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It is so quiet in here.......
- Thread starter KB1OKL
- Start date
Well, it's been quiet over at Ibiquity too.
I notice Bob Struble hasn't written a "Bob's Thoughts" column since January. I guess there are only so many ways you can argue that radio needs to be digital (AKA, Struble's mantra) to be competitive. And he claims radio looks "dull" without pictures to stare at.
Of course, he could be depressed over this Google Trends graph which clearly shows that consumer interest in HD Radio is rapidly dwindling.
http://www.google.com/trends/explor...,bmw+hd+radio,volvo+hd+radio,ford+sync&geo=US
I notice Bob Struble hasn't written a "Bob's Thoughts" column since January. I guess there are only so many ways you can argue that radio needs to be digital (AKA, Struble's mantra) to be competitive. And he claims radio looks "dull" without pictures to stare at.
Of course, he could be depressed over this Google Trends graph which clearly shows that consumer interest in HD Radio is rapidly dwindling.
http://www.google.com/trends/explor...,bmw+hd+radio,volvo+hd+radio,ford+sync&geo=US
R
rbrucecarter5
Guest
KB1OKL said:Everybody must be listening to their new HD radios hiss, whoosh and drop out or are DXing with them (HD DX=5+ miles from transmitter depending on topography).
Mine has been off so long I'll need to power it up with my variac.
Well, I'm doing 50 miles in the car, and I've done 64 miles with a dipole, and occasional HD DX from Dallas 250 miles away.
D
Darth_vader
Guest
Or maybe it's gotten so quiet because, after 162 pages, the same dozen or so people finally got a whiff of reality and found it a useless venture to keep beating the same few worn out anti-Ibiquity talking points into the ground like a bunch of pundits. You really can only go so far with so little material before it gets tedious, repetitive and predictable, you know.
I personally have always wanted to talk about how wonderful HD Radio is. I like the idea of the implementation on the FM side. But it never took off here. More so than most areas. My closest market only got a single HD radio station out of the Clear Channel and Cumulus clusters and it was on the AM side. The NPRs and the local station Top40 station implemented it, but offer nothing I am even remotely interested in. Therefore I do not currently own an HD radio.
K
kenglish
Guest
Isn't radio dead yet? :
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rbrucecarter5
Guest
audioguy said:I'd be curious to know what was worth listening to for 50 miles on HD radio! Unless it was an orphaned low bit rate classical stream on NPR where at least the music makes it worth listening to in lo-fi.rbrucecarter5 said:
REAL Christian rock - not wimpy CCM - on KSBJ NGEN at 50 miles. Oldies from KGLK at 55 miles. The rest of Houston HD-2's are less than 20 miles. Reliability of HD sucks even on the full class C's less than 20 miles away - occasional dropouts on all. Of all Houston signals, only two over the air are of any interest at all to me. Everything I listen to is HD-2 or satellite. Unfortunately, HD-2 goes blank when there is a dropout. But then satellite goes blank when I am under an obstruction for an extended period of time.
With the handful of luxury cars and mainstream cars now shipping with HD radio as either an option or standard, you'd think this forum would be filled with complaints and stories of dealers overwhelmed with radio complaints. Other than the BMW TSB that was posted and beaten to death, I haven't seen any stories.
You guys are falling down on the job.
Here, I'll complain about something. HD is practically dead in my market (Mobile/Pensacola). Clear Channel killed it on two of their stations, losing me easy reliable access to the simulcast of their wimpy AM news/talker that gets hammered by Cuban interference each afternoon. The other station had ESPN on HD-2, which didn't interest me, but an AM picked it up in Pensacola so they had to drop it. There's still smooth jazz, but it was moved to the 50 kW CC station so the reception is really poor even though I'm under 20 miles from it. I can definitely see how you guys up north where 50 kW is a luxury can't get any reception at all reliably at that power level. The outlier is country giant WKSJ, but even their HD is screwed up. The main HD channel fills in and goes from nice clean FM to what sounds like Real Audio over AM radio. The HD-2 sounds fine with classic country, but isn't processed and thus is incredibly quiet.
