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Promoting HD

E

Element9

Of all the Buffalo radio stations broadcasting in HD, the public radio stations, notably WBFO, seem to be the most active in promoting the service, with HD-1 and HD-2 promos and programming specials, WBFO frequently featuring its (satellite delivered) HD-2 "AAA" format on it's main channel. Uh, oh yeah... the commercial stations in Buffalo don't have anything on HD-2, do they.

-9-
 
Enter-Commitment

Can one of the twelve guys with HD radios in Buffalo check to see if Star offers an alternative format on HD-2? I haven't "invested" in HD yet, but I hear that they're doing something different.

PS - I'd stop by my local Radio Shack and check it out, but they can't seem to get HD to work in the building. Their HD radio isn't plugged in...
 
I have 2 (count 'em two) HD radios.

1 is sold by Radiosophy (home) and the other is from Sangean (work), both work beautifully.

94.5 now carries our news content on it's HD2 position.
It's wierd to hear WNED-AM in full fidelity and in stereo.

I have heard over and over that Radio Shack can't get HD to work in the stores. I don't get it....it just takes a regular FM antenna to pull in the signal. It even comes in wonderfully in that witches brew of RFI that is downtown Buffalo.

I wonder if the Radio Shack anecdotal evidence is the stuff of urban legend.....like the "Paul is dead" story. I'll have to check that one out for myself.

I, for one, would like to see what happens. It may, or may not, be the savior of terrestrial broadcasting......but it's kind of cool.

I know there is an anti-HD faction out there that will find nothing positive about this technology......I don't get that either. Let's just see where it goes.
 
alw said:
I have 2 (count 'em two) HD radios.

I have heard over and over that Radio Shack can't get HD to work in the stores. I don't get it....it just takes a regular FM antenna to pull in the signal. It even comes in wonderfully in that witches brew of RFI that is downtown Buffalo.

I wonder if the Radio Shack anecdotal evidence is the stuff of urban legend.....like the "Paul is dead" story. I'll have to check that one out for myself.
Click to expand...

I've been in Radio Shack stores in Albany & Syracuse NY, Orlando and Ft. Myers Fla and HD could not be received in any of them. And that is with the supplied AM and FM antenna connected. I finally heard an Accurian that received FM-HD in Rochester (Henrietta) and it sounded pretty good. But it didn't receive AM-HD and WHAM-1180 was only a few miles away.
 
alw said:
I know there is an anti-HD faction out there that will find nothing positive about this technology......I don't get that either. Let's just see where it goes.
Click to expand...

AM HD makes all existing radios sound awful, and the better the radio, the worse the IBOC slop makes it sound!
The high frequencies are rolled off to the point of negatively impacting intelligibility.
Then, listening in HD, the sound is crunchier than sugary breakfast cereal, AND it's garbled.

On FM it's only adding noise to the "stereo" image, not the mono.
But it is making tuning razor sharp to get stereo to lock in, and only ruined stereo reception on one FM which no longer comes in stereo, 7 miles from downtown Chicago.

You don't get it?
A corporation has been granted rights to RF tresspass.
Any radio station using the technology on AM spits in their RF neighbors' faces and tells them to "get lost, we're legal."
Listeners have been sacrificed to ensure only listening to in-market signals.
We are told we never should have been listening to that rimshot or other weak signal.

I have been in 2 radio shacks where the Accurian DID decode, AM and FM, but dropped repeatedly due to lightning in one case.
The decoded AM had a chorus effect where each individual announcer sounded like twins speaking in unison.

Against this backdrop, I have a hard time appreciating the supposed positive aspects of this technology.
I don't find the FM HD to sound like much of an improvement, given that the codec isn't even transparent at the 96k rate.
Tell me again why this is supposedly an improvement. All I see is negatives.
 
Can't resist this one. And another real-world testimonial to the folly of HD-AM! By time this technological debacle winds down, C-QUAM is going to look like the greatest technical media development since color TV, by comparison to IBOC. See the "Why You Don't Need HD-AM" on the WYSL website.
 
Tom Wells opined, "AM HD makes all existing radios sound awful, and the better the radio, the worse the IBOC slop makes it sound!
The high frequencies are rolled off to the point of negatively impacting intelligibility.
Then, listening in HD, the sound is crunchier than sugary breakfast cereal, AND it's garbled."

Just wait until all of the AM's fire up their "HD" at night later this month! I'm sure the hideous, unbearable noise will convince the public they will need to scrap all of their radios for a shiny new "HD" model....."Will the last AM listener please turn out the lights when they leave?"

Mr. Wells went on to say, "On FM it's only adding noise to the "stereo" image, not the mono.
But it is making tuning razor sharp to get stereo to lock in, and only ruined stereo reception on one FM which no longer comes in stereo, 7 miles from downtown Chicago."

Not to mention, even on FM, IBOC does not stay within its 200Khz bandwidth limit. So, just like AM, you now have legal license to step on your neighbors. (Although not as severe as AM, there are still interference issues.)

There are really no positives with this technology. Digital for the sake of digital is pointless and this so-called improvement only benefits the shareholders of a handful of corporations selling the goods. (IF they can actually sell it to the public!) Judging by the public's response so far, maybe we are not as gullible as some might have us believe. TSL numbers are down, not because our radios sound bad in analog, but because we are sick and tired of what the stations are feeding us. Now, we can get what we want by buying a new radio to hear that elusive format on an "HD2"....maybe paying for the privilege someday.

Seriously, my radios worked just fine until iBiquity broke them..........
 
Right on Tom! Leonard Khan's system for digital radio would have been far better than IBOC. A lot of lower power radio signals are about to become all but obsolete thanks to the digital hash on adjacent channels. They will certainly lose coverage area outside their immediate city grade signal, especially on AM.
 
