To the anti-IBOC crowd

[louisNatl]

I have been lurking on the HD board for quite some time but rarely post, mainly because this has become a stomping group of IBOC haters stating their personal opinions of the technology as facts. It reminds me of some of the anti-technology arguments from the past...

"FM will never survive, especially when there are more stations on AM and FM stations cannot be received more than 70 miles away."

"Cellular phones (or car phones at the time) will never catch on. They are big and heavy and the service is expensive. Especially, when people can use CB radio for free! If they want something better, they could get a ham radio. Why would anyone pay for cellular phone service?"

"Why would anyone pay for cable when they can get free TV over the air? What a waste of money!"

"Wifi internet is useless. The signal fluctuates, is prone to interference, and is unreliable. Cat 5e provides a more reliable internet connection." -That one is from my college professor who is a former Bell Labs engineer. Every day he voices this opinion to anyone with a wireless card in their laptop.

And finally, the very familiar argument..."Broadband over powerline (BPL) interferes with ham radio bands. The technology should be stopped immediately. Who cares if the technology can provide internet access to millions that otherwise could not have it?! As amateur radio operators, we do not want that noise pollution on our band."

It seems that many of you argue against HD because of the noise on the sidebands, especially on AM. What do you think will save the AM band?

Please don't say DXing. Again, that is about as reliable as the CB radio is compared to a cell phone. Here in Atlanta, being the 9th largest market in the country we can not receive Coast To Coast AM because our local station (WGST) can not be receive more than 10 miles away at night. I am lucky enough to receive the program on 1510 WLAC from Nashville. However, it frequently fades in and out and does not come in consistently. Someone on the DX board said that this is part of the fun of DXing. I don't know what some people consider as fun but a talk show is not as interesting if I miss important pieces to a conversation during the fade out.

Also, people argue that our clear channel stations are important because they can potentially serve large portions of the country and in the event of a national emergency, this would be very valuable. From what I understand, the FCC designated these clear channel stations in world war II as an information backbone in case of national emergency. While this is a valid argument and could be applied to the situation of ham radio operators and BPL mentioned above, my concern is...if the FM stations are taken off the air, the internet goes down, TV stations are gone, satellites stop working, and local AM stops, telephones no longer work...then the world has much bigger problems! I'd also like to note that here in Georgia, we have two stations that serve this purpose (according to Wikipedia):

Along with WSB-FM, [WUBL-FM] is the primary entry point (PEP) for Emergency Alert System messages for the state of Georgia. In an emergency, the two stations receive alerts via secure networks directly from the U.S. president, the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, and the National Weather Service. All other radio and television stations and cable TV systems in metro Atlanta must monitor these two stations at all times with their EAS equipment. Alerts are then relayed across the state by other stations.

Note that both stations are FM, and NOT our 50,000 clear channel 750 AM.

I understand that HD causes interference on adjacent channels but I can also see how it has some potential benefit if the audio improves as everyone claims. Is there some point where you guys see a tradeoff as with any technology where the good outweighs the bad? Do you feel the same way about other technologies that I mentioned above? Is there anything good that you can say about IBOC other than you will be happy when it dies??

 

[Tom Wells]

I'll say I believe the FM version can, in some areas of multipath problems provide a better presentation than the analog FM.
And the audible detriment to FM is many orders of magnitude smaller than the detriment to AM.
I'll trade ya the FM gladly for please respecting the nature of AM MW propogation, and working along with it.

I never made any of the technology statements as above or held such opinions, but BPL internet is bad news regardless of
the interference, which is considerable and will have far more repercussions than affecting our radios.
All these digital conveniences we use have little noise immunity built into any of the function keypad sensing, and if we start putting square waves on our power we'll have a lot of "unintended operation". There are many other downsides to BPL, for the same reason as iBOC.
Mostly that copper pairs (or airwaves) are a poor backbones for wideband data due to bandwidth limits.

On my radios the sidebands come in and hiss at me from both sides of the host signal.
I need not continue, etc.

