Why do HD boosters refuse to address technological facts?

[Tom Wells]

Without fully re-opening the can of worms that took an HD thread off the NY board, why is it that direct questions to HD boosters
about RF engineering and modulation go unanswered when the factual nature of RF behavior is and has been understood for decades?

It's very much like discussing a difficult issue with a child, who sticks their fingers in their ears and says,
" la, la, la la....I can't HEAR you, la, la......."

This is the best they can do to support their position? It only makes the case against HD stronger,
and reveals a lack of comprehension and/or a suicidal cynicism about radio.

Such behavior also exposes extreme selfishness and disrespect for others.

 

[tomservo]

Maybe they just don't really understand how the technology works.

I don't.

All I know is what I read on here, with a grain of salt of course, plus what I hear. Since I live in a part of the country where stations are generally better spaced and the dial is not so crowded, the concept of actually listening to a first adjacent to a semi-local never comes up. So the idea that IBOC on FM creates listening problems (or self interference) is not something I am familiar with. I AM however familiar with what IBOC has done to the AM band, especially at night. It's real and anyone with a slightly wideband radio can hear the effects.

 

[hubcity]

I was thinking about that today, as I commuted into work from the outer reaches of my HD2's range. Of course, at those outer reaches, listening to the HD2 to hear the occasional "yelp" is infuriating at best, so I listen to the HD1 until the HD signal gets strong enough to switch to HD2.

And, yes, there was the occasional whoosh of dislocation between the HD and analog feeds, but I wouldn't classify it as any more annoying than the transient interference I get via analog radio. Now, mind you, I think our station's engineers are doing a good job keeping sync and level up to snuff between the digital and analog versions of the station - if they weren't (or if my radio didn't do such a good job reproducing them as intended) I think it'd be much more of a pain.

So that's a minimum point of entry for acceptance - not necessarily an incentive to purchase, but for acceptance. A station who keeps the delta between their HD and analog signals minimized will be a far-less annoying station to listen to, if we ever get to a point where HD becomes the defacto configuration for car radios. In that world, it will make a difference in the ratings book (probably the only possible way HD will do so.)

The power boost on FM appears to be a move to get digital reception out to an area corresponding roughly to "acceptable" analog reception, e.g. you tolerate interference only so much, and HD reception will be available in that "analog-tolerable" area. For the HD listener, this is a good thing, unless adjacents start clobbering signals - in that case, the acceptance of radio in general goes down, if HD radios somehow become defacto.

 

[Savage]

"Maybe they really don't understand how (radio) technology works?"

Glynn Walden, developer of HD Radio and CBS VP/Engineering? Dan Mason, President, CBS Radio? Jeff Littlejohn, VP Engineering, Clear Channel? Tom Ray? Cris Alexander?

Of course they understand "how technology works."

They also understand how to snatch things to which they are not entitled, skew data, torture logic, and conspire with regulators and other Back Room Buddies to gain purported advantage. Of course the punch line is, the whole scam is blowing up on them in slow motion, which is only what they deserve.

I'm hearing rumblings about a Justice Department preliminary poke. Let's hope cockroaches spill out by the dozens....

 

[tomservo]

Savage, I was referring to the defenders of HD who have little or no technical background. Those guys are a whole 'nother ball of wax.

 

[Savage]

Sorry....thought you were talking about the ORIGINAL HD boosters. Now that we're talking about pro-HD posters here....hmm. They ARE quiet these days, aren't they??

 

[pocket-radio]

"Maybe they really don't understand how (radio) technology works?"

Glynn Walden, developer of HD Radio and CBS VP/Engineering? Dan Mason, President, CBS Radio? Jeff Littlejohn, VP Engineering, Clear Channel? Tom Ray? Cris Alexander?

Of course they understand "how technology works."

They also understand how to snatch things to which they are not entitled, skew data, torture logic, and conspire with regulators and other Back Room Buddies to gain purported advantage. Of course the punch line is, the whole scam is blowing up on them in slow motion, which is only what they deserve.

I'm hearing rumblings about a Justice Department preliminary poke. Let's hope cockroaches spill out by the dozens....

You see one cockroach and you see hundreds. Get the can of Raid..

