>> they have never said what the letters stand for, if anything
...Highly Disappointing? Well I have a couple of the portables and it makes for a fairly good FM receiver for the HD1s, reception wise, but where you are will
decide whether or not you get the HD2, HD3, or even HD4 if there is one.
I will say last yr I was in Pittsburgh for a bit over a week and the car rental didn't have XM/Siruis but it it did have a radio that got HD signals and in the city it
was fairly good.
Some of the offerings (via HD site)
WQED HD2 Concert Channel, WESA HD2 jazz, WESA HD3 BBC WS, KDKA-FM HD2 (KDKA AM),KDKA-FM HD3 CBS Sports
WWWS HD2 Real Oldies, 96.9 Bob-FM HD2 "Bob's B Sides" adult hits, Bob-FM's HD3 Malt Shop (oldies)
WDVE HD 2 All Steelers, WPGB HD2--ESPN 970, WXDX HD2 all Penguins, WDSY HD2 The Wolf (classic country), WDSY HD3 The Bull (new country)
Last August I believe iHeart killed off conservative talk on WPGB 104.7 replacing it with country as "Big 104.7"*. Hey, why didn't they use their
"Bull" brand? Well, the owners of WDSY (CBS I think) already had the Bull name...
Anyway I didn't spend too much time listening to the HD stations but if you were within a half decent range of the city you could probably get them.
Portables like the ones I have and the fact that I'm in Beverly and not closer to Boston could be why my reception is spotty. Still I do get more
than a few of our local HD2, HD3 signals, but they could drop off if they're weak.
And quality wise? "FM in CD quality, AM in FM quality"? Hmm...who knows, but heck all I have are portables. Probably better quality on a home or
car unit (and yes the HDs in the rental car did sound pretty good)
*--Rush, Hannity etc went to 7kW WJAS 1320. I took a second trip to Pitt. using my own car a couple weeks later and did listen to a bit
of Big 104.7 as well as WJAS, a more limited signal than what they had on the iHeart FM...