Reliability of HD --- HD radio's worst enemy

[Savage]

Vacuum tubes had (and have latency.) XM/Sirius plays in a second or two in my experience. Our WYSL stream, and those of our competitors, start playing almost immediately if you're not trying to listen on a Commodore 64. The point here is, whether or not the receiving device responds in annoyance-free fashion to the human input.

In my book, punching the ON button on your common-as-hens-teeth HD Radio - and having it ruminate for ten or twelve seconds while the display reads, STARTING RADIO, is likely to provoke an impatient response from would-be users. It's kind of like waiting for those incredibly annoying CFLs to light up a room. Especially here in the Great White North when you walk into a cool room in the winter to retrieve something and have to wait a full two minutes for the stupid government light bulbs to come up to operating temp. I wind up either leaving lights on unnecessarily or carry my Star Railroad Inspector's flashlight around.

 

[iyiyi]

Vacuum tubes had (and have latency.) XM/Sirius plays in a second or two in my experience. Our WYSL stream, and those of our competitors, start playing almost immediately if you're not trying to listen on a Commodore 64. The point here is, whether or not the receiving device responds in annoyance-free fashion to the human input.

In my book, punching the ON button on your common-as-hens-teeth HD Radio - and having it ruminate for ten or twelve seconds while the display reads, STARTING RADIO, is likely to provoke an impatient response from would-be users. It's kind of like waiting for those incredibly annoying CFLs to light up a room. Especially here in the Great White North when you walk into a cool room in the winter to retrieve something and have to wait a full two minutes for the stupid government light bulbs to come up to operating temp. I wind up either leaving lights on unnecessarily or carry my Star Railroad Inspector's flashlight around.

If your radio takes 12 seconds to lock, it is either too old or defective. Modern HD radios lock in 4-5 seconds. Same with modern CFL bulbs.

Also, the main reason HD radios take even 5 seconds to lock is to delay the analog signal. Analog signal delay gives the buffering about 8 seconds to deal with reception issues before it must return to analog. The 8 second buffer also provides hysteresis to help prevent excessive or false switching in adverse conditions. Pure digital IBOC is a much quicker lock.

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[DavidEduardo]

If your radio takes 12 seconds to lock, it is either too old or defective. Modern HD radios lock in 4-5 seconds. Same with modern CFL bulbs.

In more extreme cold, CFLs take a loooooooong time to lock, and have a slower ramp up to full lumen output.

The real point... in this thread and all other related ones... is that HD had its window of opportunity and did not succeed.

The FCC could not create a DAB band because the piece of spectrum used elsewhere was under military use in the US. The FCC wanted digital platforms for radio and TV. So we got TV that you can't pick up mere miles from the megawatt transmitters without pixelation, AM HD that is useless on all but maybe 100 really good signals in the whole country, and an FM system that came one when stations were firing left and right and could not afford to create good HD 2 and HD 3 content.

The recession hit, and so did the huge growth of smartphones as entertainment devices.

The entire world of OTA Tower and Transmitter broadcasting is being challenged by new distribution methods. HD diverts capital and shows little or now potential for a return on investment (save those who used HD's to get translators).

Without a recession, it might have worked, at least for FM. With the growth of smartphones and the like, the window of opportunity appears to be closed and locked.

 

[Savage]

Yeah. I second David's comments. CFLs are temperature-dependent like any fluorescent device. They represent no technical advance over the long fluorescent tubes and Circline (GE) bulbs which have been in use since the 1930s. They're just smaller and a different shape.
Every fluorescent device, "modern" or otherwise, will fail to put out its rated brilliance until it comes up to operating temperature, and that's now and for the future.

Oh, and yes, the whole "latency" problem with HD is that accursed analog signal. : You know. The only one people listen to (or can receive under typical conditions.)

By all means, iyiyi, please sink your capital into America's first analog-free all-digital IBOC station. And let us know how it's going from time to time!

 

[iyiyi]

If your radio takes 12 seconds to lock, it is either too old or defective. Modern HD radios lock in 4-5 seconds. Same with modern CFL bulbs.

In more extreme cold, CFLs take a loooooooong time to lock, and have a slower ramp up to full lumen output.

...The real point... in this thread and all other related ones... is that HD had its window of opportunity and did not succeed...

...Without a recession, it might have worked, at least for FM. With the growth of smartphones and the like, the window of opportunity appears to be closed and locked...

News flash! This is the 21st century. CFLs are rapidly being supplanted by LEDs, just as plasma and LCD TV displays are giving way to LED screens.

What documentation can you provide that defines HD radio's "window of opportunity"?

Also, it appears that you are a soi disant HD "expert" who decided to declare HD's "window of opportunity" closed and locked. If the sun has indeed set for HD radio, by what criteria did you determine this?

