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Sample of my reception

J

jras20

Ok heres a little sample on how I can get analog reception out at my place in south Texas, I can pick up Houston this clear most all the time, if this isnt clear enough for a HD signal then I dont know what is. I did a aircheck of KRBE last saturday night. The reception was in stereo, but the way they were broadcasting was in mono, it was in a club.
It is about 84 miles from the transmitters.

http://www.southtexasdjs.com/djbigj/KRBE Dance 11 10 07.mp3
 
This is certainly clear for the 84 miles and an antenna at 20 feet.
It truly may be that local adjacents are wiping out the HD sidebands.
I'm not hearing any noise events, fading, cancelling, multipath, or skip fade-ins.

Maybe getting the antenna up even farther would give enough signal for HD.
I don't think it would hurt to try an amp, since you're not in a high signal area.
But by this recording, you don't really need one, either.
 
Thats the things I dont understand about it. I can recieve it great over analog. Sometimes I can just get the calls to come up on KRBE from the HD Signal. But there is no 104.3 any were close or 103.9 anywere close. 104.3 in Austin is to far for any reception. The pole I have it on, was a free pole, it doesnt have a way I can raise it any more. but I could of got the 5foot extender part also, but I decided not to after I had to take it down when a hurricane was going close by. I tried the amp, but it didnt work much better. I may be SOL.
 
Tom Wells said:
This is certainly clear for the 84 miles and an antenna at 20 feet.
It truly may be that local adjacents are wiping out the HD sidebands.
I'm not hearing any noise events, fading, cancelling, multipath, or skip fade-ins.

Maybe getting the antenna up even farther would give enough signal for HD.
I don't think it would hurt to try an amp, since you're not in a high signal area.
But by this recording, you don't really need one, either.
Click to expand...

I never recommend amps. The cheap transistors they put inside them tend to add to the noise floor, reducing reception. Many component tuners, especially from the late 60's and early 70's have very low noise transistors in their front ends, and are fantastically sensitive. It is usually better to concentrate on transmission line - good low loss 75 Ohm coax and really good quality baluns. If you want every single dB you can get, they make 300 Ohm shielded twinlead. Using a 35 foot mast, and an AJ-15 tuner from Heathkit, I had reliable reception of Dallas FM stations from Midland, TX - a distance of about 330 miles. I estimate the upper range of HD would be around 100 to 120 miles using the absolute finest equipment currently available over flat terrain, but 84 miles sounds do-able with good, but not state of the art equipment.

For those in the fringes - the Sangean HDT-1X appears to be as sensitive as any tuner made in the past. The highest gain FM antenna currently availble is the APS-13. It is a monster, but if absolutely must have that HD-2 station, it will pull it in if anything will. As far as antenna height - 150 feet is probably ideal because it gets rid of ground effects. But practical considerations will probably limit you to much less. Get it as high as you can above surrounding houses and pointed straight at the source. In very rare cases, you might be better off pointing it at a nearby building to receive the reflection. I did that with Dallas stations in Lubbock, TX - there was a high rise apartment nearby that had a good deal of reflection from the distant stations. As always - don't skimp on coax or baluns - get the ones with gold plating and seal them against weather on the antenna end - tightly. A little corrosion amounts to a lot of loss when you are in the deep fringes. Be sure to ground your antenna with a copper rod driven down several feet into the ground, and run ground wire up to the support beam of the antenna itself. Steel rebar will work as a ground rod if your soil is dry. This single step often makes the difference between getting the distant station and not. Copper is best for the ground wire, aluminum is cheap and will work almost as well, and is a bit easier to work with and maintain. Throw everything you can throw at the problem for HD at 100 miles or more - your situation is critical and you cannot skimp on even a single step. HD at 100 miles may be even tougher than regular FM at 300!
 
jras20 said:
Thats the things I dont understand about it.  I can recieve it great over analog.  Sometimes I can just get the calls to come up on KRBE from the HD Signal.  But there is no 104.3 any were close or 103.9 anywere close.  104.3 in Austin is to far for any reception.  The pole I have it on, was a free pole, it doesnt have a way I can raise it any more.  but I could of got the 5foot extender part also, but I decided not to after I had to take it down when a hurricane was going close by.  I tried the amp, but it didnt work much better.  I may be SOL.
Click to expand...

It's reports like yours that keep me from throwing away a couple of hundred dollars to experiment with something I already know will be virtually useless. That's pretty sad for a life-long radio geek who can afford to own all kinds of radio toys. I hate wasting money.

You're not totally SOL. Try this web page for "digital" radio reception:

http://www.usliveradio.com/texas.html
 
In my area most HD is good to 60-80 miles, some to 100 miles. I'm quite surprised that I get WFDD on 88.5 (Winston Salem) in HD, and WNCW (88.7) in HD as well, despite the fact that they're first adjacent, analog reception is sometimes spotty because they're of roughly equal strength in parts of my county, and one is 100 miles, the other 60 miles from me. I think theory dictates that these shouldn't come in where I live. Theory sucks!

