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Readers Survey: HD Radio skepticism slowly shrinks...

First of all, the survey is based on a very narrow base. So I wouldn't draw anything from it. Rather, watch what these stations do.

As I've said many times, everyone is waiting for the day that iBiquity's trademark expires. Until then, it's not an industry product, but iBiquity's.
 
We certainly have not seen the steady stream of anti-HD postings on this very forum, so… Maybe automakers are slowly figuring out how to get HD to sort of work kinda maybe sorta. :)

Or maybe HD-enabled radios are shipping in new cars with the actual HD feature turned off by default. ;)

At least here in the deep south, the big use for HD has been feeding translators, which are like having little low-cost class A stations all over the place. I bet there's a dozen across Alabama and Georgia doing this already. One just came on here in Darwin's Waiting Room (a/k/a Mobile) airing commercial free smooth jazz, which is also heard on two iHeart HD subchannels already.

In that sense, I suppose it does make economic sense for broadcasters to embrace HD, since they've found a workaround for the lack of ubiquitous receivers and reliable coverage.
 
tomservo said:
We certainly have not seen the steady stream of anti-HD postings on this very forum, so… Maybe automakers are slowly figuring out how to get HD to sort of work kinda maybe sorta. :)

Or maybe HD-enabled radios are shipping in new cars with the actual HD feature turned off by default. ;)

At least here in the deep south, the big use for HD has been feeding translators, which are like having little low-cost class A stations all over the place. I bet there's a dozen across Alabama and Georgia doing this already. One just came on here in Darwin's Waiting Room (a/k/a Mobile) airing commercial free smooth jazz, which is also heard on two iHeart HD subchannels already.

In that sense, I suppose it does make economic sense for broadcasters to embrace HD, since they've found a workaround for the lack of ubiquitous receivers and reliable coverage.
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Hope - just tired of fighting. I will let the lemmings march over the cliff without trying to save them. HD is a religion, with totally brainwashed zealots who vigorously attack anybody who points out the engineering problems. I - like most of the public - am done with over the air radio. Except, in my case, the temporary HD-2 formats that will disappear as HD slowly dies like AM C-Quam.
 
Nobody I've seen has ever attacked you Bruce, but have challenged your assertions, which you can't seem to quantify with any methodology or science. If you consider questions on how you came up with these assertions as attacks, then I submit you just need to be prepared to back them up. Pretty simple really. Either that, or maybe it's just easier to go on a pity-fishing expedition?
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
HD is a religion, with totally brainwashed zealots who vigorously attack anybody who points out the engineering problems..
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And you will have to admit Bruce that the same is usually true on the other side. Whenever anyone points out anything good about HD Radio, anything innovative, or that anyone is enjoying it. The HD haters attack and call names, etc.
 
Kelly A said:
Nobody I've seen has ever attacked you Bruce, but have challenged your assertions, which you can't seem to quantify with any methodology or science. If you consider questions on how you came up with these assertions as attacks, then I submit you just need to be prepared to back them up. Pretty simple really. Either that, or maybe it's just easier to go on a pity-fishing expedition?
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I challenged people to go do the test themselves. I am not asking anybody to believe me or take my word for it. I know what I observed, I have nothing more to prove to myself. I am not going to publish, there is no need - consumer apathy will kill HD as effectively as it killed C-Quam.
 
Wimmmex said:
And you will have to admit Bruce that the same is usually true on the other side. Whenever anyone points out anything good about HD Radio, anything innovative, or that anyone is enjoying it. The HD haters attack and call names, etc.
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One more time: I like HD. It has formats I can't get anywhere else.

That said, there are technical problems that have been covered up and ignored. They are bad enough that they will kill the system. So my HD radios - and I have 3 - are living on borrowed time. It may take 5 years, it may take 20 - but HD will die. Consumer apathy and reception problems caused by HD technical problems will kill it. No amount of rationalizing bad engineering, tainted test methodologies, high pressure sales tactics, wishful thinking, or cover ups will change that fact.
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
- consumer apathy will kill HD as effectively as it killed C-Quam.
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Well, the feelings abou HD are going in the other direction, more acceptance, more cars, more listeners, etc.

However, let's hope this isn't true for radio in general...because consumer apathy is across the spectrum for anything "radio" (not just HD) is at an all time hi never sen before

Ham, Scanners, SWL, AM, FM, HD, SiriusXM.....apathy is affecting them all

rbrucecarter5 said:
They are bad enough that they will kill the system.
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But for all this doomsday talk (over and over again), HD radio just keeps keepin' on doesn't it?

