Listening for first time HD in Tampa Florida

[radiopilot]

I'm down here for a couple of weeks and have started listening to some stations broadcasting in HD and I'm not impressed with what I hear... I'm not going to quivel with the above 3 guys that believe they are HD gods on this board, they know who they are... but to give my take on it... These are the stations I've been listening to:

http://www.lanueva925.com/

http://theboneonline.com/

http://97xonline.com/

Now as far as I'm concerned they all sound 'noisy' on analog... and on FM is does sound good as long as the volumne is not turned up high.. you can hear 'artifacts' in the music....

I'm in New Port Richey, FL. and these stations are in Tampa, about 5-15 miles away so I'm in the 'zone' for great reception... still I see nothing they are providing that isn't there now... AM in this area is a total waste... at night you basically have to turn your radio back to FM as the night skywave kills everything here, not one single listenable station....

Radiopilot

 

[clouseau]

I'm down here for a couple of weeks and have started listening to some stations broadcasting in HD and I'm not impressed with what I hear... I'm not going to quivel with the above 3 guys that believe they are HD gods on this board, they know who they are... but to give my take on it... These are the stations I've been listening to:

http://www.lanueva925.com/

http://theboneonline.com/

http://97xonline.com/

Now as far as I'm concerned they all sound 'noisy' on analog... and on FM is does sound good as long as the volumne is not turned up high.. you can hear 'artifacts' in the music....

I'm in New Port Richey, FL. and these stations are in Tampa, about 5-15 miles away so I'm in the 'zone' for great reception... still I see nothing they are providing that isn't there now... AM in this area is a total waste... at night you basically have to turn your radio back to FM as the night skywave kills everything here, not one single listenable station....

Radiopilot

Good points. Here's the facts and a couple of thoughts.

102.5 WHPT - Licensed to Sarasota. You are outside of their service area contour. (Their tower is a good deal south of town.)

92.5 WYUU - Inside the protected contour by a couple of miles. The line runs through Jasmine Estates. Shouldn't be a problem, though.

97.1 WSUN - It's a local. I might suggest maybe they are overprocessing because they really don't reach Tampa all that well and are trying to be loud. I also think that as an Alternative station, they're prone to that.

Interesting Observations, though. I think a lot of the time people think they are closer to stations than they actually are.

Clouseau

 

[R.F. Burns]

I'm down here for a couple of weeks and have started listening to some stations broadcasting in HD and I'm not impressed with what I hear... I'm not going to quivel with the above 3 guys that believe they are HD gods on this board, they know who they are... but to give my take on it... These are the stations I've been listening to:

http://www.lanueva925.com/

http://theboneonline.com/

http://97xonline.com/

Now as far as I'm concerned they all sound 'noisy' on analog... and on FM is does sound good as long as the volumne is not turned up high.. you can hear 'artifacts' in the music....

I'm in New Port Richey, FL. and these stations are in Tampa, about 5-15 miles away so I'm in the 'zone' for great reception... still I see nothing they are providing that isn't there now... AM in this area is a total waste... at night you basically have to turn your radio back to FM as the night skywave kills everything here, not one single listenable station....

Radiopilot

I'll be in Tampa in May. I'll have to check it out if I bring a HD radio with me. Tampa FM's cover a variety of formats. Lots of rock radio, a hip hop, country, clasical, religious and even an oldies station. My family lives in Tampa and the AM band is pretty noisy at night thanks to the Cuban stations and lack of high power stations which can cover the entire market. As an example, WTBN on 570 runs 5 Kw but 6 towers at night! Quite a few of the stations run 1K at night and they are all directional. When you are 15 miles away from a station and who knows where in their pattern, said station would be a tough catch, especially when one is bordering a body of water like Tampa/St Pete/Clearwater are.