Cumulus still runs HD with no subs on their two urbans, but the best sounding station (WDLT) recently moved to a new frequency and the HD there quit decoding on my radio. It's strong, and the HD icon will stay lit, but it's obvious it's not switching over (unless picket fencing and hiss are now part of the HD standard.) So the one station that could really showcase the best case scenario for HD here is borked. Fabulous.
Last but not least, Pensacola pubcaster WUWF still runs HD, but the few times I could get it to decode (I'm over 40 miles from them and they have a short stick) the great radio reading service channel has been off air.
So basically everything I might want to listen to is gone or broken. Typical radio.
You guys are falling down on the job.
Here, I'll complain about something. HD is practically dead in my market (Mobile/Pensacola). Clear Channel killed it on two of their stations, losing me easy reliable access to the simulcast of their wimpy AM news/talker that gets hammered by Cuban interference each afternoon. The other station had ESPN on HD-2, which didn't interest me, but an AM picked it up in Pensacola so they had to drop it. There's still smooth jazz, but it was moved to the 50 kW CC station so the reception is really poor even though I'm under 20 miles from it. I can definitely see how you guys up north where 50 kW is a luxury can't get any reception at all reliably at that power level. The outlier is country giant WKSJ, but even their HD is screwed up. The main HD channel fills in and goes from nice clean FM to what sounds like Real Audio over AM radio. The HD-2 sounds fine with classic country, but isn't processed and thus is incredibly quiet.
Cumulus still runs HD with no subs on their two urbans, but the best sounding station (WDLT) recently moved to a new frequency and the HD there quit decoding on my radio. It's strong, and the HD icon will stay lit, but it's obvious it's not switching over (unless picket fencing and hiss are now part of the HD standard.) So the one station that could really showcase the best case scenario for HD here is borked. Fabulous.
Last but not least, Pensacola pubcaster WUWF still runs HD, but the few times I could get it to decode (I'm over 40 miles from them and they have a short stick) the great radio reading service channel has been off air.
So basically everything I might want to listen to is gone or broken. Typical radio.
rbruce, you're the only person I know that has the luxury of DX'ing on HD radios.
Here in the Midwest I can't get an HD lock on a suburban station!, and it's flat here too; maybe the issue is that being so close to the Canadian border most FMs have relatively low power; max power is 50KW, and many FM's here are crappy 6-7KW, one 18KW, and only two flaming 50KW's that can't even lite the HD inside the Best Buy store (but do fine in the car).
On AM: WJR long since abandoned HD-AM (wish they'd turn their CQuam back on though) as did Radio Disney. Ironically, the ONLY STEREO HD station on AM in the area was a Fox Sports station with stereo liners and spots! The local 5KW HD-AM runs stereo on their FM HD-2, but mono on their HD-AM, which is too bad.
Here in the Midwest I can't get an HD lock on a suburban station!, and it's flat here too; maybe the issue is that being so close to the Canadian border most FMs have relatively low power; max power is 50KW, and many FM's here are crappy 6-7KW, one 18KW, and only two flaming 50KW's that can't even lite the HD inside the Best Buy store (but do fine in the car).
On AM: WJR long since abandoned HD-AM (wish they'd turn their CQuam back on though) as did Radio Disney. Ironically, the ONLY STEREO HD station on AM in the area was a Fox Sports station with stereo liners and spots! The local 5KW HD-AM runs stereo on their FM HD-2, but mono on their HD-AM, which is too bad.
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rbrucecarter5
Guest
JohnnyElectron said:
Disney seems to be shutting down HD on their AM's nationwide. It is off in Houston, I've heard reports that even their flagship station in LA is off. Others as well. Now if we could get Disney to turn the C-Quam encoders back on, they would still get most HD radios to decode stereo, with no loss of coverage.
I don't think it's the "same dozen or so posters" repetitively bashing HD Radio (I suppose I'm a member of that club in your mind.) I think "it is so quiet" on this board because:
1. Literally nobody cares about HD Radio any more. The only reason it continues to exist is, broadcasters with existing installations haven't yet reached the point where they can justify simply turning it off. But one by one, they will. There is no revenue, no listenership - only expense and grief. It stays turned on at iBiquity-investor stations for internal political reasons or as primaries for analog translators. Almost without exception, this is the case.
