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Somebody finally told me they had a HD Radio!

C

Chuck

Well, it’s taken a while, but today, I actually had somebody tell me that they had a HD radio. It was my doctor, who was making chit-chat while poking and prodding. He knows I own a radio station.

He said he didn’t even know his car had one. The dealer never mentioned it. He discovered it accidentally when he tuned to the only HD station in the area and discovered their HD-2 channel. It seems he likes that one. (It’s a NPR station, and the HD-2 is classical.) He went on to say that it did not work very well, and was always dropping out, which he found to be very irritating.

To be fair, he is about 45-50 miles from the HD station, so the prognosis isn’t good. He said that mostly he listens to his ipod, so he really didn’t care. Of course, this means he is not listening to my analog FM station either, so I think everyone loses in this equation. :(
 
Obviously he's not using an F1HD!

When I've thrown mine into Ibiquity mode, I have had nothing but SOLID reception of KKCW and KKRZ's secondaries (really the only thing in my market I ever listen to these days) all the way up to Olympia. And feeding it with a wires-in-the-windshield dipole, yet!

Only seems to break up on I-5 between Woodland and Longview; an area which, for most purposes, is basically an area that's practically impenetrable even by the strongest analogue signals, so no big surprise there.
 
Did I misunderstand that you are using a Sony HD tuner in your car? That's interesting but not exactly reality based.

Also, we're in a different Longview. We're in Texas. My doctor has a new BMW. I'll be the first to admit that the Sony is one of the best radios ever built, but they are not usually used in a mobile environment. The comments were about driving around in a car, using the stock radio to listen to HD. That's the real world.
 
I watch the mildly irritating Motorweek on Velocity each week and have been seeing the HD logo cropping up on that show more and more. When showing the interior of their test cars they usually have the satellite radio going, not terrestrial. But today they featured a Kia Soul with HD and they actually had it tuned to WTOP. It appeared to be analog only, with the calls via RDS.
 
At least KIA is finally putting RDS in their cars. In the past, most of the Asian automakers have left it out. In Europe, you'd be hard pressed to find a car without RDS.
 
Chuck said:
At least KIA is finally putting RDS in their cars. In the past, most of the Asian automakers have left it out. In Europe, you'd be hard pressed to find a car without RDS.
Click to expand...

Just because an idea is European - it doesn't mean it is a good idea. RDS is so-so for displaying call letters and song titles, it isn't much good for anything else.
 
Chuck said:
At least KIA is finally putting RDS in their cars. In the past, most of the Asian automakers have left it out. In Europe, you'd be hard pressed to find a car without RDS.
Click to expand...

They don't use RDS is Japan, many Japanese car manufacturers will use as many common parts as possible to reduce production costs. The hardware inside the US and Japan radios is likely identical, and the firmware installed locks it to the appropriate AM/FM frequency and spacing for the target country.
 
"Did I misunderstand that you are using a Sony HD tuner in your car? That's interesting but not exactly reality based."

No you didn't misunderstand. I have it mounted in a bracket under the dashboard, connected to an inverter (power) and the auxilliary line-in of the existing Kenwood radio. The 75-ohm (VHF) and twin-lead (mediumwave) jacks are both wired to the Bronco's aerial cable with an adaptor. So this means I can't use the tuner that's built in to the Kenwood, but it's a piece of crap anyways, which is why I have the F1HD. (I really bought the Kenwood for the CD player and the fact that it has a line-in. That it has a built-in tuner is circumstantial.)

Yes, this is all happening in the so-called "real world".

[size=8pt]And you didn't mention that you were *also* in a city called "Longview". That's just entirely coincidental.....
 
To this date the only time I saw someone with an HD radio "in the wild" was this girl I dated once last summer. I noticed an HD radio in her car and told her how awesome HD radio is, and even my favorite HD2 stations. She told me she had to pay to get the annoying HD feature disabled. I kept talking about how amazing it was to see an HD radio in someone's car.

I felt like I was as annoying to her like AM IBUZ is annoying to us.

I gave my current girlfriend a portable HD radio for Christmas. So far she hasn't told me to "buzz off" but I don't think HD radio added a "buzz" to our relationship.
 
Ibiquity "buzzing"? On mediumwave?