What will save the AM band? I like the idea of a new band plan, as others have suggested.
Part of the band would preserve the old clears in analog or stereo analog, another part with regionals/daytimers, locals on alternates,
and another section where HD could be used, finally with 1600 to 1670 being a LPAM service non-comm OR commercial.


Tonight I listened in Chicago to the WCCO 830 coverage about the bridge collapse in Minneapolis.
In the basement, the car, and the kitchen, I listened with oh, maybe 2 fades in 2 hours.
It was a fine clear signal, but would gone gone the moment HD starts at night.
WBAP and WHAS will both pummel WCCO.
Why wouldn't anyone listen to the "local" signal at such a time?
I value the choice of so many signals, and don't take kindly the idea that my choices will be artificially limited.

The radio spectrum is indeed our most durable and seemingly unbreakable information infrastructure.
It has no pesky wires to break or servers to go epileptic.
It can be polluted by bad judgement, bad design, bad operation, bad maintenance, or just plain natural conditions (which clear up).
It is unfortunately subject to jamming if poor or otherwise inconsiderate operating practices and standards are adopted.

I don't want HD radio to die. I want it be used intelligently, and means not on AM MW.

 

[w9wi]

I have been lurking on the HD board for quite some time but rarely post, mainly because this has become a stomping group of IBOC haters stating their personal opinions of the technology as facts. It reminds me of some of the anti-technology arguments from the past...

There is, unfortunately, indeed quite a bit of uninformed & inaccurate material being posted from the anti-IBOC side. It sure doesn't help our argument any.

It seems that many of you argue against HD because of the noise on the sidebands, especially on AM. What do you think will save the AM band?

Probably nothing.

Proper enforcement of Part 15 would do wonders, but it would also drive up the cost of electronic gear (and force utilities to spend $$ maintaining their insulators) and thus is probably politically impossible. Bringing some interesting programming to the AM dial would probably help - the dial is currently programmed to middle-aged conservative white males, there's no reason for anyone else to listen.

How would IBOC save the AM band? It's not going to improve stations' coverage areas any - for AM IBOC to work the station's signal must be strong enough that the analog signal is already noise-free.

That problem will be solved when the analog signal can be shut down and the station can go all-digital. I just don't see how you get to that point. You can't shut down the analog until most of your audience has digital receivers, but your audience won't buy digital receivers if they won't get anything they aren't already getting on their analog sets. (or won't get anything at all, the likely case on many stations in the outer suburbs where the desirable rich young families with disposable income live)

mentioned above? Is there anything good that you can say about IBOC other than you will be happy when it dies??

It makes a LOT more sense on FM. Our local NPR FM station here in Nashville uses their HD2 to good advantage, delivering an alternative schedule - classical music when the analog station is running talk, talk when the analog is classical, and a few programs not heard on analog at all.

I do think the potential of HD2 is being wasted on the commercial stations here. All of the commercial HD2s here are carrying material that can be found on analog stations in the market. About the only thing on a subchannel in Nashville that makes sense is WNRQ-105.9's HD3 - which is simulcasting WLAC. Given that WLAC's night signal isn't the best in areas northwest of the city (and will probably disappear in two populous counties once Cincinnati 1530 lights up nighttime digital) carrying it on a HD3 makes a fair amount of sense.

(moved out of order by ds

And finally, the very familiar argument..."Broadband over powerline (BPL) interferes with ham radio bands. The technology should be stopped immediately. Who cares if the technology can provide internet access to millions that otherwise could not have it?! As amateur radio operators, we do not want that noise pollution on our band."

Seems like a bit of a detour. Anyway, BPL *isn't* providing Internet access to millions that otherwise could not have it. It's not being deployed in rural areas -- it's showing up in cities where other forms of 'Net access are already available.

