People are so negative about HD Radio

[beantownradio25]

Technology evolves!!! :-X Why are people so negative about HD Radio?

I personally love it, more choices in dramatically better sound quality. I live about 30 miles from Boston and can get most stations in full stength HD.

 

[Tom Wells]

Really now. You call that evolving? At 30 miles, you can get AM stations with a crystal detector and a tapped coil.
As in "1923".
It is not necessary to put 30 to 50 khz of interference into the spectrum to get 10khz of audio.
In fact, it is wasteful and pig-headed to make such a mess for so little "benefit".
At 20 to 40 miles from the Chicago AM 50 kw sticks I can get very little HD decode from them.
I am IN Chicago, and 7 miles from the downtown big FM transmitters, my HD lock on FMs falls apart every 30-60 seconds from
airplanes landing or taking off at Ohare. The iboc noise makes it very hard to get analog FM stereo anymore.

Tell me how this evolution is anything but detrimental.
The influenza virus evolves, too, but it's nothing to be proud of or promote as beneficial.
I could go on, but you get my drift. As long as I'm fully informed about this technology, I will continue to be "so negative".

 

[BRNout]

Technology evolves!!! :-X Why are people so negative about HD Radio?

I personally love it, more choices in dramatically better sound quality. I live about 30 miles from Boston and can get most stations in full stength HD.

How do they do when you walk around the yard? What happens when you adjust the antenna the *wrong* way?

In my experience as an HD radio owner, the "dramatically better" sound quality is only because these receivers have such lousy analog stereo sound. Comparing HD stereo reception with stereo reception on a good analog receiver reveals a mixed bag. The plus for the HD is that the noise floor is very low (almost non-existent); the minus for the HD side is that the audio sometimes sounds artificial and occasioanlly remnants sneak into the audio chain. All in all, having spent a good amount of time comparing them, I must disagree with your comment and call it a draw.

For this, we have sideband hash and interference to fringe FM signals. Yes, given the potential for multicasting on FM, at least there's room for debate here as to whether it's worth it.

On the other hand, this technology on AM is wasting electricity. interfering with local broadcasters and basically destroying the viability of the band for almost NO advantage. The best selling (by far) HD radios don't even include an AM tuner! All it does is ruin sound quality and reception on the AM side for the 99.99999999% of listeners who tune in using analog devices. And, that's where most of the "negativity" that you're reading about comes from.

On the FM side, it's debatable. My view is that the technology is 10 years too late there, but at least it's debatable. On the AM side, there's little debate anymore. It's a disaster and needs to be terminated.

You want worthwhile technology in this area? How about the concept of internet radio that is mobile? Now, THAT is technological evolution that is going somewhere. Unlike HD. So, it's not that we're just a bunch of fogies over here complaining about something being "different" - it's that we're somewhat discerning when it comes to technology. The IBOC technology is weak and most of us know it.

By the way, not all "change" is for the better. In case you haven't learned that yet.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Technology evolves!!! :-X Why are people so negative about HD Radio?

I personally love it, more choices in dramatically better sound quality. I live about 30 miles from Boston and can get most stations in full stength HD.

Nobody on this board would be anti-HD radio if it did not cause interference to adjacent channels, and if it didn't have compression artifacts that make it tedious to listen to.

The 30 mile range on Boston HD is reasonable - with better terrain and taller towers I can do 70 mile HD reception. Others have reported 84 miles.

AM HD, though, is quite a different matter and quite difficult to achieve and maintain lock. And the other poster is right, if you are on an approach path to an airport, HD FM is not viable, it will not maintain lock. My 70 mile reception range was on Dallas stations, but other posters on the approach path to DFW airport do not have reliable HD less than 10 miles from the towers.

 

[Savage]

"Why are people so negative about HD Radio?" Indeed. Great question, isn't it?