Again, are you folk absolutely CERTAIN that HD radio has no redeeming value, potential benefit or versatility to bring radio broadcasting to the next level?

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[audioguy]

Again, are you folk absolutely CERTAIN that HD radio has no redeeming value, potential benefit or versatility to bring radio broadcasting to the next level?

None, whatever as far as I am concerned.

And by the way, HDTV, while it is truly High Definition (unlike HD radio), is completely unreliable at my location. I can receive a signal less than half of the time. I never had that problem with analog TV. The real motivation for switching from analog to digital was to make it possible for the government to grab back most of the spectrum and resell it for billions of dollars. Not to make your football game look better.

 

[DavidEduardo]

News flash! This is the 21st century. CFLs are rapidly being supplanted by LEDs

If you had said "gradually" instead of "rapidly" I might buy your argument. I just put LED bulbs into the more used locations in one home, and the cost was over $1,200. A 700 lumen bulb is on the order of $40 and it sort of replaces a 60 watt incandescent bulb.

The average household income in the US is around $50 thousand a year. Such families are not going to spend $1500 to put LEDs in every socket and lamp.

, just as plasma and LCD TV displays are giving way to LED screens.

With TV's lasting longer than ever, the replacement of first and second generation plasmas and LCDs is going to take a decade. That's attrition, not a revolution.

What documentation can you provide that defines HD radio's "window of opportunity"?

Name one HD-2 that has made the ratings without an analog FM booster?

Were HD to have any impact, it would have to have made it before the accelerating change from OTA listening to streaming listening accelerated. Perhaps the added variety of channels and formats could have stemmed some of the attraction of Pandora and other non-OTA sources.

But those "channels between the channels" are dead because radio can't afford to staff and program them fully. Main analog channels are running with minimal staff and looking for further was to cut costs. Nobody is doing budgets where "how can I invest more in HD" is a consideration.

No content = no future. HD can't make it based on an added HD-2 classical channel on the local NPR station.

Also, it appears that you are a soi disant HD "expert" who decided to declare HD's "window of opportunity" closed and locked. If the sun has indeed set for HD radio, by what criteria did you determine this?

I was part of the first meetings of the HD Alliance as a participant member. I had hopes that HD could accomodate the overflow of good format ideas we had, but which were not viable on, let's say, a $300 million dollar analog FM in LA. Now the analog FM in LA is worth perhaps 25% of the pre-recession and pre-smartphone value, and usage of OTA radio by 12-24 and 18-34 is eroding. So I don't see the economics or the potential of HD.

As folks like Mr. Savage know, I was a believer, even a proselytizer, some years ago. But the economy has changed, and consumer preferences have changed. There is no value I can find in wasting time working on HD.

Again, are you folk absolutely CERTAIN that HD radio has no redeeming value, potential benefit or versatility to bring radio broadcasting to the next level?

Unless an HD can be used to get a translator from the FCC, there is little to no value.

 

[Savage]

Hey iyiyi: let's see......checking. Hmmm....

Yep. ABSOLUTELY certain.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

So - why the latency on HD-2 channels - where synchronization doesn't matter. That is the one that is really annoying!

And CFL's are radio interference generators filled with toxic mercury. As bad a solution to the lighting problem as HD radio is to radio. As bulbs go out, replace them one at a time with LED. You won't be sorry.

 

[spt87]

That's one I could never figure out - govt. banned production of the good old reliable mercury controls which Honeywell and others produced for the last 100 years (thermostats, aquastats, pressuretrols, etc.). They rarely ever presented a hazard since they were permanently attached.

Meanwhile they've forced CFLs on us and I don't know how many my kids have broken knocking over lamps (or for that matter I've dropped and broke a couple changing bulbs).

The 50 year old mercury using round Honeywell thermostat meanwhile will probably still be in use in 50 years not bothering anyone.

 

[iyiyi]

So - why the latency on HD-2 channels - where synchronization doesn't matter. That is the one that is really annoying!

And CFL's are radio interference generators filled with toxic mercury. As bad a solution to the lighting problem as HD radio is to radio. As bulbs go out, replace them one at a time with LED. You won't be sorry.

HD is one data stream. Software decides how it is divided up into individual HDs. Nothing happens until all data is in the proper places.

Intelligent way to change out CFLs! Someone will probably rail on that solution too...

