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Should HD capability be required on all AM/FM receivers
- Thread starter Jean Luc
- Start date
Manufacturers pay Xperi a $3 royalty fee per receiver.
Wasn't there a FM stereo (RCA & GE?) royalty was less than a dollar back in the 1960s. With inflation $3 is not too bad.
Often a single operator will have multiple FM stations at the same transmitter location. If that location is in some Manor impaired, they may go to auxiliary facilities that do not have HD radio capability. Until the difficulty is resolved the stations involved may not broadcast HD signals. Because the cost of implementing HD is relatively high and radio revenues are extremely low, the chances of endowing and auxiliary facility with HD are poor.
I was involved with iniquity even before HD radio was introduced, and I do not recall the game plan involving the replacement of analog radio. I recall it being a compliment to analog radio in an era where consumers were obsessed with digital content, such as music on CDs. That was long ago and the digital obsession is long gone.
Digital does not require the same output power from a transmitter that analog does. The debate is about what percentage is required and whether it is 8% or 10% or greater.
The consumer issue with broadcast radio has to do with commercials, not whether the audio is digital or analog. As a former researcher, I am willing to bet that if you interviewed a true random sample of radio users in America, you would find that absolutely none of them think that “going digital“ makes any difference.
AM stereo arrived half a decade too late back in the 1980s. It is still AM and most AM stations no longer play music and most of them have totally inadequate signals to cover their local market. Digital or stereo enhancements will make no difference to the future of that band where stations are being turned in for license cancellation every week now.
I never heard of that, and bui”t a number of earlier FM stereo stations.
There were some Armstrong patents which expired very early in the 60s, which allowed more manufacturers to build less expensive FM radios.
As a former research consultant, some people do think HD makes a difference. Interference free AM. Extra content on FM sub-channels. The problem is iBiquity has done a lousy job of selling HD, to listeners and to broadcasters. Also the FCC made another of their dumb moves by adopting HD instead of DAB+ and by not requiring it on all new radios from the beginning. That makes more sense than forcing AM on manufacturers and the majority of listeners who don't want it.
Manufacturers of FM radios had to pay Armstrong a 2% patent royalty on their sales. RCA offered him a one-time payment of $1 million, he refused, and then RCA found a way to work around Armstrong's patents and make FM radios without paying him. Armstrong sued RCA for patent infringement, and the protracted legal battle drove him to suicide. The case settled for $1 million after his death.
But all of this happened years before the introduction of FM Stereo, which was basically a joint development between Zenith and General Electric. They came up with two different ways to achieve the same result, so the FCC (back when they actually had engineers, not just political appointees) took ideas from both systems and combined them.
When I started there were tales about a Nashville radio owner in the 1960's who had the old WFMG and WAMG in Gallatin. I believe his name was Ellis Jones.* Rumor was he was one of the engineers at the FCC that cobbled the FM stereo together. The tale was with his FCC knowledge (working there) he figured out how to get WAMG on when everyone thought it was impossible to get an AM license.
*I wish I had written that stuff down. It's hard to remember stuff from 50+ years ago.
I hope someone on this board has a better memory or knowledge of the FCC workings in the late 1950's and early 1960's.
I ran a radio group research division during the first 15 years of HD radio as well as being our group’s delegate to the HD Alliance. I never heard a listener refer to HD radio or even digital radio.
It was broadcaster’s job to sell it. They didn’t. That is why we dropped our group out of the alliance.
DAB Wes tried in a commercial radio dominated environment in Canada and it was totally unsuccessful. DAB worked only where government dominated radio, and could force DAB on the industry.
Does DAB drop out like HD radio does, or not?
An update to my remarks previously in this thread.....and with more bad news.
In March of this year I ordered a 2025 GMC Yukon Denali XL Ultimate. It came in a while back. Amazing vehicle.....drives itself ("Supercruise")....has an infrared camera to detect deer and other warm objects on the road WAY further than you can normally see at night.....fantastic audio system....rides like a magic carpet. No end (well, one) to the 'bells and whistles. I paid $3,000 less for it than I did for my first house.
Yet.........
No FM HD radio. Nope. Nada.
No option to turn HD on. No indication when receiving a station operating an HD stream. A word search on the owners manual for "HD" provides nothing. Searches on the 'net indicate the reason, stretching back to 2021 as "chip shortage", with comments about fewer people listening anyway.
I don't think there is a bigger, clearer, more precise indicator of what General Motors thinks of what is the single (and really only) biggest advancement in FM radio technology since stereo in the sixties. Among several Corvette models and the Escalade, the Yukon XL Ultimate is one of the top models sold, priced WELL into six figures......but HD Radio is clearly not, in GM's mind at least, worthy of the three bucks licensing fee for the receiver.
My 2019 had it...but alas, no more.
I don't think I've had a more in-the-face indicator of the probable path of terrestrial radio for the future than this.
Like I said in a previous post:
The fat lady has arrived in the lobbies of radio stations everywhere, and is just taking her coat off and warming up, but she's most definitely in the house and getting ready to sing.
In March of this year I ordered a 2025 GMC Yukon Denali XL Ultimate. It came in a while back. Amazing vehicle.....drives itself ("Supercruise")....has an infrared camera to detect deer and other warm objects on the road WAY further than you can normally see at night.....fantastic audio system....rides like a magic carpet. No end (well, one) to the 'bells and whistles. I paid $3,000 less for it than I did for my first house.