And, as stated, more cars than ever, more listeners and more acceptance than ever.

(And speaking of all this doomsday talk, how long have we been hearing it? 6-7 years? Yet it's still there.)
 
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rbrucecarter5 said:
I challenged people to go do the test themselves. I am not asking anybody to believe me or take my word for it. I know what I observed, I have nothing more to prove to myself. I am not going to publish, there is no need - consumer apathy will kill HD as effectively as it killed C-Quam.
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Are you referring to the issue where you received interference on another FM radio due to an HD radio being tuned to an HD station? I tried to replicate that issue with two different HD radios and couldn't reproduce the result.

My parents are in the market for a new vehicle and they may get to finally make a purchase later this year or early 2016. Every single contender they have on the shortlist has HD radio as standard or as part of an optional upgrade that they would like to have. They're looking at multiple brands of CUVs (yuck, but that's my personal belief) both foreign and domestic. It's not something they're looking for — they've seen how unreliable my little portables are — but it just happens to be included on every model they're interested in. I find that very surprising because it wasn't that long ago that HD was relegated to the high end stereo in luxury cars only.
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
I challenged people to go do the test themselves. I am not asking anybody to believe me or take my word for it. I know what I observed, I have nothing more to prove to myself.
Click to expand...

Or is this the story you posted about getting interference on the highway, but when people called you out on the details (location, road signs, primary signal countours, etc.) you had no answer?
 
tomservo said:
Are you referring to the issue where you received interference on another FM radio due to an HD radio being tuned to an HD station? I tried to replicate that issue with two different HD radios and couldn't reproduce the result.

My parents are in the market for a new vehicle and they may get to finally make a purchase later this year or early 2016. Every single contender they have on the shortlist has HD radio as standard or as part of an optional upgrade that they would like to have. They're looking at multiple brands of CUVs (yuck, but that's my personal belief) both foreign and domestic. It's not something they're looking for — they've seen how unreliable my little portables are — but it just happens to be included on every model they're interested in. I find that very surprising because it wasn't that long ago that HD was relegated to the high end stereo in luxury cars only.
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This one is really easy to replicate. You are looking to put the IF image of the radio in one car into the antenna of another car. It may be related to make and model, and the type of antenna - some new cars no longer use fenders as ground which is BAD NEWS for HD AM! But to jam FM HD - all you need to do is find two local stations separated by 10.4 to 11 MHz, the upper station running HD. It is easier to notice the effect with HD-2, because it drops to silence. Legal protection only extends to stations 10.6 or 10.8 MHz apart, but because the HD sidebands lie on adjacent frequencies, a station legally operating 10.4 or 11 MHz lower in frequency can drop HD - whether or not the lower frequency station broadcasts HD, or whether or not the other car has an HD radio. There are multiple cases of it where I live in Houston. You commute the same route every day - you see the same cars, and they tend to tune the same stations. So I am getting to know which cars will cause HD to drop! Unfortunately for me - a classic rocker on 93.7 recently changed to a different - apparently more popular format, and therefore HD jams the local 104.1. A classic country on 97.1 jams HD on 107.5. So does a local 96.5 so it gets it from both directions. 96.5 also jams HD on 106.9 - it is a two station cluster on 106.9 and 107.5, so a radio tuned to 96.5 causes HD dropout on BOTH of their stations! And so forth - there are many such combinations on the dial here. Good luck - it is really an interesting phenomenon!
 
Based on these glowing reports of HD availability in cars, I thought I would do a bit of lunch hour research into car sound systems. Now - I am going to get banner ads for new cars when I surf the internet!

http://www.chevrolet.com/2014-mylink-radio.html - no HD mentioned here.

http://support.ford.com/vehicle-features/hd-radio-technology - found it at Ford

http://www.chrysler.com/en/2015/300/limited/ got to read down a bit to find HD radio, but the radio face lacks an HD logo so I suspect it isn't standard.

http://www.toyota.com/entune/support/entune-premium-audio/#!camry/2015 - no HD icon but the web site claims it is available.