Of course your intitial declaration "technology evolves!" strongly suggests you're simply regurgitating a pro-IBOC "bumper sticker" rhetorical question, rather than seeking an actual answer. So I'll address the rest of the universe rather than talk to another likely pro-HD ringer (as a radio professional I have yet to meet a single member of the general public who enthusiastically boosts IBOC as some great consumer product. Most don't even know what HD is.)

Certainly, with the radio industry in the fiscal straits it is, a wonderful technology that actually delivers on HD's scattershot promises would be universally embraced, now wouldn't it, logically speaking?

The problem is: it doesn't. I won't beat the so-dead horse of the endless technical issues posed by HD, which are most acute on the AM band. HD Radio represents at best a tiny and irrelevant step forward, and giant, expensive, troublesome leap backwards, in practical real-world market conditions.

See? THAT'S why there is "negativity about HD Radio." It isn't a case of "technology evolves." It's "technology has been faked and cobbled and its schemers are trying to force it down everyone's throats." In this country we value our freedoms and our choices, as opposed to obediently swallowing every shovelful of hogwash thrown at us by authority figures. As Americans we don't take kindly to being dictated to. Hence: "Negativity."

The HD "technology" doesn't work acceptably. That's the reason for the desperate campaign to increase FM-HD digital power, and why AM-HD is in slow-mo abandonment mode, as major broadcasters labor mightily to back away from AM-HD without looking like they're doing so.

The engineering behind HD is so bad, the only defense remaining in the arsenal of its few remaining proponents
is virulent attacks on the system's critics, on the professional bona fides of radio veterans who even dare to question this troubled and semi-functional system. You read the nastiness here all the time. Check out the shrill denunciation of this poster in the Guy Wire article in Radio World last summer. "Guy," writing behind a childish pseudonym, defended an HD-FM digital power hike with "Bob Savage's station is a piece of crap and he's a lousy broadcaster."

Hmm. Wonder again: "why are people so negative about HD Radio?" Gee. Ya DO have to wonder, don't you??

 

[Savage]

I'm calling them out by name: Dan Mason. Glynn Walden. Eric Rhoads. Cris Alexander. Whoever the last dork was in charge of the NAB. Guy Wire. Fred Jacobs.

Every single one of them, when I demanded to know what the plan was about adjacent-channel IBOC interference - established beyond a scintilla of a doubt industrywide - has either ignored the question, tried to lie their way out of it by flatly denying interference exists, or by calling me a "naysayer" or a "Luddite." In many cases they heap ridicule through a combination of the above.

Great system, HD Radio. If those who defend it can't even mount a defense better than "at least I'm trying to DO something about radio, as opposed to YOU," IBOC can't have much merit.

HD isn't supposed to be about those who criticize it. If its critics all went away or shut up tomorrow, it would still fail. As it has....and will continue to do.

Because: HD is junk engineering, cynically cobbled to enrich its supposed genius mad-scientist creators. NOT to "improve radio." It's obvious to anyone willing to see.

 

[ddsparxx]

Practically the only thing I hate about HD radio is the adjacent channel interference on both AM and FM. I just wish that the FCC would just wake up and see this as a problem. But I don't think it'll happen.

 

[audioguy]

Practically the only thing I hate about HD radio is the adjacent channel interference on both AM and FM. I just wish that the FCC would just wake up and see this as a problem. But I don't think it'll happen.

The FCC has many other things on its mind right now; notably broadband. However, I don't think that opinions expressed on this board are likely to lead to any changes. On the other hand, if some of you who are knowledgeable and who are working in the industry would start paying visits to them and expressing your opinions, that might make a difference.

How about a petition to revoke authority to operate in HD mode on the AM band?

I agree completely with one of the earlier comments expressed in this thread: if the technology worked well, and most importantly if it did not cause objectionable interference (which it does, especially on AM), we would all be enthusiastically promoting it.

 

[nd2023]

Why do you lose HD lock if you're on the approach path to an airport? It's not like the planes are emitting RF, and all the communications are above 108 mHz. Is it because the planes reflect first adjacent stations from out of market that interfere with the IBUZ decoding?