And that really shouldn't be a surprise. Rural deployment of broadband is limited by the need to provide a certain amount of expensive infrastructure at fixed (distance) intervals. The commonly-expressed four-miles-from-the-CO limit for DSL. In the city the cost of this infrastructure can be split among many customers; in rural areas, there are far fewer potential customers within four miles of a CO.

BPL is not immune from this requirement; equipment (beyond what's already deployed to provide electricity) is necessary at regular intervals similar to what's required for DSL.

 

[EggsOverEasy87]

I don't want HD to die either.

I have an HD Tuner in my car and enjoy it when i'm in the DFW area. Mainly because all the extra stations are commercial free. In my opinion, however, I feel HD on AM is quite useless. I honestly feel that AM should just be left alone. Something else HD needs on the FM are unique formats that will satisfy an audience. Yes, the HD stations in Dallas do have some unique formats (Beatles, All 90s, Commercial-free Top 40, etc.), but none are as unique as what you see on satellite radio. On satellite, you see all sorts of formats. Heck, they even have a comedy format on satellite.

HD Radio will die, however if automobile makers do not start including HD in future car stereos. As soon as more automobile makers give in and all the extra HD signals carry better formats, then HD will have potential, otherwise, people will just pay a little extra for satellite radio.

It'll be interesting to see what happens...and I hope HD doesn't fail. I enjoy my HD radio...tuners are slowly becoming cheaper too.

 

[louisNatl]

I don't want HD to die either.

I have an HD Tuner in my car and enjoy it when i'm in the DFW area. Mainly because all the extra stations are commercial free. In my opinion, however, I feel HD on AM is quite useless. I honestly feel that AM should just be left alone. Something else HD needs on the FM are unique formats that will satisfy an audience. Yes, the HD stations in Dallas do have some unique formats (Beatles, All 90s, Commercial-free Top 40, etc.), but none are as unique as what you see on satellite radio. On satellite, you see all sorts of formats. Heck, they even have a comedy format on satellite.

HD Radio will die, however if automobile makers do not start including HD in future car stereos. As soon as more automobile makers give in and all the extra HD signals carry better formats, then HD will have potential, otherwise, people will just pay a little extra for satellite radio.

It'll be interesting to see what happens...and I hope HD doesn't fail. I enjoy my HD radio...tuners are slowly becoming cheaper too.

I agree with you on the unique formats. This is necessary for HD to be successful. However, as an XM subscriber since 2002, the service has changed drastically to sound more like terrestrial radio. When I first signed up for XM, there were very unique stations such as Special X (Variety music), On The Rocks (martini music), Ngoma (African), World Zone, and Liquid Metal (which was recently brought back after long public outcry). There are other stations too that I am sure I am forgetting. Since XM removed these channels, these formats are no longer available anywhere on the service.

In place of these channels, XM create new channels like Lucy (alternative music similar to Ethel), Big Tracks (classic rock similar to Top Tracks), a Hip Hop station (The Heat similar to The City), and a country station similar to many other stations on the service. Yes, there are minor differences between these channels. For example, Ethel plays current alternative hits as well as 90's alternative hits. Lucy plays 90's alternative hits but only plays music that is at least 3 years old. They do not play anything that has been out less than 3 years! Also, they playlist on all channels have gotten much tighter. It sounds like commercial radio with the commercials stripped out. The situation is similar with the other channels but I don't want to get sidetracked from the original discussion.

Also, as much as I love satellite radio, it doesn't seem to resonate well with the masses. From a report in BusinssWeek highlighting the troubles of both companies (I'll try to find the link), the article explained one factor was the car buyers do not activate the satellite radios that are included. They either allow the trial to expire or never use the service at all. One issue with this was that both companies were inflating their subscriber numbers by counting the number of units sold and not units activated. Consumers just don't like paying a monthly fee for something that is not that important to them. Howard Stern had about 22 million loyal fans listen to him everyday on terrestrial radio. That's not the case now that he is on Sirius.