Depending on who you read and believe on here - in car listening is either the biggest audience or perhaps not. But I personally don't do much listening at home or in the office - the stations don't broadcast formats I am interested in except for HD, which doesn't work in my house (22 miles from dozen class C stations on 2000 foot towers) without an antenna - on highly recommended HD DX tuners from Sangean and Sony. In the car it does OK except when jammed by other cars, which is frequently. I can get 75 miles or so on stations that haven't increased sideband power - I guess they want more cows on farms as listeners so they have to increase power. That won't solve the car jamming problem, though. And since my antennas at home have 14 dB of gain, that is a lot more than the proposals for sideband power so it would only marginally help inside the house. But I already have an outdoor antenna. HD with an outdoor antenna is pretty robust, I regularly get over 200 mile HD reception. But how many consumers are going to fuss with an outdoor antenna? And how long before LP FM and translators for all AM crowd the FM band to where HD is unreceivable anyway? We are already at that point during skip season, and each new LP or translator trashing up the band increases the skip problem.

So that leaves cars again. HD AM is unworkable - the best HD DX tuner in the world with a whip antenna loses HD on AM if I am within a quarter to half mile of a power line. Which happen to line just about every street and highway. FM - as long as I don't drive within 20 to 100 feet of a car in another lane tune to a station 10.4 to 11 MHz under in frequency - it works. But the complete silence on HD-2 has irritated my wife to the point that she demands I change the station if she catches me on HD - "that stuff doesn't work!" and she doesn't want to deal with 10 seconds of silence. I have to admit it is profoundly irritating now matter how much I like oldies, Christian rock, smooth jazz, eclectic or whatever other format deemed to be unprofitable and relegated to HD-2 to appease a few HD enthusiasts like myself. I suspect the average consumer is much more like my wife - and after the first few experiences with dead silence - will forego the one thing that is actually attractive about HD radio - the chance to put creative, unusual, and niche-y formats on the air instead of the normal bland offerings.

Should HD ever catch on with the consumer, you can bet that the creative HD-2 formats will be the FIRST thing to go. It will be more of the same mundane stuff we get everywhere else. The fact that there is something creative on HD is the biggest indicator to me that almost nobody is listening. If something gets ratings, it will get the top-40, country, talk, spanish, sports, or hip-hop treatment like the rest of FM and therefore be of no further interest to discriminating listeners such as myself. The disappearance of formats I enjoy will convince me that HD has caught on with consumers, and be the point at which I probably give up. Profanity, butt obsession, small playlists, foreign language, and bland music that rate well will replace the formats I presently enjoy.
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
It will be more of the same mundane stuff we get everywhere else. If something gets ratings, it will get the top-40, country, talk, spanish, sports, or hip-hop treatment like the rest of FM and therefore be of no further interest to discriminating listeners such as myself.
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Sounds a bit elitist...and sounds like your problem is with radio broadcasting in general...not HD.


rbrucecarter5 said:
So that leaves cars again. HD AM is unworkable -
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I listen to an AM station every day in HD and it works fine for me.
 
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rbrucecarter5 said:
Profanity, butt obsession, small playlists, foreign language, and bland music that rate well will replace the formats I presently enjoy.
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The same profanity laws that apply to AM & FM are also in place for HD. No difference.

I don't think you have anything to worry about. And there's always NPR, which is the biggest promoter of HD.
 
TheBigA said:
The same profanity laws that apply to AM & FM are also in place for HD. No difference.

I don't think you have anything to worry about. And there's always NPR, which is the biggest promoter of HD.
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No thanks. I will forego having my brain washed by ultra-leftist propaganda on NPR, and ultra-rightist propaganda on "news" talk stations. The difference being I can boycott Rush and other rightists, but my wallet is stolen from by the government to support ultra-leftist propaganda against my will. The saving grace of NPR is that they do tend to broadcast classical and smooth jazz.

And yes, my tastes are more discriminating than the buttocks obsessed masses. If that makes me elitist, I apologize. But I will not bend to the popular tastes when they harm the tenets of Western civilization. Which probably puts me at odds with not only radio, but television and movies as well.
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
No thanks. I will forego having my brain washed by ultra-leftist propaganda on NPR...
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Huh? NPR is pretty much centrist. I think you would find it distinctly to the right of Obama Democrats and more attuned to the centrist policies of Clinton. I'd even say it was to the right of FDR-like thinking. Were the term now gone from today's usage, I would say NPR is "populist" in the traditional sense of the word (but with a lower case "p").

I don't think there is a format opportunity in appealing to persons who are easily shocked by matters relating to morality and social values.
 
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