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Upper upper managment is freaked out by the fact radio is failing. Their practices are, of course, the root cause. That's not an easy quantifiable answer that can be bought off the shelf as a quick fix. But, upper level engineering comes along and mentions this cool new DIGITAL fix to make radio sound "better". Upper managment thinks.... "hmmm... Tell me more". NPR types see it as a fix for adding more channels to appease classical listeners that don't pay the light bill very well but cause indigestion for them if their "service" goes away and is replaced by news/talk programming. NPR labs comes up with mulitcasting and the commerical guys see it as a great thing, eventually. "Digital digital digital!!!!! That's what's gonna save us all!!!" crows upper managment with upper engineering becoming the "hero" for bringing the "fix for the industry" to the table. Oh how proud we all cab be! For once, engineering came up with a golden plan to save the day! But alas, millions were spent and the system simply didn't work as advertised. Problems for Mr. Upper level engineering manager!! Boys we got to do something becuae the boss needs this crap to work. Ohhhh.... How about kicking up the power? Won't that interfere with some stations? Who cares! We own the big stations anyway. Shove it through the FCC and make it work before the boss gets to thinking he's been sold a deed to a swamp. Yup. It's time gang to use some creative engineering to save face! And that my friends is how -10db thing has "graced" us. Logic and science be damned. We've got it and we will love it. The boss said so.

 

[Savage]

Elegant, succinct, and starkly true - please accept my compliments on a superb post, OKC.

"We've got and we will love it - the boss said so." Absolutely.

Here's a great point at which to quote Ronald Reagan to Big Group Radio: "There you go again."

Once again, upper-level "management," myopic and deaf as ever, misses why we all do this in the first place:
it's the listeners, stupid. Given the choice between quality, fun, engaging programming in creaky old analog, or Rube Goldberg unreliable digital claptrap carrying boring station-in-a-box McFormats while it hisses and flips and pops and mode-hops and blows other stations off the dial.

Which do you think the l-i-s-t-e-n-e-r-s prefer? Hello? HELLO???

 

[hubcity]

Which do you think the l-i-s-t-e-n-e-r-s prefer? Hello? HELLO???

Oh, that's easy. The listeners prefer to listen to what they wanna hear, delivered in as straightforward and easily-accessible a way as possible.

That's what radio does better than an iPod. Too bad it doesn't really do it these days.

 

[tomservo]

Which do you think the l-i-s-t-e-n-e-r-s prefer? Hello? HELLO???

Oh, that's easy. The listeners prefer to listen to what they wanna hear, delivered in as straightforward and easily-accessible a way as possible.

That's what radio does better than an iPod. Too bad it doesn't really do it these days.

Well, no, it doesn't.

An mp3 player (iPod? What's that?) is always available and always ready as long as the battery is changed.

With radio, you have to be within range, they have to have the format you want, and god forbid you try to figure out what a station is playing when it's in the middle of a 6 minute commercial marathon.

HD does nothing to alleviate any of the above, except for commercials. That point only will last as long as the radio companies want it to, too.

Radio people live in their own bubble with biased perceptions of how people see radio (or don't). As an outsider who still loves radio I think I represent a more accurate take on certain issues. And the concept that radio plays what I want to hear is absurd on many levels. I don't like commercials (who does?) I don't like interruptions unless the jock has a good personality and something interesting to talk about. Half of what I enjoy listening to, music-wise, isn't even offered locally because I live in a small town that's not part of any rated market. Even with nearby radio signals, we lack classic rock, a strong NPR signal, hip hop and CHR, which are all pretty major formats.

Sorry to go off topic on that, but it gets on my nerves sometimes when I hear radio people act like radio is the solution to music choice and demand. It isn't. I ditched XM after Sirius ruined it, by making it more like FM. Tightened playlists, celeb DJs, poor sound quality and constant ads for other specialty channels… blech.

Now, I'm no HD fan. But I did buy a radio because I like shiny new gadgets. And I have say, for urban environments it's not so bad. I finally got to do some reasonable listening up in the Memphis area and found the HD-2 and HD-3 channels to not drop out in the metro area nearly as much as I figured they would. In fact, I got steady mobile reception of pubcaster WKNO's HD-3 BBC World Service feed out to about 25 miles from the TX site without a single dropout, with just a portable radio in the car.

20-25 miles doesn't sound like much from a 100 kW'er on a 1,000 ft stick, but that's enough for the urban sprawl and then some. It won't benefit rural listeners but when they ever had strong signals to begin with? The problem with FM HD is a problem that goes back to consolidation in general, when move-ins got shoe-horned in only to provide iffy analog service to major cities. Had that never happened and a city like Memphis still had only 15 signals on the dial, HD would be a much bigger success than it is today.