If HD units are included with new cars then we at least know that the consumer would use it and maybe discover an new HD2 station. I think that the companies are stupid not to put HD tuners in the cars. XM was lucky to partner with the autoparts manufacture Delphi and have GM, Honda, and other influential investors. Unfortuantely, HD Radio hasn't been as lucky.

 

[jras20]

I would like HD to stay alive as well. I would like for it to get a better coverage and less drop outs. I would also like to see Austin have some better HD-2 channels. I mean come on they already have a decent Top 40 station, why do they need another top 40 station on HD-2 on the same Top 40 station? That was a BIG waste to me. Majic 95.5 has a good oldies channel on HD-2, KVET has a good rockin country channel on HD-2. I think they really need to get rid of that Top 40 station on HD-2 and maybe make it a dance station or something in that area.

 

[vsa]

I would like HD to stay alive, but first it needs to be much much better before I buy an HD radio. The reception quality has to improve by leaps and bounds - maybe even be worldwide. When will someone make an HD radio where I can tune in my favorite stations from hundreds or thousands of choices? How about being able to listen to programs on-demand? How about adding IM and email capability? How about even building in a phone? Camera? It sure would be nice to be able to post to this board on a new HD radio. I'd also like to be able to live on Facebook or MySpace with my new HD radio. How about searching Google on it? Catching YouTube videos. Watching a show or movie on it? Listening to my favorite mp3 tunes on my new HD radio? Why hasn't iBiquity thought of doing something like this? It would be revolutionary!

 

[vsa]

louisNatl wrote: "What do you think will save the AM band?"

The AM band can be saved the same way buggy whip makers saved themselves. The same also goes for the horse and buggy, oil lamps, telegraph, tube radios, 8-inch 5.25 inch and 3.5 inch floppy discs, 8-track players, reel-to-reel tape recorders and cassettes.

You go digital. "Digital" is the magic cure-all. NOT. Some things just fall out of favor and stay that way. It's called progress.

Leave the AM band alone and let it fade away with grace. AM HD-R will only hasten its demise.

 

[louisNatl]

You go digital. "Digital" is the magic cure-all. NOT. Some things just fall out of favor and stay that way. It's call progress.

Leave the AM band alone and let it fade away with grace. AM HD-R will only hasten its demise.

That's easy for us to say here on this board. But try telling that to the groups of investors and station owners of the AM stations. AM found a new revitalized life with talk radio in the 80's. The talk radio format later spun of other formats such as all-news and sports talk which also breathed more life into AM. If it wasn't for this you bet that AM would be dead except for the clear channels. I have never received a HD-AM signal, but many others swear that the sound quality is spectacular. I also have never heard this hiss type of interference caused by IBOC that others here scream bloody murder about. I do a lot of DXing and have never heard it on any radio. I have listened to stations on adjacent frequencies of a local AM-HD station and the reception was still good. Maybe I could experience the hiss if I were standing next to the transmitter. I understand that some interference exists AM, but apparently after careful consideration the FCC approved IBOC on AM as a way of improving sound quality and possibly local reception. The interference was a trade-off of this. I have questioned if the people exaggerate the interference problem.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

It seems that many of you argue against HD because of the noise on the sidebands, especially on AM. What do you think will save the AM band?

Here is a FACT, not an opinion:

HD radio sidebands are a real annoyance when I travel. My seek button on the car radio locks on the sidebands - AM or FM, they are loud and raucous, and I have to push seek again to actually hear the station. And then if it isn't a format I want, I have to push seek again TWICE, once to get the loud raucous upper sideband, then again to find the next station (which if it is IBOC I get yet another loud annoying sideband).

 

[Len14043]

I don't want HD to die either.

I have an HD Tuner in my car and enjoy it when i'm in the DFW area. Mainly because all the extra stations are commercial free. In my opinion, however, I feel HD on AM is quite useless. I honestly feel that AM should just be left alone.

I have 2 HD radios. The Radiosophy for the home and the JVC for the car. I came to the same conclusion that the AM band should be left alone. While HD works exceedingly well for powerhouses like WLW and WJR, I don't think it will work well at night-especially for the graveyards. For FM, HD works as intended and definately improves the audio in multipath prone areas.

