Brother Stair on shortwave?
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Readers Survey: HD Radio skepticism slowly shrinks...
- Thread starter Wimmmex
- Start date
Brother Stair on shortwave?
There is rather precise data coming from the 200 diary markets that Nielsen measures... where listening location is precisely tracked. Roughly 2/3 of listening is not in the car, and is fairly equally divided between home and non-car away from home locations.
The PPM does not divide away from home into car and stationary locations, but the percentage in-home is about the same as in the diary realm, so we can assume the rest of the formula works out about the same.
That works...
That just made me think one way for HD to gain more visibility would be to waive those laws on HD-only stations, hire Howard or reunite Opie with Anthony, play uncensored music and comedy bits. It might get more people to pay attention to HD as a technology. This will also never happen of course, either the FCC or public outcry from the "think of the children" crowd will ensure that, but just think: free, uncensored radio for people whose pearls remain unclutched whenever someone says a naughty word.
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rbrucecarter5
Guest
That is NOT good news for HD radio, then. Because car radios are the only place where it is making inroads - and the cost conscious auto makers are not likely to keep including a system for which there is low demand, and even less understanding by the consumer. How many cars are going in for service because "the radio cuts in and out" - translation they were listening to an HD-2 which drops to silence for several seconds when lock is lost.
As for home listening - using the best HD tuners available - highly prized by DX'ers for their (accidental) analog DX ability - a Sangeran HDT-!X and Sony XDR - I barely get lock on the full class C stations 20 miles away. I can literally see the towers in the distance. Anything further - 50 miles instead of 20, even if it is Class C over flat terrain, 2000 foot tower, 100 kW - I need an outdoor antenna to get HD. The good news is that the outdoor antenna is also good at getting a couple of stations 250 miles away in HD. The bad news - most Homeowner's associations forbid outdoor antennas. You can get a waiver if you convince them your antenna is for TV - but that is way more trouble than the average consumer will do. So you have a best case scenario of HD-2 in homes being about like a low power FM or translator in terms of coverage, and that is with some of the best HD tuners made, and that is assuming that the supplied dipole antenna is extended fully and broadside to the towers, and not crumped up on the floor with the power cords and patch cables like most consumers do. AM HD? The home theater installers threw the AM loop antenna into the trash - I had to rescue it. I was told that in several years of installing home theater systems, I was the only person that (1) knew what the loop was and (2) cared about AM. Of course that $900 home theater receiver has lousy AM and FM reception. If the tuner was HD - there is no way it would get HD reception. It is deaf. I was in a store in Colorado Springs a few years back, and they had a tabletop radio version of the Sony on display. The storefront was mostly glass, and you could see the towers on the side of the mountain 8 miles away. They had to disable HD reception because it would cut in and out, and that was on their antenna distribution system. I don't see HD radio on display - anywhere. I was in Fry's the other day, I've been in Best Buys, Walmart, Target: NO home HD radios for purchase - anywhere. Bad news for that 2/3. I think consumer apathy and bad word of mouth about reliability doomed it years ago. HD to help building penetration? I don't think so!
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rbrucecarter5
Guest
There is slight merit in the suggestion, based on satellite which was probably rescued from bankruptcy by Howard Stern. But - satellite actually WORKS. HD does NOT. At least not very well.
There are some things they could do to increase reliability:
(1) Fall back to C-Quam for AM and rename it AM HD-2.
(2) Give up on RDS and other auxiliary services and move the sidebands back into the channel on FM. From a little bit of reverse engineering on the code, it looks to me like it will decode the HD sidebands wherever they are located.
(3) The radio firmware should be re-written to detect when a consumer tunes directly to HD-2, bypassing the analog / HD-1 - and delete the need for delay. It looks to me like the algorithm to synchronize with analog is what is taking all the time, it is comparative fast to lock onto the digital sidebands. So there is no need to synchronize if the consumer is only interested in HD-2.
Three suggestions that could potentially turn this thing around. So much for playing code jockey. I hate reverse engineering firmware because de-compiling comes out with generic variables and function names. But at least now my HD-2 decode is less than half a second on one radio. Anybody can put up with that!
That's just silly. AM stereo is beyond over. Consumers didn't care back in the early 80's, they're certainly not going to care now.