Remember, just because we lot listen to signals from far away, that doesn't mean the FCC has ever considered them protected (again, I'm talking FM). Anything because the service contour on the FCC maps is the wild west as far as they're concerned, so there's no reason to expect any digital service to cater to the fringe listeners, just as stations don't generally advertise for businesses way out of their analog coverage areas.

 

[KB1OKL]

If I have to choose between an mp3 player or a radio I'll choose the radio anytime. i can't be bothered with downloading music from the internet.

 

[hubcity]

KB10KL hits the nail on the head. Sure, once you've got your iPod loaded, it has what you want to hear...but that's something you've gotta spend time doing. With radio, hit the power, choose a station, and you're done...

...as long as there's a station for you to tune to. And that there's the rub.

 

[Tom Wells]

If I have to choose between an mp3 player or a radio I'll choose the radio anytime. i can't be bothered with downloading music from the internet.

A lot of music on the internet is not worth paying for or saving to a personal music device, quality-wise.
I like the quality I get when I dub a record to mp3, but usually the way I listen to mp3s is on the laptop/part 15 AM, on a RADIO.

 

[tomservo]

If I have to choose between an mp3 player or a radio I'll choose the radio anytime. i can't be bothered with downloading music from the internet.

A lot of music on the internet is not worth paying for or saving to a personal music device, quality-wise.
I like the quality I get when I dub a record to mp3, but usually the way I listen to mp3s is on the laptop/part 15 AM, on a RADIO.

Well I agree with you on that, Tom. I don't download music except on rare occasions and then on DRM-free from Amazon. But for me to really embrace downloads, the prices will have to moderate AND I want FLAC (free lossless audio codec) files. None of this proprietary Apple DRM crap.

But everyone else seems to love the locked down nature of those things, so…

Now, I do have to take issue with someone complaining about sound quality when they're playing the music over AM. I love AM and everything, but it does a good job at masking poor sound quality mp3 files.

 

[Tom Wells]

I built my system to provide 20khz upper end response, ( an FM audio feed with 19khz shows up a 1khz het 2 stations over) and have
AM radios widebanded to show off the response. I tried 128k mp3s, but couldn't abide the artifacting, now I only encode at 192k minimum.

Someday I hope all AMs can go back to 10 khz audio, I much prefer "monkey chatter" over hiss and hash.
Of course, the HD boosters say there isn't even any hiss on the host analog.

Perhaps the impacted stations could "ping" some high-frequency pulses to offer the offending stations the same sort of "help"
they are receiving. Done carefully and correctly, the HD stations might have the opportunity to learn about
what it means to be a good neighbor.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

[tomservo]

20 kHz eh? Well no wonder you can hear the different.

I'll throw my vote for 10 kHz analog audio against HD hash any day.

 

[KB1OKL]

20 kHz eh? Well no wonder you can hear the different.

I'll throw my vote for 10 kHz analog audio against HD hash any day.

Yup AM radio can sound great, I remember listening to AM radio as a kid on console radios, nothing like it. Although this song certainly wouldn't show high frequency response or clarity, one of my great AM radio memories was listening to 96 Tears by ? and The Mysterians (haha) on an old console, the bass just about blew me out of the room. My stereo Meduci AM windband tuner sounds great, too bad there's not much music on AM anymore

 

[tomservo]

Yup AM radio can sound great, I remember listening to AM radio as a kid on console radios, nothing like it. Although this song certainly wouldn't show high frequency response or clarity, one of my great AM radio memories was listening to 96 Tears by ? and The Mysterians (haha) on an old console, the bass just about blew me out of the room. My stereo Meduci AM windband tuner sounds great, too bad there's not much music on AM anymore

Down here in the south there's still tons of music on AM. Mississippi has some pretty diverse offerings on AM: blues, lots of oldies, classic country and Radio Disney via Memphis, gospel, regional Mexican. Up in Forrest City, Arkansas they still have a full service AM that plays classic rock, country and AC at different dayparts.

The sad thing is, so many of them are technically deficient as to be almost unuseable. And the ones that sound great don't do stereo.

 

[ddsparxx]

There's a large number of AM stations rougly along the VA/NC border, especially near northeastern corner of TN that also plays music-- bluegrass, country, oldies, southern and black gospel, Spanish, maybe Americana. From north-central VA to PA there are several adult standards AM stations and one classic country station on 1280 just north of the MD/PA border that can be heard fairly well in northern VA.