Thanks to a member of my family who has an HD receiver by accident (it was given to her as a promotional gift by a promotion firm because she bought a new-fangled, bigger-than-Rhode Island refrigerator-freezer) I've had the chance to sample HD on AM and FM.

WECK-AM is doing Classic Country in HD. I'm not fond of the format in the first place, so listening to the station in HD is nothing more than a curiousity. Sounds "nice," but I noticed that the analog audio sounds like crap. And the hash in the sidebands IS noticeable. WECK, at one time had very rich sounding AM audio when it was doing the Standards format in analogue only. So now, there's another AM station whose format doesn't appeal to me and secondly, sounds like junk in analogue. If an AM has its anologue processing set up discriminatingly, it can sound pretty damn good, witness the rich texture of 800 CKLW, 1050 CHUM and 660 WNBC in their music days.

WBFO, 97 Rock and Star are broadcasting in HD and I've listened to them at length simultaneously using the HD receiver and in analogue, using another high quality FM receiver (not Uncle Oskie's 1971 Sansui, which probably has a few leaking caps but still sounds pretty damn good to my ears.)

Neither WBFO (which has some pretty decent processing adjusted to handle everything from Jazz, Blues and News-Talk), 97 Rock (which is highly processed) and Star (which is disturbingly over processed to the point of crushing the audio) sound good in HD, certainly not discernably better than their analogue audio stream.

So why should the average listener "invest" in HD?

There's no immediate reason to do so. There's no perceived improvement in audio and no "must have" HD-2 audio stream. It's not like the days when WPHD was on FM, in stereo and you ran out to buy an FM converter (which simply "imported" FM reception through your AM receiver) or went whole hog nuts and bought an AM-FM Stereo car radio, which gave you the bonus of hearing Top 40 Rock 102, The Super-Q as well as Beautiful Music WBNY-WJYE and "WADV in resplendent FM Stereo."

Today, 12-24 year old Joe and Jane Public have their iPods which, even using ridiculously crinched MP3 bit rates, satisfy their music needs because they can hear 12 hundred songs of their OWN choosing.

Today, 35-54 year old Jane and Joe Public have iPods and MP3's with their favorite songs... or they're content with punching in and out of their favorite "Dad Drives to the Gym" and "Mom Drives to the Mall" FM station.

Anybody think 55+ Joe and Jane Public are gonna run out and buy HD? Hell, they just want a good AM or FM station that palys the Crystals and Bobby Vee fer cryin' out loud. And the more adventurous 55+ are loading up THEIR MP3 players.

By my (admittedly no longer in the biz) observation, HD is doomed to fail not only because it's a technological hoax perpetrated by iBuiquity which trashes the AM and FM bands, but because CONSUMERS show absolutely no zeal for HD. None.

This week, we've all seen, heard and endured the monster hype surrounding Apple's iPhones. This is what drives the shape and focus of the marketplace.

By comparison, HD isn't even a blip on the outer fringes of the radar scope.
 
HD-2

Hey, Mike -

If you can tear yourself away from sniffing paint thinner for a few minutes, check out the HD purveyors and see if anybody is streaming HD-2 content.

Rumor has it that at least Star and WBFO are streaming on their HD-2 channels. I can't confirm that without prying my wallet open and shelling out more money than I'm willing to throw away for an HD receiver.

It would be interesting to see who is offering a second program stream, and what the content is. That brings us to the hot issue with HD-2. Do you stream a format that is complimentary to your main channel - which may dilute your ratings - or do you stream an alternative format and go after your competition - which may confuse diarists who don't know analog from HD-1 from HD-2, and ASSUME that they're listening to another station that runs the same analog format as your HD-2 stream.
 
WBFO is running a Triple A format on its HD 2 channel. It's called Xponential Radio, and is produced by one of the nation's leading Triple A public stations, WXPN in Philadelphia. It's a great format. Nice mix of today's music mixed with an occasional classic. The station is streaming it on the web as well.
 
Chipping Away

WBFO is running a Triple-A format on HD-2 - which targets Star, The Edge, The Lake, and 97-Rock. According to their website, Star is running a Blues format on HD2.

Sounds like a couple of the organizations in town have decided to use their HD-2 channels to chip away at alternative audiences...
 
Re: Chipping Away

SirRoxalot said:
WBFO is running a Triple-A format on HD-2 - which targets Star, The Edge, The Lake, and 97-Rock. According to their website, Star is running a Blues format on HD2.

Sounds like a couple of the organizations in town have decided to use their HD-2 channels to chip away at alternative audiences...
Click to expand...

WFAE HD2 in Charlotte is also running XPonetial from WXPN. I've heard it and it's not my kind of music. I wonder why the NPR stations are turning to WXPN? With today's technology it seems like it would be just as easy for these stations to do their own format. Before going with the NPR information/Talk programs which are very good they also have a great Smooth Jazz format.

I read somewhere commercials will start on many of the HD2 commercial stations in 2008. If they go to the same long spot sets that are on the main channel they will ruin HD2. If they keep the spot load down, HD radio may have a chance.
 
*funny*
when i asked, about this a while ago, it was...just a "buzz"
and the post didnt get much fan-fare....i went to
radio shack, and the min_wage worker, set it to
103.3 and, said, well the "real" HD works better.
-Since there was soo much concrete,etc in the building...
not to mention, only one speaker was hooked up.

I asked, what about Original programming?
he had no clue, and actually (chuckle) said:

"not to worry...(as if it was "phantom" programming)
...that any other stations,(referring to HD-2) wont
cut into the signal on 103.3 or any station u decide to listen too.."

ha,ha...
-i wonder who will be the first in this area, to pirate, 102.5-HD-2?! lol
 
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