Yet.........
No FM HD radio. Nope. Nada.
No option to turn HD on. No indication when receiving a station operating an HD stream. A word search on the owners manual for "HD" provides nothing. Searches on the 'net indicate the reason, stretching back to 2021 as "chip shortage", with comments about fewer people listening anyway.
I don't think there is a bigger, clearer, more precise indicator of what General Motors thinks of what is the single (and really only) biggest advancement in FM radio technology since stereo in the sixties. Among several Corvette models and the Escalade, the Yukon XL Ultimate is one of the top models sold, priced WELL into six figures......but HD Radio is clearly not, in GM's mind at least, worthy of the three bucks licensing fee for the receiver.
My 2019 had it...but alas, no more.
I don't think I've had a more in-the-face indicator of the probable path of terrestrial radio for the future than this.
Like I said in a previous post:
The fat lady has arrived in the lobbies of radio stations everywhere, and is just taking her coat off and warming up, but she's most definitely in the house and getting ready to sing.
Good, that means analog will stay on until the end. I'd like to shutoff HD and rebias transmitters into class C for 20% points better efficiency. And FM DXing can become a thing again.
When HD stations mainly run the same content as translators you can get on regular FM stations or stream, what difference does it actually make?
A commercial station's translator must run the content of a licensed analog AM, FM or FM HD-2, 3, or 4. The advantage of an HD channel being simulcast on a translator is that "any old FM" set in the coverage area can hear it, while the HD channel requires a radio with HD capability.
There are very, very few HD capable radios other than a percentage of those installed in cars. At least half of all listening hours take place at work or at home and not in a vehicle. And about half of all vehicles don't have HD.
So there is a huge difference between a very limited HD channel's reach and that of a translator.
Note: because translators are "dependent" on a fully licensed station, Nielsen does not show translator listening separately from the AM, FM or HD channel it mirrors. So often we see sometimes significant shares of listening attributed to HD channels when, really, all or nearly all the listening is to the translator. Only a couple of "pure" HD channels (ones with no AM or FM or HD channel) have ever "made the book" with Nielsen, proving that the listening is really to the translators in simulcast listings in the ratings.
Thanks for explaining it better.
For @Plate Blocker: Here’s a listing of some aftermarket car radios and navigation systems that contain HD Radio chips, but I’m not sure how old the ones listed are:
Car Radios - HD Radio
® 2018 DTS, Inc. All Rights Reserved. DTS, the symbol and DTS and the symbol together are registered trademark of DTS, inc. All other trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.
hdradio.com
It has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, though. I'm going to take a wild guess that anyone who has the means to drive a $100K+ vehicle is also subscribed to at least one commercial-free music streaming service that's been highly personalized to their own taste. So the priority is an infotainment system that supports their phone so they can listen to that, not HD Radio.
Also, GM is happy to sell you a subscription to the built-in SiriusXM satellite radio receiver. Why would they voluntarily give you HD Radio that competes with that (even if just hypothetically), for free?
GM does not "sell you" the satellite subscription. Higher end cars all come with the service installed.
The deal GM and other car makers have is to install the necessary components in each applicable car so that the buyer, after the trial period, can buy the service directly from SiriusXM. The car manufacturer gets a commission on the subscriptions, if any.
HD radio is more like adding adding FM to car radios in the 70's. Makers of cars think or thought that it is wanted by consumers. But they have to buy radios with the iBiquity chip in it, and that is the only real way iBiquity makes money.
Of course, a higher percentage of high-end new car buyers are older, and they still use OTA radio so there may be an advantage. Our last 7 or 8 cars have had HD. I can't think of a single moment that we ever used it, though. In the environment of a moving car, any differences in audio quality are very much masked by road and vehicle sounds.
It should automatically switch to HD1 after few seconds after tuning in. Did you disable it?
Yes. As we drive back and forth a lot between two markets (LA and Palm Springs) with a third market in the middle (Riverside / San Bernardino) the fluttering back and forth of the HD in the fringe coverage areas was just annoying. So we turned HD off.
The difference, as you ask, is that HD1, which is the digital version of the main analog channel, when properly configured, has much better audio characteristics than the main channel.
When a station is set up properly, you can tune to it, and hear the first 10 seconds or so of the audio in analog mode, like you've been hearing since the 1960's. It will then 'pop' when it goes digital....better separation, more audio range, etc.
Not every station is set up properly.....I would wager that most are not. Not surprising when many station engineers are IT experts, not audio or RF people.
I don't know how long it's been since you've bought a new car, but aftermarket car radios are mostly a thing of the past. There's no place to put them, and you can't really replace the built-in radio. Even going back to the 2003 Chevy Impala my parents drove, the radio was the only way to reset the "change oil" and the "low tire pressure" nag lights, and the radio provided the turn signal clicker and the seat belt chime.
In newer cars, the radio is just an app in the touchscreen, and in some newer cars that touchscreen is physically integrated with the gauge cluster, so you couldn't remove it if you wanted.
GM is actually removing these interfaces from their vehicles as they get refreshed. For example, the Cadillac Lyriq has it, but the new for 2025 Cadillac Optiq does not.