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My HD Radio test results

J

jras20

I decided to buy me a Accurian at Radioshack for 99$ last weekend. I am impressed with it so far. From my experience with it, HD will go just about as far as analog will. My 84 mile pickup did fairly well, with really no drop outs. They must be working on the tower now though because I can barly pull in the analog signals with my analog radio. I was able to pull in KLDE, + secendary channel & KUHF + secoundary channel. praise 92.1 is in HD also, but is not multicasting anything. I think HD Radio sounds better than cd! I think this will work, I enjoyed some of the programmings allready. I was able to listen to the football game on KTRH on KLOL-2 that sounded really good. All and all I was impressed with it. Now i'm hoping to buy another one for here as well.
 
As far as sound quality goes, KKRW-HD1 & KRBE-HD are the winners. KTBZ-HD2 & KHPT-HD2 are my favorites programming-wise. Also, KPRC 950 recently turned on their digitial signal and it sounds great and is stable out to my place in Katy. KMIC's digital is not reliable at all. I was sitting around thinking about how KTRH would be if digital then I remembered it is--on 101.1 HD2. Comes in handy in my office since no AM reception with too much concrete and computers. I bought 2 Accurians on the Ratshack special. One for my kitchen and one for my desk at work.
 
StevenNOLA said:
KPRC 950 recently turned on their digitial signal and it sounds great and is stable out to my place in Katy.
Click to expand...

With KPRC now running IBOC, Clear Channel siblings KTRH and KBME are probably close to making the switch. Is 950 promoting the HD signal on air?

KMIC's digital is not reliable at all.
Click to expand...

KMIC's IBOC is turned off as of a 1:20pm check. The 1590 signal is rather lousy towards Katy--I've noticed they get clobbered during critical hours at Katy Mills Mall.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
StevenNOLA said:
KPRC 950 recently turned on their digitial signal and it sounds great and is stable out to my place in Katy.
Click to expand...

With KPRC now running IBOC, Clear Channel siblings KTRH and KBME are probably close to making the switch. Is 950 promoting the HD signal on air?

KMIC's digital is not reliable at all.
Click to expand...

KMIC's IBOC is turned off as of a 1:20pm check. The 1590 signal is rather lousy towards Katy--I've noticed they get clobbered during critical hours at Katy Mills Mall.
Click to expand...

I don't listen to KPRC very often but haven't heard any specific mention of it. They are running the same "HD Radio" ads that run on the CC FMs. On another note, I've never received a 50kw AM with IBOC running but would be curious to see how far the digital signal reliably reaches. I don't even expect much out of KTRH when/if they go digital. KTRH has the absolute worst coverage for any 50kw I've ever experienced. Granted they are directional but jeez...it even sounds crappy out in Katy. WWL-870 New Orleans IMHO is the standard of 50kw AMs...reaches to Baytown during daytime operation. KTRH doesn't even reach to the LA state line. KLVI @ 5kw even has a better signal than KTRH.


1kw AMs should not even bother with IBOC as it is only good for 8-10 miles from the transmitter. Example: WBYU New Orleans
 
I would like to see IBOC improve on is the coverage area, I had a pretty decent signals most all the time, but it would drop out some. I also would like them to fix that delay sometimes when the HD kicks in there is a few secounds delay. I know its still new and has to be worked on more, but still I love it.
 
jras20 said:
I would like to see IBOC improve on is the coverage area, I had a pretty decent signals most all the time, but it would drop out some. I also would like them to fix that delay sometimes when the HD kicks in there is a few secounds delay. I know its still new and has to be worked on more, but still I love it.
Click to expand...

HD, as I've heard it, has some mixed results with signal coverage. Only having two HD FM's where I live, I have had no reason to buy an HD receiver. However, I live just outside its 60 dBu contour, and I can hear the hash as it happens to be on 97.5 FM, and my company owns a station at 97.7. So, that leads me to think it does better than some of the big opponents on the HD board will tell you, but that doesn't mean it will do as well as the analog signal.

As for that delay, I've heard all about it as a friend of mine is GM at the local NPR, which is one of the two HD FM's. He says so long as you monitor the program channel on the board instead of the air signal, it's not a problem. The problem is that, for the last 50 years, we've been trained not to do that. By the way, my station recently installed a digital optimod that is HD radio compatible (even though we don't yet run HD). It also has a delay, though it's about a half second as opposed to the 5-8 second delay between HD and analog radio. It was pretty annoying the first two shifts I worked. However, I don't even notice it anymore other than in certain situations, like when I have a song intro that's not quite as long as the music log tells me. Then, that half second delay usually has me stomping on the front of the song, even though I was really out right at the post.
 
Kent, I belive the delay Jras was speaking of is the time from initially tuning into a station until the HD kicks in. This "delay" is because the HD signal is an over-the-air stream of data that must be buffered by the radio, similar to windows media player when tuning into an online streaming broadcast. But yes, I know of the delay you mention as well. KFNC-HD, for example, is not in sync with the analog stream. It makes the station unlistenable in my car due to the HD signal being weak and it kicks in and out and there is about 3-4 seconds of differential between the two.
 
I got one too, unfortunately for me, I was one of the early adopters and bought one for full price! Nevertheless, it works quite well, and I'll be interested to see how well the AM IBOC sounds down here in Ft. Bend county. I never have been able to get KMIC, but that's no surprise, since it's got a fairly poor signal down here anyway (and at night...forget it).

TexasTuner
 
StevenNOLA said:
Kent, I belive the delay Jras was speaking of is the time from initially tuning into a station until the HD kicks in. This "delay" is because the HD signal is an over-the-air stream of data that must be buffered by the radio, similar to windows media player when tuning into an online streaming broadcast. But yes, I know of the delay you mention as well. KFNC-HD, for example, is not in sync with the analog stream. It makes the station unlistenable in my car due to the HD signal being weak and it kicks in and out and there is about 3-4 seconds of differential between the two.
Click to expand...

Yes that was what I was talking, thanks to all though for the infomation. Does the radio acually buffer it then? I unhooked my antenna on Saturday after noon before I left I still heard smooth jazz playing for a few secounds on KHJZ. I couldnt really get a HD signal on sunday, even on my analog tuner it was a weak signal are they working on the towers now out there?

I think KUHF has a really good sounding secoundary channel.
 
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