What? RDS data is a tiny amount of spectrum used at a low bitrate and have nothing to do with HD sidebands. RDS can be used with or without IBOC/HD carriers. I suggest you should try reading up on how RDS works.
What does delaying the analog audio to match the HD-1 audio have to do with an HD-2 channel? Answer: nothing. If you receive HD-2, you can listen to HD-2. The analog audio delay has nothing to do with it.
All three of your suggestions are neither technically accurate, realistic, nor anything consumers would care about.
Change a few things in your sentence and it fits HD exactly.
The consistent item is AM. Consumers don't care about AM. They were done with it by the time AM stereo was being offered, and they're WAY over it now. My favorite comment about AM stereo was "Who wants stereo static?" No one. Get rid of the static and interference, and you might get some interest. Make it standard equipment, and consumers might try it. Otherwise, they moved on 30 years ago.
I agree with clean it up but disagree that it's on the way out.
You can believe whatever you want, but the fact is that AM usage has been declining since 1977, and it's about 20% now.
Well considering the multiple ways you can listen to radio nowadays: satellite, online, FM, SW, that's actually pretty good isn't it? And someone here has said it's more like 40%. I'm listening to the Big 700 right now!
I was being optimistic when I said 20%. The actual number, according to Radio World, is 17%. And when you focus at people under 35, the number drops to 9%. And it's still dropping.
1) RDS actually works and does not need HD at all. It's far more robust than HD because it streams so little data with a lot of error correcting.
2)The HD delay has nothing to do with synching up to the analog. A small part of it is probably deciphering the contents of the stream while the majority of the wait is buffering. I think iBiquity chose to just mute the first six seconds instead of playing the data immediately because without a second stream to fill in the dropouts it would sound terrible.
Bruce, I'm very perplexed by your problems with indoor FM HD reception. There are lots and lots of variables at play here, but I am in northern Cincinnati with the same Sony radio as you, and using an amplified indoor Radioshack FM/TV antenna I have no issues receiving the local class B stations in HD, but their sticks are only about 15 miles away. However, I also can reliably receive all the class B Dayton stations. I've sat and listened to WTUE's HD-2 channel for hours with no dropouts. The only time it will drop is if there's some tropo going on, as a 104.5 in Indianapolis wipes out the sidebands. Construction materials, obstructions, more signals, all of these could be why your luck is so bad compared to mine.
I'm forgetful as all get out so I don't remember where Bruce is, but he may have terrain issues as well. I've found HD on FM to be particularly persnickety if there's any kind of obstruction between me and the transmit site. Due to the low power levels it's also more susceptible to local RF issues. I get great HD reception… in my bathroom. But in my bedroom office where the computer and electronics and internet comes in, etc.? Much more difficult to maintain a steady reception situation. Apparently that wall between the computers/electronics and the bathroom is all the help the HD needs to blast through clearly.
Of course, this all goes out the window if a station has upgraded to a higher power HD broadcast. I have one station in my area that does (WKSJ) this and another over in Pensacola (WUWF) and in their respective 60 dBu areas, the HD is surprisingly solid. In fact, WUWF's HD consistently outperforms their analog on the fringes, at least when sitting still. And in Pensacola itself, their HD is dropout-free on my little Insignia portable. Which, when you consider the antenna is the headphone wire, and it's inside a moving car, is quite a feat.
Of course, this all goes out the window if a station has upgraded to a higher power HD broadcast. I have one station in my area that does (WKSJ) this and another over in Pensacola (WUWF) and in their respective 60 dBu areas, the HD is surprisingly solid. In fact, WUWF's HD consistently outperforms their analog on the fringes, at least when sitting still. And in Pensacola itself, their HD is dropout-free on my little Insignia portable. Which, when you consider the antenna is the headphone wire, and it's inside a moving car, is quite a feat.
From his posts in this thread, I think he's in the Houston area, which is a fair bit flatter than southwest Ohio.
Also don't forget some stations are using separate DA antennas from the analog antenna that will cause the HD signal to be weaker in some directions. There are some stations in Buffalo that have IBOC not combined going out different antennas. This way the can aim the weaker HD signal to where the most ad dollars are.
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