD Radio should have done early-on was sign on to at least some semblance of a Code Of Professional Responsibility:

Medical (Hippocratic): First, do no harm.

Radio Engineering (HD Radio): First, screw everyone in the industry who isn't part of the IBOC Inner Circle, mostly NAB, Alliance-owned stations and iBiquity. (Why are we doing this again?? Oh, yeah, "the listeners." Screw them too. They'll "get used to it" because "HD is what we have now.")

Paraphrasing Dr. Phil: So, Alliance/iBiquity/NAB: how's that "forcing the market to accept HD" working out for you??

You KNOW a technological innovation is circling the drain when half of it doesn't even work (AM) and the "innovators" are desperately scrambling to fix the other part which doesn't work anywhere near well enough (FM and its pending and still-debated digital power increase.) The IBOC system never made it past first-adopter status, primarily by hobbyists and radio-industry employees and engineers. Essentially NOBODY is really buying HD.

HD Radio is an outrage, arguably the biggest screwup in the 74-year history of the Commission. Here's hoping Congressman Dingell hands the FCC their collective heads on a platter.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Hey Savage... Here's an idea for the whole deal with AM. Let's start pushing for them to let us have some of the lower TV band channels for doing either DRM or IBUZ in pure digital mode to simulcast AMs. We HAVE to do something for AM. I don't like iBiquity either, but is there some way we can get some usefulness out of this otherwise unusful situation? How about 1700-1800 for local service?

 

[Savage]

Both good suggestions, OKCRG, and there are several others as well for AM. There are so many arguments against HD-AM. The codec sucks, the interference is unacceptable, the coverage inadequate, and so forth.
Plus, as Play Freebird has aptly observed, HD does nothing to resolve the daytimers' plight.

If there was the political will and if those in positions of authority were willing to take a real problem-solving approach, there are multiple possible fixes for the AM decline. You've enumerated just a few of them.

But there is still the pro-HD dogma prevailing, until somebody in another branch of government (legislative or judicial) forces the issue. Right now the only people applying pressure on behalf of AM radio are those aligned with iBiquity, so the interests of non-Alliance stations will always be pushed aside in this idiotic pursuit of the HD Radio agenda.

 

[Chuck]

Right now the only people applying pressure on behalf of AM radio are those aligned with iBiquity, so the interests of non-Alliance stations will always be pushed aside in this idiotic pursuit of the HD Radio agenda.

Call me whatever you want, but I suspect that the lack of support for small radio is largely because the people who control Ibiquity also control the various groups of large broadcast interests. That’s certainly no secret. To them, the concept of "thinning the herd" on AM is just a very convenient side effect of the other problems this technology delivers. Just think what a delightful world it would be if every metro could only receive four or five crystal-clear powerhouse HD AM's and nothing else. At least it is "delightful" if you happen to own those five surviving stations.

If the proposed digital power increase happens on FM, I think you can look forward to seeing some of the same things happening on that band as well.

When our patchwork digital radio system was first proposed, it was evident that the concept of parity among stations was to be avoided at all cost. Heaven forbid that the little stations might have nearly as robust a signal as the big ones. Of course, in an analog world, they never did, but they also did not get obliterated by the big guys. There was a place for small radio. It is pretty clear to me that part of the IBOC concept is to make small stations an endangered species. It may not have been intended that way originally, but when it became obvious to the people pushing this technology that it certainly could be the case, I didn’t hear very many of them say, “We need to pull the plug on this, because it trespasses on somebody else’s territory.” Instead the battle cry was, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”

 

[kenglish]

A better solution for AM Radio (at least from a non-programming standpoint), would be to do something about all the interference.

I'd propose requiring electric utility companies to hire one full-time, trained and full-equipped, interference investigator for every 75,000 electric customers. That would be a start. Oh, and make his word "God" when he orders a repair to be made.

Also, put some teeth back in the Part 15 rules. Start enforcing some RFI limits on those new light bulbs, computers, and all the other noisy electronic equipment. How about requiring new construction to have a noise filter and whole-building surge protection between the meter and breaker panel? That would, at least, keep most of the locally-generated noise off everybody else's power line (and, kill the BPL monster, too).

And, third, let's get everybody (Broadcasters included) out of the "just tell 'em to get Cable" mode. Why can't the average person put an antenna on their house (HOA be dammed) or apartment, without being hassled to death. Why don't Broadcasters encourage developers to offer a free, over-the-air hookup in their new buildings, via a decent MATV system?