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[landtuna]

When I was in elementary school (50's) we used to bring mercury to school to shine up coins and play games with it. Still messing around with it, in bare hands, in high school. No one I know ever had a reaction or died from poisoning. Of course, growing up in the desert meant no eating deep sea fish. ;D

 

[Savage]

My dad was a numismatist and used to keep a glass baby-food jar filled with mercury which he also used to clean collector coins. We used to play with it on the kitchen table - yep, the one where the family ate meals. When he went to the nursing home and I sold his house, I had to get rid of the mercury. The hazardous-waste officer at the county environmental and waste office went nuts when I called up and asked her for advice. Per her instructions I put the little jar in a cardboard box filled with crushed newspaper, placing it carefully in the box of my F-150 pickup. I then was told to pull into a county garage and NOT TO GET OUT OF THE CAB, keeping the windows rolled tightly shut. Two hazmat workers in moon suits and respirators - yes, TWO - removed the two-pound cargo, handling it like it was nitroglycerin that was starting to change color. I'm not kidding!

When I told the realtor this story, he said, it's good you got rid of that stuff. If you had dropped the glass jar and the mercury scattered, not only would you never be able to sell this house - it would probably have to be specialty-demolished by experts in contaminated properties.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

My dad was a numismatist and used to keep a glass baby-food jar filled with mercury which he also used to clean collector coins. We used to play with it on the kitchen table - yep, the one where the family ate meals. When he went to the nursing home and I sold his house, I had to get rid of the mercury. The hazardous-waste officer at the county environmental and waste office went nuts when I called up and asked her for advice. Per her instructions I put the little jar in a cardboard box filled with crushed newspaper, placing it carefully in the box of my F-150 pickup. I then was told to pull into a county garage and NOT TO GET OUT OF THE CAB, keeping the windows rolled tightly shut. Two hazmat workers in moon suits and respirators - yes, TWO - removed the two-pound cargo, handling it like it was nitroglycerin that was starting to change color. I'm not kidding!

When I told the realtor this story, he said, it's good you got rid of that stuff. If you had dropped the glass jar and the mercury scattered, not only would you never be able to sell this house - it would probably have to be specialty-demolished by experts in contaminated properties.

You want to know the end of that story? You got royally ripped-off because those workers in bunny suits probably took them off the moment you left and sold that mercury for a small fortune to the CFL bulb manufacturers or to the mercury wetted relay manufacturers. Because it is so feared and people are so paranoid, it probably is worth a fortune!

A bit of advice - if you had spilled the stuff, or if you suspect radon, or if your paint is lead - just get rid of it and don't tell anybody, because it is nuttier than a squirrel eating a nut cake out there. You KNOW it is overreacting by a bunch of enviro-nazis who make their living disposing of the stuff. A lot of theatrics and acting. The threat is just not that great!!! A little caution like some gloves, a face mask, and a good shower and laundry and you will be fine. You won't get cancer, the world won't end, the groundwater won't get ruined. Reasonable precautions, not paranoia.

Believe me, you are FAR more at risk from completely legal cigarette smoke than you are from mercury or lead. Talk about freakin' double standards. It is legal for people to belch out 100 carcinogenic compounds at you, and inhale them into themselves. But say the word mercury, which is thousands of times less lethal - out come the hazmat goons.

Now - back to radio discussion. PLEASE!

 

[Savage]

D'accord. Grew up in a house where five packs of cigarettes were smoked daily. Needless to say I have never smoked one (directly) in my 62 years, and can't stand being around it.

I also wholeheartedly agree with (a) the ridiculous enviroNazi worldview where everything is a threat. There are some state regulations requiring, in certain applications, that the arsenic level emissions be BELOW that found in nature. Take PCBs. I remember a PCB capacitor blowing up in WIBG's RCA BTA-10H one night and the duty engineer wiped up the Pyranol with paper towels and threw them in the trash. Nothing ever went wrong with him; he lived to a ripe old age.

And (b) let's talk about radio! "The truly green news media that doesn't kill trees or generate toxic waste!" (Unless you consider certain programming. And HD Radio.)

 

[Tom Wells]

Haw. I bought every old mercury switch I saw years back .

I have a collection of radium dial alarm clocks and a roll of asbestos woven cloth tape.

Lots of pre-octal base vacuum tubes, too. Never know what they'll ban next. Hand tools, probably.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Haw. I bought every old mercury switch I saw years back .

I have a collection of radium dial alarm clocks and a roll of asbestos woven cloth tape.

Lots of pre-octal base vacuum tubes, too. Never know what they'll ban next. Hand tools, probably.

My guess about what they will ban will be analog radio. They did it to TV, they will do it to radio. Now I need to go flush my government mandated 1.6 gallon toilet three times to get everything down.

 

[KB1OKL]

I can remember rolling mercury around in my palms from broken thermometers when I was a kid. I also had a bar of lead I used to carry in my pocket with my initials scratched into it. And last but not least I went to trade school when I was a kid and made a lead ash tray, was fun to pass to unsuspecting friends when they were smoking that funny stuff. Can you pass me the ash tray?.......Wooow! What is that?