 

[MotoMuzak]

LouisNatl~

You claim you never have heard IBAC noise on an AM/MW radio.

Your radio, then, must not be wide-band enough to receive it (and to me, tinny narrowband AM rigs sound like crap.)

Try getting ahold of--or getting access to if you don't have one--an AM rig with a lot of available bandwidth, like a Grundig Yacht Boy 400PE (a Tecsun-made rig) switched into "wide" mode, or even a nice wideband Wadley Loop Realistic DX302.

The Realistic is a wideband rig. (If I remember right, it has about 7 or 8kHz of MW bandwidth available from what I read in the radio's documentation. Easy Listening music, coming from a properly processed wideband AM transmitter sounds awesome on it once it's warmed up and drift goes away.) It's also a Wadley Loop tuner. I used to listen to Oldies on it at my desk at work before the last real Top 40 station in Portland (KISN) became yet another political talker several months ago. And, we have two--count 'em TWO!!--AM IBACs operating here in Portland, 1190 KEX (political talker) and 1330 KKPZ (radio televangelists.) On the Realistic the digital noise off the alternate channels (the -AC in the abbreviation IBAC, in case you are wondering) of those stations blasts in so loud it trashes the main channel such that the main station is almost unlistenble. I say "almost" here because the main channel can still be heard and understood but the noise splattering off 1180/1200 (or 1320/1340) is so loud it can be heard as a loud unpleasent "static" effect in the speaker or earphones.

See, this is also why Pocketradio (whatever happened to him anyways?) and others claim MW IBAC is, in their words, "destructive".

IBAC on FM seems somewhat promising; it has its effects on FM just like it has on MW but for most cases to a considerably lesser degree. (A 200kHz FM station naturally has more bandwidth available--100kHz useable by FCC mandate--than a 10kHz mediumwave station.) But on AM will prove to be an engineering nightmare assuming it hasn't already. They should have just left AM be.




Oh, and BPL can cause noise in the AM band, often manifesting itself as a loud wideband buzzing noise audible over most of the band. Our local Public Utility District up in Vancouver, WA actually uses it now for remote power metre telemetry back AT the PUD offices downtown (saves cost; they do this now instead of despatching metre readers to go around to the neighbourhoods and developments.) They installed it about two years ago and even in narrow mode on the aforementioned Grundig, a large portion of the MW band is trashed, if at the very least incredibly unpleasent to listen to. Copper power lines (even moreso in old pre-1960s-vintage houses like ours ;o) were never designed to carry computer data like they appear to be doing currently!!

I'm not trying to spout off some sort of "technical knowledge" which I probably haven't got (mostly), just reporting what I am hearing!!

 

[Chuck]

I have never received a HD-AM signal, but many others swear that the sound quality is spectacular.

Well, I have heard it. It does sound a lot better than what most people expect out of AM, as long as the station has a strong signal at your location. I would not go so far as to call it “spectacular." If there is not enough signal strength to stay locked, it reverts to analog, which is very disconcerting. Don't forget that these same stations have intentionally limited analog bandwidth to 5 or 6 KHz, so the analog signal sounds dramatically worse. Maybe that is where the “spectacular” improvement comes from. Analog AM doesn't have to sound that bad, but then you couldn't do HD. Most analog AM radios built in the last 30 years sound pretty bad, no matter what you put through them, which is why many people will never notice the difference. As for the artifacts that are reported, they are more obvious on voice than they are on music. I think most people will tolerate them, especially considering an entire generation is being brought up to think a 64 kbs MP3 is high fidelity.

I also have never heard this hiss type of interference caused by IBOC that others here scream bloody murder about. I do a lot of DXing and have never heard it on any radio. I have listened to stations on adjacent frequencies of a local AM-HD station and the reception was still good. Maybe I could experience the hiss if I were standing next to the transmitter. I understand that some interference exists AM, but apparently after careful consideration the FCC approved IBOC on AM as a way of improving sound quality and possibly local reception. The interference was a trade-off of this. I have questioned if the people exaggerate the interference problem.

