new car HD complaints.

[SirRoxalot]

The simple answer is that HD radios need an HD on/off switch. If you're in an area with HD stations and decent coverage, flip it on. If you start to move out of that (tiny) area, flip it off. It's no different than a "Stereo/Mono" switch on many FM receivers.

Hey, that could be a marketing approach for the anti-HD people - "HD- Flip it off!"

 

[rbrucecarter5]

> The simple answer is that HD radios need an HD on/off switch. If you're in an area with HD stations and decent coverage, flip it on. If you start to move out of that (tiny) area, flip it off. It's no different than a "Stereo/Mono" switch on many FM receivers.

Except for one huge problem for rural listeners. HD seriously degrades the analog range of the station. So analog is gone not long after HD.

 

[nd2023]

I met someone last year who had an HD radio in her car. She was the first person I saw (who's not a radio geek) with an HD radio. So on our first date, I mentioned that to her and how awesome it is that she had an HD radio, and even asked her what HD2 stations she liked. I was hoping that she was a radio geek like me just because she had an HD radio. She told me that she got that radio as a gift and the HD reception sucked so badly that she had to turn off the HD reception. She didn't know how to turn off the HD, so she had to pay a mechanic to turn off the HD feature. I could tell that she hated her HD radio, and I didn't get a second date. I guess HD radio didn't put a buzz in my love life back then.

It's amazing that people will actually pay money to not have HD reception. Perhaps dealers could offer HD radios at no additional charge, and then make a killing charging people to turn off the HD reception.

At this point, the number of stations that have HD is dropping, so most likely, anyone who hasn't downgraded to HD yet will never be in HD.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

What IS likely to happen: as new HD-capable cars get into circulation, people will simply stop listening to the radio in the car. I'll go on the record right now. The radio industry is going to rue the day they opted to push this technology on the carmakers. In-car listening, arguably radio's last dominant stand with a fragmenting audience, is being imperiled by stupid HD Radio. And it's not being imposed on us by government, other media, or outsiders. Our nitwit "industry leaders" are making us do it....to OURSELVES. : ???

OTOH, it could lead to a revival of the aftermarket head-unit market...WITHOUT HD.

 

[ajc_trw]

The problem is with perfect IBOC reception when the radio switches from analog FM to digital multicast FM and the audio quality decreases.

It sounds more like HD stations that don't have the analog and digital in sync...as if manpower-strapped engineering departments, if they even exist, don't have enough to do already.

I've said this before, if FM stations simulcast the digital HD-1 on the analog they wouldn't have the sync issues. They would, however, have HD-1 quality on their analog which, if FM-HD was CD quality, shouldn't be a problem.

It's a shame one of the emoticons isn't the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons.

 

[Ai4i]

Most large cluster broadcasters are pretty good at syncing.
I find, and I really do not like saying this, independents and non-comms are the least precise.

 

[tomservo]

Whether you want to blame the local station for investing in the technology or for having it forced on them by corporate, it's still the station's fault for not working to the consumers' expectations. Period.

Since when are there any "consumers' expectations," when the vast majority of the listeners don't even know what HD Radio is and probably don't even care? And since when is it the station's fault for not wasting thousands of dollars investing in something for which there is no consumer demand? (Thousands of dollars that a non-corporate independent owner probably doesn't have to waste on superfluous crap like HD.)

Show me the hue and cry for this garbage and you might have an argument.

Swing and a miss.

The expectation is for the radio to work, in other words for it to play music or talk or sports or whatever without the signal cutting in and out of digital, or going silent completely (which is what streaming radio does in the car and strangely no one complains about that.)

It has nothing to do with HD. I doubt anyone buys any particular make or model because it has HD or it doesn't. To them, it's just a radio, something to listen to for local news and traffic when their iPod's battery is dead. So the fault is at the station for a) buying into HD or b) failing to do everything they can to make it work as seamlessly as possible.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

I've said this before, if FM stations simulcast the digital HD-1 on the analog they wouldn't have the sync issues.

Wrong. There is no "digital HD-1" until the audio...the SAME audio being fed to the analog side...is processed through the digital exciter at the transmitter, while the analog audio is also going through its exciter. I know of no HD station that has an entirely separate audio chain just for HD, and even if they did...

They would, however, have HD-1 quality on their analog which, if FM-HD was CD quality, shouldn't be a problem.

Having HD-1 "quality" on the analog signal *reduces* the theoretical audio capability of the analog signal and is unwanted by anyone whose ears still work. And I'm hoping you understand that FM-HD, despite iBiquity's lies, is nowhere near CD quality.

 

[ajc_trw]

They would, however, have HD-1 quality on their analog which, if FM-HD was CD quality, shouldn't be a problem.

