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The article Kenwood's HD Radio Upgrade Ends Soon on RadioWorld explains that owners of Kenwood's KTC-HR100 IBOC tuner have until July 14th to qualify for a free upgrade to the current KTC-HR100MC model, which can receive FM IBOC signals with multiple audio streams ("multicasting", as they call it).
Am I the only one alarmed by this? First of all, I never even heard about the new KTC-HR100MC model until now; perhaps it was mentioned in some press release somewhere, but I've never seen it discussed on any of the radio news sites and radio message boards I frequent, including this one. Secondly, I'm also only new hearing about the free upgrade program for KTC-HR100 owners now that's it about to end in two weeks!
It just puzzles me that Kenwood is cancelling this free upgrade program so soon. This basically means that two weeks from now, anyone who still owns the original KTC-HR100 will now have an obsolete, unsupported piece of "abandonware" on their hands -- even despite the fact that FM IBOC "multicasting", or whatever you want to call it, is still in its extreme infancy, with only a handful of stations known to be doing it!
The RadioWorld article concludes with the comment that "a Kenwood spokesman told RW Online that hundreds of receivers have been upgraded so far." Only hundreds, out of all the Kenwood IBOC tuner boxes sold since January 2003? Normally, this kind of free firmware upgrade program would only be cancelled when virtually all existing owners of the product have received the upgrade. So this makes you wonder if Kenwood hasn't even sold a thousand IBOC tuners so far; spread that out nationally, and it might work out to only a few dozen owners of Kenwood IBOC tuners in each market. It is sheer lunacy that so many stations, especially on FM, are wasting their money broadcasting a digital signal which only a few dozen of their listeners can receive. Even Blaupunkt car radios with ARI, which has been obsolete for over a decade, have better marketplace proliferation than that!
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Am I the only one alarmed by this? First of all, I never even heard about the new KTC-HR100MC model until now; perhaps it was mentioned in some press release somewhere, but I've never seen it discussed on any of the radio news sites and radio message boards I frequent, including this one. Secondly, I'm also only new hearing about the free upgrade program for KTC-HR100 owners now that's it about to end in two weeks!
It just puzzles me that Kenwood is cancelling this free upgrade program so soon. This basically means that two weeks from now, anyone who still owns the original KTC-HR100 will now have an obsolete, unsupported piece of "abandonware" on their hands -- even despite the fact that FM IBOC "multicasting", or whatever you want to call it, is still in its extreme infancy, with only a handful of stations known to be doing it!
The RadioWorld article concludes with the comment that "a Kenwood spokesman told RW Online that hundreds of receivers have been upgraded so far." Only hundreds, out of all the Kenwood IBOC tuner boxes sold since January 2003? Normally, this kind of free firmware upgrade program would only be cancelled when virtually all existing owners of the product have received the upgrade. So this makes you wonder if Kenwood hasn't even sold a thousand IBOC tuners so far; spread that out nationally, and it might work out to only a few dozen owners of Kenwood IBOC tuners in each market. It is sheer lunacy that so many stations, especially on FM, are wasting their money broadcasting a digital signal which only a few dozen of their listeners can receive. Even Blaupunkt car radios with ARI, which has been obsolete for over a decade, have better marketplace proliferation than that!
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