My new thoughts on HD Radio, now I am seeing the problems here. I use to could be able to DX down to Corpus at my place close to Austin, but now that 92.5 has turned on their HD, all I can hear is hiss on 92.7. I can still get 101.3 most of the time, but why am I getting the hiss and not the HD signal? I can get the station clear stereo on my home HD unit but no HD signal RDS comes in fine. I have the HD1X I like that tuner because it has force analog mode.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
My new thoughts about HD Radio
- Thread starter jras20
- Start date
This link was posted on another list this morning; it echoes the observations many of us have made about the HD Alliance's false claims of "no station dropout". The comments are also interesting:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/31/asa-digital-radio-ad
The UK's system has its share of problems, but fortunately their DAB transmitters operate in a separate VHF band and don't degrade reception of existing analog AM and FM stations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/31/asa-digital-radio-ad
The UK's system has its share of problems, but fortunately their DAB transmitters operate in a separate VHF band and don't degrade reception of existing analog AM and FM stations.
Ofcom in the UK has struggled for years to provide equivalent coverage for DAB stations (to analog FM). They've blanketed the country with digital multiplex towers from which every digital station in a given region transmits. The build up came after tons of complaints about drop outs and poor signal coverage. Now, most of the population centers are pretty well served by DAB. Yet many rural and less populated areas still lack coverage.
On the other hand, some areas have made out pretty well with DAB. The DAB towers are often in different locations than the FM transmitters, and actually crank out more power in many cases than the analog signals that they are meant to replace. Remember, for every national signal (like BBC 1 or Classic FM) with tons of 100 and 150 kw transmitters, there are a dozen commercial broadcasters with less than 1 kw. Most FM stations have relatively low power, unlike here. DAB, on the other hand, can actually serve a larger area. Secondly, some areas of the UK have long had a paucity of analog FM signals (Stoke on Trent comes to mind with maybe 2 local FMs + BBC). DAB brought many times that to those areas (15 to 20 different stations). Despite all this, there's a huge protest to the proposed abandonment of analog FM in 2015 - which IS absurd, by the way.
So, as you can see, there's NO comparison between the UK's DAB and our crappy IBOC system. DAB is on a different part of the spectrum and doesn't interfere with other broadcasts. It does have a roughly equivalent footprint (slightly less overall), and it's been working pretty well. And, unlike here, it serves many grossly underserved areas with basic FM formats that they never had. In the US, most markets have an excellent variety of AM and FM format choices - in the UK, basically London/SE England, Manchester and parts of the West Midlands can say that. So, DAB does fill a need in the marketplace.
Again quite unlike IBOC.
On the other hand, some areas have made out pretty well with DAB. The DAB towers are often in different locations than the FM transmitters, and actually crank out more power in many cases than the analog signals that they are meant to replace. Remember, for every national signal (like BBC 1 or Classic FM) with tons of 100 and 150 kw transmitters, there are a dozen commercial broadcasters with less than 1 kw. Most FM stations have relatively low power, unlike here. DAB, on the other hand, can actually serve a larger area. Secondly, some areas of the UK have long had a paucity of analog FM signals (Stoke on Trent comes to mind with maybe 2 local FMs + BBC). DAB brought many times that to those areas (15 to 20 different stations). Despite all this, there's a huge protest to the proposed abandonment of analog FM in 2015 - which IS absurd, by the way.
So, as you can see, there's NO comparison between the UK's DAB and our crappy IBOC system. DAB is on a different part of the spectrum and doesn't interfere with other broadcasts. It does have a roughly equivalent footprint (slightly less overall), and it's been working pretty well. And, unlike here, it serves many grossly underserved areas with basic FM formats that they never had. In the US, most markets have an excellent variety of AM and FM format choices - in the UK, basically London/SE England, Manchester and parts of the West Midlands can say that. So, DAB does fill a need in the marketplace.
Again quite unlike IBOC.
jras20 said:
Same deal as with AM in a way. The sidebands still get out there pretty well, but that digital hash needs to be 'perfect' in order for your HD radio to decode it. So, there's a wide geographical area for pretty much any HD station where you can still hear the hiss roaring away in analog, yet it's not enough to decode with an HD-capable radio.
The main difference between the AM and FM HD is that the FM IBOC hash covers one half of the mask of each adjacent while on AM the hash covers each first-adjacent channel and half of each second adjacent. So, theoretically, with FM, you can null out the hash and still get the first adjacent if the HD-spewing local is not too strong. That being said, it's impossible to do that in a car radio - so the result is ugly.
digital really needs it's own set of frequencies.
;D Thanks!Chuck said:
The problems are limited range, and interference with the main channel. It's annoying to be listening to something on HD2 or HD3 only to have the radio revert to the main analog channel when the signal dips. That's just not gonna fly.
- Status