Perhaps we are living in parallel universes? The hiss on HD AM stations sidebands is very audible to me, and to lots of other people as well. It is not our imagination. I find it interesting that you claim to be a DX'er (I'm not, by the way) and you say you can't hear the digital sidebands. I can hear them on FM too, but I don’t think it is anywhere near the problem that AM faces. If you can copy a first adjacent AM through the noise, I'm impressed.

 

[louisNatl]

I have never received a HD-AM signal, but many others swear that the sound quality is spectacular.

Well, I have heard it. It does sound a lot better than what most people expect out of AM, as long as the station has a strong signal at your location. I would not go so far as to call it “spectacular." If there is not enough signal strength to stay locked, it reverts to analog, which is very disconcerting. Don't forget that these same stations have intentionally limited analog bandwidth to 5 or 6 KHz, so the analog signal sounds dramatically worse. Maybe that is where the “spectacular” improvement comes from. Analog AM doesn't have to sound that bad, but then you couldn't do HD. Most analog AM radios built in the last 30 years sound pretty bad, no matter what you put through them, which is why many people will never notice the difference. As for the artifacts that are reported, they are more obvious on voice than they are on music. I think most people will tolerate them, especially considering an entire generation is being brought up to think a 64 kbs MP3 is high fidelity.

I also have never heard this hiss type of interference caused by IBOC that others here scream bloody murder about. I do a lot of DXing and have never heard it on any radio. I have listened to stations on adjacent frequencies of a local AM-HD station and the reception was still good. Maybe I could experience the hiss if I were standing next to the transmitter. I understand that some interference exists AM, but apparently after careful consideration the FCC approved IBOC on AM as a way of improving sound quality and possibly local reception. The interference was a trade-off of this. I have questioned if the people exaggerate the interference problem.

Perhaps we are living in parallel universes? The hiss on HD AM stations sidebands is very audible to me, and to lots of other people as well. It is not our imagination. I find it interesting that you claim to be a DX'er (I'm not, by the way) and you say you can't hear the digital sidebands. I can hear them on FM too, but I don’t think it is anywhere near the problem that AM faces. If you can copy a first adjacent AM through the noise, I'm impressed.

Chuck, I am not trying to deny that the sideband noise exists. I understand from the laws of physics that it does. However, I have never heard it so I can't really comment. The radios that I use are the BA Receptor HD and the Sangean RCR-2. The RCR is very good at DXing and I have noticed that WLAC and KMOX come in clear in the early morning and evening hours on the RCR without any fade or interference (unlike the nighttime hours). I thought that this may be due to the fact that these stations are still broadcasting in HD near sunrise and sunset, but I was told that HD doesn't help long range reception. I live very close to one of the FM stations broadcasting in HD and I have not heard a hissing sound on the adjacent frequencies. Maybe I do not know what to listen for but I have compared the adjacent frequencies to other vacant frequencies on FM and I can not tell a difference even with headphones.

 

[Chuck]

Chuck, I am not trying to deny that the sideband noise exists. I understand from the laws of physics that it does. However, I have never heard it so I can't really comment. The radios that I use are the BA Receptor HD and the Sangean RCR-2. The RCR is very good at DXing and I have noticed that WLAC and KMOX come in clear in the early morning and evening hours on the RCR without any fade or interference (unlike the nighttime hours). I thought that this may be due to the fact that these stations are still broadcasting in HD near sunrise and sunset, but I was told that HD doesn't help long range reception. I live very close to one of the FM stations broadcasting in HD and I have not heard a hissing sound on the adjacent frequencies. Maybe I do not know what to listen for but I have compared the adjacent frequencies to other vacant frequencies on FM and I can not tell a difference even with headphones.

Try listening on an analog receiver, the ones that 99.9999% of all Americans still use.