 

[Tom Wells]

Why do you lose HD lock if you're on the approach path to an airport? It's not like the planes are emitting RF, and all the communications are above 108 mHz. Is it because the planes reflect first adjacent stations from out of market that interfere with the IBUZ decoding?

It's because the two different paths of the signal to the receiver are different lengths. The "short" path directly between the antennas
would be the one we'd like to decode, but it is interfered with by the signal received on the "longer" path, that from the antenna to the airplane, reflected then to the receiver's antenna. This would simply be multipath flutter on analog, but is sufficient to mar the signal that HD decode is obliterated. And as that path's length and strength keeps changing until the airplane goes well past, there's no steady state condition for the receiver to lock onto until the direct signal is once again stronger by a good margin.

Don't anyone say I didn't try, I bought two of these duds, the Radio Shack Accurian, and a JVC car radio for my wife's Hyundai.
My wife at least can use hers for listening to CDs, and it works well for the college FMs ( which aren't in HD anyway ).
The Accurian is only used here at home to occupy space and collect dust. They both sound horrifying on AM, whether listening to
analog or digital, which only seldom or briefly "works". The frequency response in analog AM is exactly equal to my 1926 Atwater Kent
TRF Model 35 with a horn speaker, driven by a magnetic coil and metal diaphragm, such as was used for telephone landlines for 100 years.
Such a poor audio response could only be a very determined and cynical decision to make analog AM broadcast sound so bad as possible.

 

[nd2023]

Why do you lose HD lock if you're on the approach path to an airport? It's not like the planes are emitting RF, and all the communications are above 108 mHz. Is it because the planes reflect first adjacent stations from out of market that interfere with the IBUZ decoding?

It's because the two different paths of the signal to the receiver are different lengths. The "short" path directly between the antennas
would be the one we'd like to decode, but it is interfered with by the signal received on the "longer" path, that from the antenna to the airplane, reflected then to the receiver's antenna. This would simply be multipath flutter on analog, but is sufficient to mar the signal that HD decode is obliterated. And as that path's length and strength keeps changing until the airplane goes well past, there's no steady state condition for the receiver to lock onto until the direct signal is once again stronger by a good margin.

Don't anyone say I didn't try, I bought two of these duds, the Radio Shack Accurian, and a JVC car radio for my wife's Hyundai.
My wife at least can use hers for listening to CDs, and it works well for the college FMs ( which aren't in HD anyway ).
The Accurian is only used here at home to occupy space and collect dust. They both sound horrifying on AM, whether listening to
analog or digital, which only seldom or briefly "works". The frequency response in analog AM is exactly equal to my 1926 Atwater Kent
TRF Model 35 with a horn speaker, driven by a magnetic coil and metal diaphragm, such as was used for telephone landlines for 100 years.
Such a poor audio response could only be a very determined and cynical decision to make analog AM broadcast sound so bad as possible.

I thought that HD Radio was supposed to be the cure for multipath. Guess not.

My HD radio didn't drop out when going through the concrete jungle of Manhattan, with all the radio stations from within the city. And it worked well in the concrete jungle of downtown Tampa, with the 100kw blowtorches 10 miles away from downtown.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Why do you lose HD lock if you're on the approach path to an airport? It's not like the planes are emitting RF, and all the communications are above 108 mHz. Is it because the planes reflect first adjacent stations from out of market that interfere with the IBUZ decoding?

Nope - it is because the signal reflects off of the planes, causing signal strength variations of 50 to 60 dB. Kind of makes that 10 dB power increase irrelevant. I've heard the effect myself. Enough to case stereo dropout on analog, given the rapid fluctuations of signal strength and long lock time for HD, HD is pretty much useless until the plane has landed. But if one goes over every 3 minutes, HD is useless all day. I am not sure how wide the interference path is, but the altitude of the planes probably has some relationship to it. Which means a wedge shaped area of no HD starting at the airport, and getting wider the farther you get. Most airports have multiple runways, and depending on wind conditions may reverse the direction of takeoff and landing. The end result is a lot of folks who can't get HD.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I thought that HD Radio was supposed to be the cure for multipath. Guess not.

