Why is it that the HD stations signals sound so terrible? And why does no one have them? I mean, didn't they supposedly have this technology for 10 years before the radio industry finally stopped bickering over payouts and unveiled it to the public? A year and a half ago, I remember when Russ installed the 2 channels at WKLU. He made a huge advertising push, spent a whole bunch of money getting them up and running, and really promoted them. I can remember being pretty excited. Only I found I couldn't A) Find an HD radio in most stores and B) the few HD radios out there had terrible signals. I couldn't even get WKLU HD1 past Plainfield. When I brought this up to station management, the only response I got was something to the effect of that the kinks still had to be ironed out and it would get better over time. Things of that nature. If I were Russ or any other station owner I would be pretty upset with the industry that I spent all that time, money and effort installing them and then have them be a total flop.
Here we are two years later and the product appears to still be total junk. Why is the radio industry letting this sort of garbage be promoted and why aren't they doing anything to fix it? Do they really think that anyone is going to purchase an HD radio over satellite with such a terrible signal? Are they incapable of doing anything about it or do they just not care? Seems like it would be a wonderful opportunity to bring back community radio and maybe some music genres people would like to hear. But not if no one can hear it.