Unless you're hearing electrical noise (quite possible these days) the Ibiquity signal just sounds like very loud white noise ("static") on all the analogue radios I've heard it on. Pretty far from sounding like a discernable "buzz".

Either that or you must be using a really, really narrow radio.....
 
Darth_vader said:
"Did I misunderstand that you are using a Sony HD tuner in your car? That's interesting but not exactly reality based."

No you didn't misunderstand. <snip>
Yes, this is all happening in the so-called "real world".
Click to expand...
No, it means you are a radio geek. Being one myself, I recognize the similarity. Trust me, most people would never do that.
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
Chuck said:
At least KIA is finally putting RDS in their cars. In the past, most of the Asian automakers have left it out. In Europe, you'd be hard pressed to find a car without RDS.
Click to expand...

Just because an idea is European - it doesn't mean it is a good idea. RDS is so-so for displaying call letters and song titles, it isn't much good for anything else.
Click to expand...

I've been running it for years. The limitation of nine characers per line is a problem, but overall, it works pretty well. That's not to say everyone uses it well, which may influence your response. It works fine on my station and people seem to like it. We are one of the very few stations in our market to use RDS. If they do, most only show the station name. We run song title and artist. The amazing thing is it only cost about $250 to do that.
 
Label me however you want (it's just your own credibility you're hurting, not mine); point is, I have an Ibiquity System receiver in my truck. Big deal, many people have Ibiquity System receivers in their trucks and lots more people will within in the near future.

I'm sorry if it's a little too unorthodox for your personal preference/comfort level, but.......
 
Chuck said:
At least KIA is finally putting RDS in their cars. In the past, most of the Asian automakers have left it out. In Europe, you'd be hard pressed to find a car without RDS.
Click to expand...

Kia and all the other Asians sell cars in Europe, too, ya know. If they're leaving out the Euro spec RDS then they're going to be dinged for it because it's totally ubiquitous there because of the network-centric programming situation in most countries. Every picture I've seen of Kia's interiors recently from European/UK car sites have shown some sort of RDS functionality. Ditto Toyota (finally). Dunno about Hyundai or Honda. Honda has been one of the long holdouts as far as I know.
 
Zach said:
Kia and all the other Asians sell cars in Europe, too, ya know.
Click to expand...

That's what's puzzling. I think it boils down to most of the Asian cars sold in the US are made here, not overseas. Evidentally, they are outfitted differently.

A friend's New Nissan Altima does not have RDS, nor does another friend's new Hyundai.

I was recently shopping for a new car and discovered that not even the high end Hyundai Genesis has RDS. Honda doesn't either. I ended up buying a Buick which has a great radio which includes RDS, but no HD.
 
Darth_vader said:
I'm sorry if it's a little too unorthodox for your personal preference/comfort level, but.......
Click to expand...

Oh, I did't say I've never done something similar, but it isn't something the general public would do. Until HD is included in everything, there won't be much return on investment for most stations.
 
Chuck said:
Oh, I did't say I've never done something similar, but it isn't something the general public would do. Until HD is included in everything, there won't be much return on investment for most stations.
Click to expand...

From what I understand, ROI was not even a part of the high pressure sales pitch. From the bits and pieces I've heard - the selling points were:

- Convert or you will be at a competitive disadvantage when all the other stations are HD.
- Convert now or we will raise the price.
 
It'll be included in everything at some point. The Ibiquity system's barely been around for a decade now. Give it time. Remember how many years analogue FM stations had been broadcasting vs. how many years it took for FM receivers to become standard equipment in cars?

Like I said, just give it time.

//I guess I misinterpreted your other post. Sorry about that...
 
Darth_vader said:
It'll be included in everything at some point. The Ibiquity system's barely been around for a decade now. Give it time. Remember how many years analogue FM stations had been broadcasting vs. how many years it took for FM receivers to become standard equipment in cars?

Like I said, just give it time.

//I guess I misinterpreted your other post. Sorry about that...
Click to expand...

I heard of a guy who used to haul an R390A down to the beach. I don't know how he powered it.
 
This thread gave me a chuckle, because my local thrift/junk shop has had an HD radio on the shelf (forgot the brand) for about a year or more now. In fact, it has $2.00 on the price tag and has been plugged in and playing the local non-HD station for about 3 or 4 months and no one has bought it. Heck, I know what it is and even at $2 I won't buy it........
 
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