My HD radio didn't drop out when going through the concrete jungle of Manhattan, with all the radio stations from within the city. And it worked well in the concrete jungle of downtown Tampa, with the 100kw blowtorches 10 miles away from downtown.

No. All radio is analog. Just the modulation scheme is digital.

It is possible to pack so much signal into an area with severe multipath that you overcome it with HD. But a piddling 10 dB increase will do nothing but increase interference. And what percentage of the US population is really packed into Manhattan or downtown Tampa, or the rest of downtowns? 1% of the US population? 2? 3? I suspect not much more, but HD radio was designed for that one specific situation which affects only a small percentage of the population, and now the rest of us are stuck with a defective system not right for suburbs, rural, etc. A system which increase interference for the vast majority of the population - not something radio needs right now. And - just wait until the next solar max. FM madness will ensue with digital sidebands skipping all over the country as strong as locals, particularly if the 10 dB power increase is granted!

 

[SUPERCASTER]

All that puts a final stake in the heart of HD radio's false claim of multipath immunity, doesn't it?

 

[HowardMBurgers]

Hi Nick, Welcome to the HD radio discussion group! As you can probably tell by now, the forum has been pretty well occupied by those who appear to feel HD radio is on par with the apocalypse. Some feel they have been personally and financially injured by some AM stations implementing the Ibquity IBOC system, others who enjoy long-distance listening as a hobby, (Medium-Wave DX'ers) don't appreciate the interference to their hobby, while some appear to be older folks who think AM is fine the way it is. Really it doesn't take long to read between the lines.

On the other hand there are some here who try to keep an open mind and enjoy listening to FM-HD radio. Granted according to sales statistics, HD radio sales are less than 1% without much growth to date. There are a multitude of reasons why HD radio isn't gaining traction. Much of the consumer lack of acceptance appears to be caused by confusion with satellite broadcasting, combined with consumer electronics and automobile manufacturers not being eager to pay for the receiver chips, whereas satellite radio launched in major cars with help from the auto manufacturers as investors.

Also in my view, radio stations that have been pushing HD radio, really haven't been doing a very good job of explaining to consumers what it is. The cryptic promos and spots trying to peak the curiousity of listeners are just that, cryptic.

Will the whole HD radio thing ever gain traction? Probably not for AM, as there are issues with the technology, combined with the increasing loss of interest in the AM broadcast band. The jury is still out for FM-HD radio. If stations come up with compelling content to create consumer interest, then competently market it, perhaps there may be. Time will tell I guess!

 

[Savage]

Howard, I take issue with your comment, "try to keep an open mind" regarding HD Radio.

I HAD an open mind about IBOC, and was an enthusiastic supporter of the concept when it was first broached in 2002. Then I started delving into the details - you know, where the devil lives.

The more engineering questions I asked, the more it became apparent that this whole concept was defective from the git-go - largely because the motivation of its developers was primarily self-interest and self-promotion rather than "betterment of radio." And at least the AM version wasn't even developed by broadcasters but by an aerospace firm with no expertise in medium-wave propagation and radio services. IBOC is much more about politics and hegemony for big radio groups than it is about improving the radio service, and that's where much of the strong opposition comes from.

Just because we see the vast problems for what they are and point them out, doesn't mean we don't "have an open mind." It's important for the overall good of our industry to call things what they are and to demand something better than HD. Your comment suggests you think all HD opponents are, to use the overused term, "Luddites" and "naysayers." This is a grave disservice to professional broadcasters who just happen to think that IBOC creates more problems than it solves.

 

[HowardMBurgers]

Hi Savage. Sorry you feel somehow attacked by the open mind comment. I think everyone would agree who visits this forum on a regular basis knows your stance on HD radio. You're a businessman who feels strongly that you've been affected by the advent of AM HD radio, I get that part.