 

[radiopilot]

I'm down here for a couple of weeks and have started listening to some stations broadcasting in HD and I'm not impressed with what I hear... I'm not going to quivel with the above 3 guys that believe they are HD gods on this board, they know who they are... but to give my take on it... These are the stations I've been listening to:

http://www.lanueva925.com/

http://theboneonline.com/

http://97xonline.com/

Now as far as I'm concerned they all sound 'noisy' on analog... and on FM is does sound good as long as the volumne is not turned up high.. you can hear 'artifacts' in the music....

I'm in New Port Richey, FL. and these stations are in Tampa, about 5-15 miles away so I'm in the 'zone' for great reception... still I see nothing they are providing that isn't there now... AM in this area is a total waste... at night you basically have to turn your radio back to FM as the night skywave kills everything here, not one single listenable station....

Radiopilot

Good points. Here's the facts and a couple of thoughts.

102.5 WHPT - Licensed to Sarasota. You are outside of their service area contour. (Their tower is a good deal south of town.)

92.5 WYUU - Inside the protected contour by a couple of miles. The line runs through Jasmine Estates. Shouldn't be a problem, though.

97.1 WSUN - It's a local. I might suggest maybe they are overprocessing because they really don't reach Tampa all that well and are trying to be loud. I also think that as an Alternative station, they're prone to that.

Interesting Observations, though. I think a lot of the time people think they are closer to stations than they actually are.

Clouseau

The stations were listened to on an Accurian radio.. one of the engineers here has one on his desk and was listening to it... so I questioned his setup and antenna... it seems pretty straight forward... he's got the cable for the antenna on the roof and it's an FM dipole... So considering the antenna is sitting 50 ft above ground level.. the reception should be outstanding at least for this area of Florida...

I thought I would be impressed but perhaps the radio is not high quality... at least by the standards of audio equipment (home audio) I'm used to... Maybe on a Sangean radio it might sound differerent.

All of these stations came in on the radioas HD transmissions as it indicated on the display it was being received.
The owner of the radio was Ok with the radio if somewhat unhappy that he'd spent approx. $220.00 for the unit.. his words 'I should have waited for the technology to mature'...

Radiopilot

 

[radiopilot]

I'm down here for a couple of weeks and have started listening to some stations broadcasting in HD and I'm not impressed with what I hear... I'm not going to quivel with the above 3 guys that believe they are HD gods on this board, they know who they are... but to give my take on it... These are the stations I've been listening to:

http://www.lanueva925.com/

http://theboneonline.com/

http://97xonline.com/

Now as far as I'm concerned they all sound 'noisy' on analog... and on FM is does sound good as long as the volumne is not turned up high.. you can hear 'artifacts' in the music....

I'm in New Port Richey, FL. and these stations are in Tampa, about 5-15 miles away so I'm in the 'zone' for great reception... still I see nothing they are providing that isn't there now... AM in this area is a total waste... at night you basically have to turn your radio back to FM as the night skywave kills everything here, not one single listenable station....

Radiopilot

I'll be in Tampa in May. I'll have to check it out if I bring a HD radio with me. Tampa FM's cover a variety of formats. Lots of rock radio, a hip hop, country, clasical, religious and even an oldies station. My family lives in Tampa and the AM band is pretty noisy at night thanks to the Cuban stations and lack of high power stations which can cover the entire market. As an example, WTBN on 570 runs 5 Kw but 6 towers at night! Quite a few of the stations run 1K at night and they are all directional. When you are 15 miles away from a station and who knows where in their pattern, said station would be a tough catch, especially when one is bordering a body of water like Tampa/St Pete/Clearwater are.

RF.. I can't listen to anything here on AM at night... and it's not the Cuban stations as I don't hear them either... maybe you are correct about the power levels but it's just all noise, try to imagine a million different signals all intertwined and hashing... it's frustration just moving the tuning dial across the AM.....

