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Since May 10 is the official HD Power Boost Day....
- Thread starter d21ofnj
- Start date
If a tree falls in the forest................
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oasisrulz
Guest
They all better and quick, its so frustrating with the lousy signals on HD....I still do not understand why WSTW has a fantastic HD signal with a small tower....they must be using the most power allocated for HD until May 10th then I think they will make the first boost....they are committed to HD...
May 10 is just a paperwork date. Stations that have the equipment in place to raise power can already do so without waiting, simply by filing a Special Temporary Authority request. Some have already done so. Stations that don't already have the equipment in place for increased HD power aren't likely to magically have it ready to go on the morning of May 10.
oasisrulz said:
The signals aren't lousy - the technology is.
It's not that easy for everyone to increase power. New $ XXX,000 transmitters are needed in many cases.
It's probably a difficult financial decision, the equipment costs like $ 10,000 per listener.
Is it worth all the effort and expense to reach a few people?
hubcity said:
Kind of ... the transmitter at WMCX (I bought one like it after visiting there and seeing it) can be
"upgraded in software" but not really. Their 3.5 KW transmitter is really a 5 KW transmitter, cut
back in software. With the appropriate unlock code, and an additional payment, it will put out more power.
Sounds strange, but it was economical for the manufacturer to build one unit and price it lower for low power.
Some HD transmitters, if they have the necessary headroom can be easily increased, but many can't.
Tom McNally said:
Many of these points could have been said about FM in its infancy, as well as web streaming a decade ago. The technology has improved - compare the HD Radio's out now to the BA Receptor that came out 4 or so years ago, marked improvements in lowering power consumption and improving selectivity/sensitivity. Hopefully the transmitter tech has improved along with the receivers.
Funny thing - I can get WSJO in HD in Millstone Twp without a problem with a diepole, but under normal conditions WJLK won't even blink the tuner(s). When we had that blackout awhile back and WPST was off air, WJLK would stay locked out to Great Adventure on 195, and I was getting it inside my house on the Insignia portable. When WPST came back, the HD evaporated. WRAT makes it out to my neck of the woods at -10 as well, and when WJRZ was at -10 in 2007, it did as well (and played nice with Z100 HD to boot).
HD won't save radio - but cool channels like 90.5's HD subchannels, and 94.3 HD-2 ShoreAlternative are a great incentive to get a HD Radio if thats your thing.
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oasisrulz
Guest
Still dont know why everyone knocks HD's...I think its a great alternative to the crap on the regular dial...Many people cannot take their music with them, I know on some phones you can stream certain radio stations and also deploy many internet music sites. But...if you dont have this capability, you would be out of luck without HD. Today in the KoP mall I had all 80's B-101's HD-2 on all day...I also was enjoying RFF-HD-2, OGL-HD-2 and MGK HD-2....if not for the HD's I would be left with the lousy main band...
Nick said:
FM overtook AM in overall listenership in 1978 I believe (IIRC from what David Eduardo has posted)...and FM was put on the 88-108 band in 1945. 30 some odd years give or take for FM to become the norm. And while you do not have to buy a new transmitter, doing web-streaming right takes additional licensing fees, setting up servers (either in house or buying space from someone else), setting up an encoder computer that can kill the local stopsets (if you are a commercial station), and if you want it to sound good, using a decent soundcard and running some sort of audio processing meant for bit reduced encoding (Omnia A/X, Omnia ONE, or the Optimod PC).
The best analogy I can think of for radio is that to most people it is like an appliance - it only gets replaced when it is broken. Until HD is in all the cheap radios at Wal-Mart and in the dash of all cars, it won't take off. Hell...it wasn't till the late 80's that GM & Chrysler had AM & FM radios as the base model instead of AM only.
Give it time to penetrate...in the mean time between time, radio needs to just get back to putting out content worth listening to, cause it the programming sucks, ain't nobody gonna listen - on air, online, analog or digital.
Turnpike Tuner said:
This much is true, but I also think the initial push, "Get your favorite radio station in CD quality!"...was a damp squib. Nobody cares about super-high fidelity in their car, and in-home high-quality radio listening is pretty much limited to enthusiasts. Several years were wasted pushing that feature.
The opportunity to hear more formats is more compelling for listeners - but to a certain degree, open promotion of that is going to be limited to non-commercial stations, because commercial stations who live and die by the ratings book would prefer not to tell anyone who's listening to them that there are other options - even if they own those other options.
So, in short, your guess is as good as mine as to how the HD Radio market grows...
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oasisrulz
Guest
You are right on the point that the selection on HD outweighs the sound quality. I do prefer HD-2's with the better formats, that would make HD a better sell.... my choices are 101.1-2, 98.1-2 and 104.5-2, without these I would only have 104.5 on my radio when I am out and about....Now about the ratings, if they could work it out that all the HD-s count as the original station listenership, then it would not hurt the main frequency...Lets say WRFF HD1 and HD2 listeners are combined in the ratings that would be a plus for the station, so I dont think that the extra selections on the frequency would stop stations from going full blast with HD formats...
oasisrulz said:
I think that is asking for problems in a few cases, especially with the commercial HD-1 stations who keep their covenant #1 spot. Say if a top biller like Z100 or Lite FM gets defeated by let's say Hot 97 or 92.3 with their HD-2, which those stations on HD-1 rank in the middle, but go to the #1 spot due to their HD-2 broadcasts. The top billers are probaly going to complain and cry "unfair" with that kind of decision. On the plus side, if the Arbitron does consider to merge the HD-2 ratings, more revenue can be funded to the HD-2 since they don't air commercials, and maybe can be their own independent operation, and like I mentioned before, help the under performing stations, but also may knock down the big dogs that held the #1 title for a while.
It's fine that HD isn't counted towards the main station. Let's say in a hypothetical situation that everyone has HD and it worked perfectly. WBAI-HD2 is a dance format, and gets great ratings, but WBAI-HD1 is its same liberal talk format that no one listens to. If the ratings were combined, it would be more important to know which channel gets the listeners.
I agree - the station being listened to must be the one that gets the ratings credit, because that's whose listeners hear the commercials (and that's actually also a good reason why online listenership doesn't count toward terrestrial ratings - the commercials are likely not the same.)
So, once again - what incentive is there for a commercial station to drive listeners to its HD siamese twin? In the case of noncommercial stations, there's a lot - more listeners means more membership money, and that all goes to the same pot...but it's not quite the same pot for commercial stations, because the advertisers are paying for message placement, and listeners can only listen to one station at a time.
I'm on record as an HD supporter (after all, I'm running a multicast station) but I don't know if its creators thought their cunning plan through.
So, once again - what incentive is there for a commercial station to drive listeners to its HD siamese twin? In the case of noncommercial stations, there's a lot - more listeners means more membership money, and that all goes to the same pot...but it's not quite the same pot for commercial stations, because the advertisers are paying for message placement, and listeners can only listen to one station at a time.
I'm on record as an HD supporter (after all, I'm running a multicast station) but I don't know if its creators thought their cunning plan through.
Nick said:
With PPM, you can't combine multicast channels (unless like the CBS NY FM HD3 streams that are a straight simulcast). Hell, the webstreams have their own encoder since they are a separate stream.
As to why create and promote a multicast channel....the same thing was said in the 60's: "Why promote the FM since it will just take away from the AM listeners?" If I ran a station, I'd want to have programming in place for when there is an opportunity to sell it, both on air multicast and online.
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