 

[davideduardo]

Well, I have heard it. It does sound a lot better than what most people expect out of AM, as long as the station has a strong signal at your location. I would not go so far as to call it “spectacular." If there is not enough signal strength to stay locked, it reverts to analog, which is very disconcerting.

Yesterday, I drove 87 miles from downtown Phoenix listening to KFYI with 100% HD signal lock before I had one fallback to analog. The quality was amazing, almost FM like in presence and "feel."

Since I was well out of the Phoenix survey area when the HD became spotty, the conclusion is that stations that are viable and comver fully their metros can benefit a lot from HD but it is a long-range proposition.

Don't forget that these same stations have intentionally limited analog bandwidth to 5 or 6 KHz, so the analog signal sounds dramatically worse.

HD requires limited analog bandwidth. Almost all HD AMs are at 5 kHz, and the NRSC committee, including very bright people like Bob Orban, has proven that for all "practical" purposes, consumer radios are off 10 db at 4.1 kHz, so cutting the bandwidth often improves the sound. The proof is that the analog AMs have not lost audience since limiting bandwidth.

As for the artifacts that are reported, they are more obvious on voice than they are on music. I think most people will tolerate them, especially considering an entire generation is being brought up to think a 64 kbs MP3 is high fidelity.

I could not notice objectionable and noticable artifacts during an hour and a half listening to KFYI in HD.

 

[louisNatl]

Try listening on an analog receiver, the ones that 99.9999% of all Americans still use.

The Sangean RCR-2 that I use is analog.

 

[MasterTheseus]

Try listening on an analog receiver, the ones that 99.9999% of all Americans still use.

The Sangean RCR-2 that I use is analog.

But to be fair, the RCR-2 being a Sangean radio is superior to the radios that 99.9999% of Americans use. You can take just about any one of our radios and quickly see that there are few in the market that can compare to them.

I think they are referring to the person that will spen only $10-$20 for a radio, not $50 for an alarm clock.

 

[Chuck]

But to be fair, the RCR-2 being a Sangean radio is superior to the radios that 99.9999% of Americans use. You can take just about any one of our radios and quickly see that there are few in the market that can compare to them.

I think they are referring to the person that will spen only $10-$20 for a radio, not $50 for an alarm clock.

Just your garden variety car radio will do it. It is quite noticeable on the factory GM Bose radio that came with my 2007 Chevy Tahoe, and was also quite apparent on the factory radio on my previous car, a 2002 Chevy Suburban which had the Standard Delco AM-FM-CD player.

MasterTheseus is right; it probably works OK on a Sangean radio. I have seen Sangean’s pull signals in that were totally invisible on consumer grade radios. Most people don't own anything vaguely that good. What passes for a radio these days is very sad.

David's point that most AM radios stop at 4.5 KHz is true, at least for 95% of the crap that is on the market. My comment was “it doesn't have to sound that bad.” Even with the NRSC filter in place, 9.5 KHz can be accomplished, which if the signal is strong enough sounds good. Without the filter, AM is capable of much greater frequency response than that.

I'm not completely convinced that two wrongs make a "right," but it seems to be the situation we are in. We have limited audio response radios, and broadcasters hare further limiting their frequency response to accommodate IBOC.

As for the reported artifacts, as I previously mentioned, I doubt that many people will notice. It usually takes some fairly critical listening if they are present at all. Most kids are used to them, and for people who are in cars, the road noise masks a lot of the program material, including HD's superior signal to noise ratio. The ambient noise, even in a very quiet car is in the 65-70 db ("A" weighted) range and most cars run somewhere in the mid 70's or even higher. This can vary according to the road's surface. You’ll probably never notice, at least in your car.

 

[louisNatl]

I have never noticed on my factory Bose radio in my '99 Infiniti G20 (which has excellent AM DX reception BTW). I will try in when I travel to other markets. It may be the issue where some stations are broadcasting more sideband interference than those in my market.