My comment was based on others who post anti-HD comments solely based on the AM issues. There has been little to no evidence to date that FM-HD is anywhere nearly as a problem for adjacent channel interference as AM is. Some on this board however, make non-scientific comments which usually summarize as, to paraphrase; "HD bad, HD bad", with no other empirical evidence to back up the claims.

To me, if you don't want to buy an HD radio, good don't buy one. If you don't think HD radio will amount to much, perhaps so, time will tell. If you're a radio hobbyest interested in HD, great give it a try! I for one am always interested in consumer impressions, and those in radio (or stuck in the past), need to spend more time listening to the listeners. (what a concept!)

Speaking from a personal level, I have a couple HD radios and do listen to it from time to time, particularly to the Bluegrass music format here in Washington DC on WAMU-FM HD-2.

I do feel however, and I think you'd agree at times, this particular board comes off as pretty close-minded when some new meat jumps on to share their experiences or ask a question.

 

[Play Freebird]

I thought that HD Radio was supposed to be the cure for multipath. Guess not.

My HD radio didn't drop out when going through the concrete jungle of Manhattan, with all the radio stations from within the city. And it worked well in the concrete jungle of downtown Tampa, with the 100kw blowtorches 10 miles away from downtown.

Nick, I've also experienced good multipath immunity within areas of "urban clutter" like Manhattan and central Philadlphia where the direct signals are strong and reflected signals have relatively short delays (because they're bouncing off nearby buildings) However, the system doesn't perform well in outlying areas where the reflections are longer, coming off the sides of mountains several miles away.

The ability to tolerate multipath is directly related to the "guard interval" of the COFDM digital carriers. A longer interval would provide better immunity, but there's a tradeoff -- a reduction in bit rate. If wider digital sidebands were practical, this would also help -- but of course, this would further increase interference to analog signals. Unfortunately, HD Radio attempts to cram too much data into a narrow bandwidth with a short guard interval that impairs its ability to function well in rough terrain.

Florida probably offers a "best case scenario" for FM HD (except during tropo openings!) The major stations are Class C facilities with 100 kW ERP from tall towers and the terrain is flat and open, so the system performs fairly well. However, in my travels through interior New England, upstate NY and northern PA, I've found coverage quite disappointing. In high multipath areas, some Class B stations lose digital lock within 10 miles of the transmitter site.

 

[Bongwater]

What people AREN'T talking about here is the CONTENT of these HD 2/3 subchannels. That was supposed to be the REAL selling point of HD. That you can hear even MORE variety, MORE exciting programming, far out music, lots of FUN stuff.....

And just LOOK at what you hear on HD 2/3....Why here's......OK, so it's wall to wall Christian Rock with no DJs or personality....hang on....Oh wait, here's the BBC World Service!.......And.....All Comedy.....and.....wall to wall gay dance music.....and.....some talk program about new age healing crystals.....and......a simulcast of Rush Limbaugh.....and.....

Let's face it. The offerings just aren't that exciting. Nor as thrilling as we hoped. You can blame that on the economy, blah, blah, blah. But ain't nobody gonna spend $100-200 on a glorified box of redundancy when there's FAR more exciting radio via the internet. And as WiFi develops bigger and more powerful networks coast to coast, HD will be dumped by the wayside unless stations start getting serious about the development of the HD radio programming content, adding live, local personality, treating each HD subchannel like an actual top level station. And PROMOTE each HD station VIGOROUSLY. TV spots, print, billboards, whatever. That's the ONLY way it's even going to develop public interest..at all......

Of course someone is going to tell me the economics don't allow for any of that. Fine. Just don't be puzzled why the public isn't leaping aboard the HD bandwagon.....

 

[nd2023]

Radio stations will likely dump HD when they realize it's eating into their profits and more people are listening to the HD2s via the web streams.