2. It's not necessary to "keep bashing" HD. HD Radio is self-bashing. Anyone can see it's a complete failure.
3. If there is any spectacle representing the HD Radio matter, that doesn't involve IBOC critics -it's how ridiculous its few remaining defenders look, twisting the "pretzel logic" defending the indefensible. HD Radio is and forever will be, an engineering debacle which makes the industry look like buffoons. HD has caused incalculable damage to radio for the forseeable future. And the bad impression HD makes on the industry will not start to fade until it's largely gone.
1. Literally nobody cares about HD Radio any more. The only reason it continues to exist is, broadcasters with existing installations haven't yet reached the point where they can justify simply turning it off. But one by one, they will. There is no revenue, no listenership - only expense and grief. It stays turned on at iBiquity-investor stations for internal political reasons or as primaries for analog translators. Almost without exception, this is the case.
2. It's not necessary to "keep bashing" HD. HD Radio is self-bashing. Anyone can see it's a complete failure.
3. If there is any spectacle representing the HD Radio matter, that doesn't involve IBOC critics -it's how ridiculous its few remaining defenders look, twisting the "pretzel logic" defending the indefensible. HD Radio is and forever will be, an engineering debacle which makes the industry look like buffoons. HD has caused incalculable damage to radio for the forseeable future. And the bad impression HD makes on the industry will not start to fade until it's largely gone.
rbrucecarter5 said:
LA's 1110 KDIS still has their HD on, but 1580 KMIK in the Phoenix, AZ area has had theirs off for about a few weeks now. They're still running 5 kHz audio, though, from what I can tell.
KDIS 1110's signal is usually too weak here to hear sidebands, coupled with having locals on 1090 and 1130 whose splatter would cover them up anyway. (At midday 1110's strength as indicated on my Tecsun PL-398mp is about 22-24 dBu, 1090 is about 52 dBu or so, and 1130 is about 75 dBu.) KDIS is delayed by several seconds from KMIK, though, and KMIK is strong enough at night that their hash used to cover up the adjacents much of the time. (Phoenix's 1580 is one of the strongest skywaves here at night.)
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Darth_vader
Guest
Thanks for proving my point, Savage.
The reason this forum isn't "flooded with complaints and stories of dealer complaints" involving luxury brands is, most consumers "fix" HD reception problems by the simple expedient of reading the owners' manual and figuring out how to defeat HD digital reception. For the buyers who can't puzzle this out, the dealers' service personnel oblige them. This comes from anecdotal evidence from my conversations with dealers in this market who sell vehicles with HD-capable radios. The few who have, in actuality.
The issue of iBiquity's endless braying about the number of cars with radios which are now HD-capable is typical nonsense from the IBOC crowd. Nobody cares which chipset is in car radios. The issue is: how many people are listening to HD digital programming? My expectation would be, precious few.
The vast majority of "HD car radios" are being used as traditional analog car radios, with digital reception being ignored.
This profession has always been about attracting a large and loyal audience so you can sell access to that audience in the form of advertising and, if your station is run proficiently, making money. It's not about obsessing on Balkanizing microdevelopments in the form of obtuse technical gimmicks and non-mainstream formats serving maybe scores of people. In the context of radio broadcasting, HD Radio is, and shall forever be, a marked failure.
The issue of iBiquity's endless braying about the number of cars with radios which are now HD-capable is typical nonsense from the IBOC crowd. Nobody cares which chipset is in car radios. The issue is: how many people are listening to HD digital programming? My expectation would be, precious few.
The vast majority of "HD car radios" are being used as traditional analog car radios, with digital reception being ignored.
This profession has always been about attracting a large and loyal audience so you can sell access to that audience in the form of advertising and, if your station is run proficiently, making money. It's not about obsessing on Balkanizing microdevelopments in the form of obtuse technical gimmicks and non-mainstream formats serving maybe scores of people. In the context of radio broadcasting, HD Radio is, and shall forever be, a marked failure.
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