Having HD-1 "quality" on the analog signal *reduces* the theoretical audio capability of the analog signal and is unwanted by anyone whose ears still work. And I'm hoping you understand that FM-HD, despite iBiquity's lies, is nowhere near CD quality.

I know FM-HD isn't CD quality, I was trying to be sarcastic (which doesn't really work in typed form )

Drat, just checked & realized I forgot the mandatory , sorry.

 

[MarioMania]

HD seriously degrades the analog range of the station

Does it effect AM also??

 

[rbrucecarter5]

HD seriously degrades the analog range of the station

Does it effect AM also??

Yes - in fact that effect is less debated than the range decrease on AM. It is a dirty little secret iBiquity won't admit to. I think what happens is that the sidebands act to confuse the AGC feedback loop in receivers, forcing them to lower the receiver gain. That is why broadcast engineers missed the effect - they went out with spectrum analyzers and didn't see any decrease in signal strength - forgetting that radio is a system which includes both the transmitter and receiver.

 

[ajc_trw]

I've said this before, if FM stations simulcast the digital HD-1 on the analog they wouldn't have the sync issues.

Wrong. There is no "digital HD-1" until the audio...the SAME audio being fed to the analog side...is processed through the digital exciter at the transmitter, while the analog audio is also going through its exciter. I know of no HD station that has an entirely separate audio chain just for HD,

The analog audio is fed by an on-site HD monitor in lieu of the STL audio.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

The analog audio is fed by an on-site HD monitor in lieu of the STL audio.

Wrong again. That's still not going to guarantee perfect alignment.

 

[ajc_trw]

The analog audio is fed by an on-site HD monitor in lieu of the STL audio.

Wrong again. That's still not going to guarantee perfect alignment.

How? ???

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

How? ???

DSP in the exciter. All modern analog exciters are either full digital (including the generation of the analog composite signal) or are digital for at least a portion of the signal path. DSP introduces delay and there's presently no way around it.

 

[ajc_trw]

How? ???

DSP in the exciter. All modern analog exciters are either full digital (including the generation of the analog composite signal) or are digital for at least a portion of the signal path. DSP introduces delay and there's presently no way around it.

CRAP! I totally didn't think of that.

Thanks for the answer.

P.S.: I remember why I didn't think of it. The last DJ/radio jobs I had we'd monitor the station off-air. Yea, I know : but ;D

 

[satech]

Here's a perfect example of AM "HD" reception on a car stereo that keeps flipping back and forth between analog and digital -- with an annoying phasing/echo effect as it does so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtPIK3JM4C8

You'd think the receiver would incorporate a counter that would keep track of the number of HD dropouts in a given time, and if the dropouts become too frequent, it would force the radio into analog mode until a higher threshold of HD signal quality was reached -- but I guess not!

 

[Savage]

Okay, ladies and gentlemen - behold the "best-case scenario" linked in satech's last post. I think it's vital for anyone remotely interested in the real story of HD Radio, to take two minutes and watch that YouTube video.

This actually represents the best of the best of the best when it comes to IBOC: a local 50kw signal in a top ten market, with better engineering resources than 99% of operating stations out there....and built and maintained by not only one of HD Radio's most ardent supporters, but one who largely DEVELOPED the system. The receiver used is a spanking-new quality unit from a top name, Kenwood. And what do you see and hear? Constant audible malfunctions which no normal radio listener would tolerate.

Imagine if in 1970, every Amana RadarRange built to introduce the mass market to microwave ovens only cooked the left side of the food, leaving the right side raw and cold. How far would the fledgling industry have gotten with the "these things take time to get right" excuse??

And SOME people wonder why HD Radio is having such problems! : The real laugher is when they blame HD's nonacceptance on "poor marketing."

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Here's a perfect example of AM "HD" reception on a car stereo that keeps flipping back and forth between analog and digital -- with an annoying phasing/echo effect as it does so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtPIK3JM4C8

You'd think the receiver would incorporate a counter that would keep track of the number of HD dropouts in a given time, and if the dropouts become too frequent, it would force the radio into analog mode until a higher threshold of HD signal quality was reached -- but I guess not!

Gad that is awful - and I was complaining about distortion on music, particularly high frequencies. At least I had HD lock on one station. Well, one of them. The station 9.6 miles away never would lock in HD, it was only 10,000W. Before HD, it would decode perfect C-Quam 290 miles away.

 

[satech]

Ironically, any AM/FM HD receiver I've ever tried has done a better job of receiving C-Quam AM Stereo than of receiving AM HD! They were easily able to decode C-Quam from a 1 kW graveyard channel signal, while they could not achieve a solid lock on most of the big 50 kW clear channel HD signals.

Any AM station with C-Quam equipment sitting dormant should flip it back on to take advantage of this new influx of C-Quam-capable receivers in the marketplace. Let's turn lemons into lemonade!