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WODS goes HD
- Thread starter jlehmann
- Start date
"it still sucks to lose 103.1 and 103.5" What are you listening to on 103.1 and 103.5?
Andy Taylor said:
I enjoy FM DXing, which is receiving far away stations when the tropo ducting or e skip conditions allow it. I can actually hear 103.5 WQBJ from out in the Albany area almost all the time. Obviously this is not something that many people do, but there are a few of us that enjoy it. The HD hash has made DXing more difficult on almost every frequency around here except for 103.1 and 103.5.
JIBGUY said:
This guy has been around for a while on many of the boards. Sometime ago I asked "Mr. HD Ready" to put his money where his mouth is and show his true "face" on these boards. I've yet to get an answer. I mean, if he is so damn "gung-ho" about I-BUZZ and thinks that it's the next best thing since sliced bread (or even better..... CBS COLOR!), he ought to show his true identity instead of hiding behind the anonymity of "HD Ready". More-than-likely, he's a mouthpiece for iBiquity or somebody who just wants to have a little "fun", or a combination of both. I mean, he ought to tell us WHY he's so supportive of such a junk technology and to tell us in his own words why I-BLOCK is so "good".
Oh well. Kids will be kids.
Mr HD Ready is actually known to many of us in the business and does not work for IBiquity. He also does not need to identify himself. I am amazed that more of you that work in, around or are fans of radio don't have multiple HD radios by now. I see so few posts about all the other formats that are available. What about the proposed power increases with one of our very own local stations doing the tests. I'm not saying that everyone should embrace HD radio or that the analog DX fans don't have a reason to hate it. But its here now for the time being and its probably not going anywhere for a while so give it up. I like HD Ready will be checking out ODS HD2. Join us.
It's a funny thing, when established Ibuzz stations go off, the phones don't ring??? Nobody calls to say hey how come IBuzz is off?
Nobody cares.. plus after the investment of a new HD radio and $200.00 later, you get the best consolidated programming radio has to offer. Junk, cheapened radio, jukeboxes, computers really in dusty old closets.
Nobody cares.. plus after the investment of a new HD radio and $200.00 later, you get the best consolidated programming radio has to offer. Junk, cheapened radio, jukeboxes, computers really in dusty old closets.
pocket-radio said:
Actually our PPM decoders go crazy and we jump way before that. Sometimes the phones don't ring when the analogs go off. Several stations around towns have quite the listeners numbers already on their HD2 streams. And most of the stations are using the same audio servers that run their analog and HD1's. Yes there is no one who has live DJ's on their HD2's unless BOS is doing it??? But their are some interesting music formats for those looking for something different.
Johnster said:
I for one, Johnster, have an HD radio (a third generation Boston Acoustics). My antenna system is a Channel Master Stereo Probe-9 antenna fed with 50' of RG-6 with an 18 db. RF amplifier at the receiver. I've been monitoring all the HD-2's in the market and in Providence and Worcester. And other than WROR HD-2's "Nothin' But The Seventies", there is nothing really to write home about. WODS lost an excellent opportunity to put the pre-Beatles oldies on their HD2 two to three years ago. That format might have sold HD radios, provided they really had promoted it. Too little, too late. Unfortunately, HD Radio, instead of providing some true alternative, has actually taken some of it away. I used to receive some of the suburban and adjacent stations quite well like WBOQ/104.9 (oldies), WXRV/92.5 (AAA), the new oldies WGTX/102.3 (totally lost now due to WKLB's 10 db. IBOC increase) and quite a few more. The IBOC carriers have been a pain for those who wanted something not readily available in the home market. All this to just add more noise to an already congested FM and AM dial, I find it not to be a good trade off. IBOC only covers (at best) maybe half of the normal coverage area of the analog. But the destructive interference goes quite beyond that into adjacent frequencies and markets.
Would I buy another HD Radio? I probably wouldn't. It's not worth the cost financially and it really has no benefits to the average Joe (like myself). IMHO, the FMeXtra format would be a better way for digital radio.
Johnster said:
Join you in what? A conspiracy against reality? Burying your head in the sand? Answering a question that was never asked by anyone?
Oh, and about that HD power increase: Nice try, but the evidence (which the pro-HD set seems to want to ignore) says that dramatic increases in interference to analog signals (you remember those, right? the signals by which this business makes its money?) will result from cranking up the HD carrier levels.
HD has been a long string of missteps from the beginning. It was poorly engineered (thus the current admission that it didn't work as designed, so they now think they have to crank everything up so high that it will interfere with the analog signals), poorly thought out from an economic standpoint (by a group of people with no clue about the economics of radio; you can't keep adding signals in markets that won't support them) and poorly marketed (hint: insulting your audience doesn't cut it; who actually though "radio with a boob job" was clever marketing?). The company that holds all the patents and copyrights on HD radio is clearly in it for the money, and can't even state with a straight face how many radios have been sold (if they wanted to...i.e., if sales were as good as they pretend...they'd be shouting it from the rooftops). Worst of all, it took so long to come to market that it's already obsolete, since the first in-dash and table-top Internet radios are already on the market.
And in this economy, with so many stations and group owners hanging on by a thread, spending the kind of money it takes to add HD to existing transmitter plants won't happen.
Sorry, but HD is a non-starter.
I also have a couple HD Radios, but not because of the HD quality/content, but more because of the analog selectivity and sensitivity in the receivers. The HD2 formats available here don't do much for me at all. I would much rather have less choice in formats, but have those stations full of personality and creativity, which obviously is becoming harder and harder to find these days.
It really is scary to see how many people my age hardly even know what radio is anymore. It seems that in these days of ipods and streaming, stations are trying to sound more like those things rather than delivering what they have traditionally been known for. Fortunately there are still airchecks out there to listen to. It would be nice if people other than radio geeks could somehow be exposed to airchecks of what radio actually sounded like as little as 5-10 years ago and before. Hearing that stuff might actually make them expect more from radio these days.
It really is scary to see how many people my age hardly even know what radio is anymore. It seems that in these days of ipods and streaming, stations are trying to sound more like those things rather than delivering what they have traditionally been known for. Fortunately there are still airchecks out there to listen to. It would be nice if people other than radio geeks could somehow be exposed to airchecks of what radio actually sounded like as little as 5-10 years ago and before. Hearing that stuff might actually make them expect more from radio these days.
HAH! I'm sure the management at VPR and WUSF are rolling their eyes at you, among others. Stations that have wisely programmed their HD multicast channels have quite a few listeners to them. It's mostly public radio outlets, primarily because public radio has embraced HD Radio more enthusiastically than commercial radio because public radio has less to worry about in terms of cannibalizing their own audience by expanding program offerings. That's perhaps an overly broad generalization, but it's essentially true.
Anyways, quite a few stations get a LOT of calls when their HD2/HD3/etc streams go down. I see stories about that on PUBtech not infrequently, and I have for over two years now.
The point is: stations that have done a mediocre, or lousy, job programming their main channels have, by and large, done a lousy job programming their HD Radio multicast channels. Is this so shocking? Why do you blame the technology when the content is, so often, "Booo-oooo-oooo-GUS!" (as Click and Clack like to say)
aaronread said:
I know that there are quite a few people listening to the WGBH HD-2 "All Classical" channel (at least relative to the amount of people around here who have HD radios). People who don't want the commercials or the "warhorse" playlist that they get on WCRB, or people in or south of Boston who can no longer get good reception on WCRB since its change of frequency and transmitter location to Andover. WGBH probably has the most listened to HD-2 in Boston.
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