Radiopilot

 

[Mike Walker]

First of all RadioPilot, I'm glad you LISTENED. I won't quibble with audible artifacts. I hear them sometimes too...but less (on my local stations) than before. I DON'T hear them on my local classical station (by local I mean 80 miles away...WDAV Davidson NC) which doesn't multicast, and uses the entire 96kbps. I DO hear them sometimes on the stations with HD2 streams. But it seems to be getting better than when I first got the radio. And frankly, at my distance from the stations, even a little phasiness and occasional "watery" sound is preferable to what I would have with analog...either mono, or a combination of hiss and multipath distortion. Either way, the artifacts are FAR less severe (even at 48kbps) than anything I've heard on XM, and I've been an XM subscriber almost since the beginning, or on any internet stream at 48kbps.

Now 96kbps gives SUPERB sound (when the station is well engineered). I won't say it's better than the very best Magnum Dynalab tuners...hell I still lust after them. But if it's not as good, it's damn close, and at a tiny fraction of the cost of a high-end tuner, outdoor ariel, and rotor (thousands of dollars in the case of an M-D).

Here's hoping that stations give some serious consideration to using the extra bandwidth from expanded hybrid mode to IMPROVE SOUND QUALITY. Artifacts are on at the edge of audibility to "golden ears" now. Let's get past that edge once and for all (rather than expanding the number of streams past two or three).

See RadioPilot...no criticism. Thanks for LISTENING!

 

[R.F. Burns]

I'm down here for a couple of weeks and have started listening to some stations broadcasting in HD and I'm not impressed with what I hear... I'm not going to quivel with the above 3 guys that believe they are HD gods on this board, they know who they are... but to give my take on it... These are the stations I've been listening to:

http://www.lanueva925.com/

http://theboneonline.com/

http://97xonline.com/

Now as far as I'm concerned they all sound 'noisy' on analog... and on FM is does sound good as long as the volumne is not turned up high.. you can hear 'artifacts' in the music....

I'm in New Port Richey, FL. and these stations are in Tampa, about 5-15 miles away so I'm in the 'zone' for great reception... still I see nothing they are providing that isn't there now... AM in this area is a total waste... at night you basically have to turn your radio back to FM as the night skywave kills everything here, not one single listenable station....

Radiopilot

I'll be in Tampa in May. I'll have to check it out if I bring a HD radio with me. Tampa FM's cover a variety of formats. Lots of rock radio, a hip hop, country, clasical, religious and even an oldies station. My family lives in Tampa and the AM band is pretty noisy at night thanks to the Cuban stations and lack of high power stations which can cover the entire market. As an example, WTBN on 570 runs 5 Kw but 6 towers at night! Quite a few of the stations run 1K at night and they are all directional. When you are 15 miles away from a station and who knows where in their pattern, said station would be a tough catch, especially when one is bordering a body of water like Tampa/St Pete/Clearwater are.

RF.. I can't listen to anything here on AM at night... and it's not the Cuban stations as I don't hear them either... maybe you are correct about the power levels but it's just all noise, try to imagine a million different signals all intertwined and hashing... it's frustration just moving the tuning dial across the AM.....

Radiopilot

I see where you arenow. You are north east of my parents who are in New Carolwood, north of tampa. My Brother is in Branden and my daughter is in school in St Pete so I know the area fairly well. Other than 1300 which runs 160 watts at night non D, You happen to live in a null of the AM stations in your area. I know that even up at my parents AM at night can be sketchy. There are no 50 KW stations iin that area and at night they are all fairly low power and directional operations. Tampa has seen remarkable growth in the past 20 years or so. Unfortunuately by the time that the population grew, all of the allocations for bigger stations had already been given out. Miami, has some pretty good sized stations, but even there they are all fairly directional, using more than three towers at night. I've listened to many NYC stations over the years in Florida. Todayt with all the Cuband and post sunset allocations it's not as easy. that said, I've only heard two or three Florida stations over the years in NY, WMEL, & WAPE, both from the east coast.