There are others I think I SHOULD get in HD, but don't. But I'm not in the target area of these stations. Overall, HD has exceeded my expectations (I live in a DEEP fringe area, and had no external antenna for the first 8 months after I got my radio). I honestly didn't know whether I'd get anything when I bought the radio.

It's all about your individual situation. I would point out that when you don't get a station in HD, it's seldom a signal strength issue, so amps aren't the be-all, and end-all. But a good amp CAN help (bad ones are far worse than none at all). I use a Winegard preamp, mounted to the antenna mast on my roof, and I think it was money well spent. Cheaper Radio Shack amps, and indoor amplified antennas, made things MUCH worse.

Good luck!
 
Could it be possible that the Houston HD power may not be broadcasting out far like they should be? I know I use to get San anotnio HDFM great out at my place near Austin, now I cant even recieve it if I can it drops out a lot. I dont think they have it all together here in Texas.
 
jras20 said:
Could it be possible that the Houston HD power may not be broadcasting out far like they should be? I know I use to get San anotnio HDFM great out at my place near Austin, now I cant even recieve it if I can it drops out a lot. I dont think they have it all together here in Texas.
Click to expand...

That's entirely possible. There are a lot of different ways of doing HD, and the Houston stations you're trying to catch are using one of the more unusual methods. It's a big panel antenna that combines 9 stations. There just aren't that many of those.

As for the San Antonio station, I have no idea. My advice to you would be to call the engineers of these stations and let them know about your experience. They may not want to spend a great deal of time chatting with a DXer about HD, but they would probably tell you if they've made any major changes or not, and if they have, I'm sure they would be curious to know how your reception has been effected by those changes.
 
Radioman100 said:
As for the San Antonio station, I have no idea. My advice to you would be to call the engineers of these stations and let them know about your experience. They may not want to spend a great deal of
Click to expand...

I don't know too many engineers who want to give out details of their installation. These days it raises homeland security's interest if you ask a lot of questions. This sounds like an installation problem. I bet they are using separate antennas - which seems to be problematic wherever it is done. A drive by the tower would tell me in an instant - but I don't know if he has that luxury. If the digital antennas and analog antennas interfere with each other, they could throw a localized null over him. Move down the road a mile, it could be a node instead. An HD receiver in a car might be a good testbed for that situation.
 
Well I dont think I am going to poor any more money into HDRadio, I thought my reception would of been clear enough for a HD Signal. I can get analog just fine, if I cant get it then I just wont use it. I wanted it to work I thought it would be neat to have more channels, but it just didnt pan out.
 
jras20 said:
Well I dont think I am going to poor any more money into HDRadio, I thought my reception would of been clear enough for a HD Signal. I can get analog just fine, if I cant get it then I just wont use it. I wanted it to work I thought it would be neat to have more channels, but it just didnt pan out.
Click to expand...

This might sound strange coming from someone who doesn't see much benefit from HD radio, but sees a whole of interference being put on the FM and AM band --- but here goes. Don't give up! You are one of the few people I know who is having a a measure of success from the technology. Your reports of HD reception are a valuable resource to all the engineers on here. And I am sure they appreciate your insights.

I don't see the FCC ever rescinding approval of the system for FM or AM - no matter how poor the consumer response is, or no matter how many interference complaints they get (see the latest Radio World for horror stories). Like C-Quam, it will languish for a couple of decades used by an ever shrinking minority of fanatics - until something newer and better comes along. So you will probably be able to get HD for quite a while - but if you want a better tuner like a Sangean HDT-1X you better act now - or it will be off the market and harder to find than a TM-152 AM stereo tuner.
 
I already own a Accurian and the Sangean HD-1, I guess I should of got the HD-1x. I like a lot of the things on the Sangean like RDS, signal meters but I just wish I can improve reception. I did however was able to raise my antenna about 4 and a half inches I doupt that will help but I may hook up the Sangean HD-1 again and see if it made a diffrents.
 
jras20 said:
I already own a Accurian and the Sangean HD-1, I guess I should of got the HD-1x. I like a lot of the things on the Sangean like RDS, signal meters but I just wish I can improve reception. I did however was able to raise my antenna about 4 and a half inches I doupt that will help but I may hook up the Sangean HD-1 again and see if it made a diffrents.
Click to expand...

You could always try the APS-13 antenna at the same height - it is a monster that will bring in stations if anything will. Also - pay careful attention to the grounding system of your antenna. That is often overlooked.
 
Well I still had the same results when I hooked it up, so I dont know I may be SOL. But I may try some things when I get some time off and see if I cant improve it more but for now I'm over on analog.
 
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