Looks interesting!

http://www.slipperybrick.com/2007/04/hd100-hd-radio/

"HD Radio Effort Undermined by Weak Tuners in Expensive Radios"

http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/7002/hd-radio2.html

Reception is problematic with all HD radios - because of the low-power IBOC digital signals, external dipole and AM loop antennas are required. If consumers do not have a need for HD radios, price will make no difference. This freak'n radio doesn't even have a CD player ! There is no analog lock mechanism, as with all HD radios falling back to analog, when the weak HD channels cannot be locked - I bet that gets annoying ! Successful technologies do not need to be put on-sale in attempt to spur consumer interest, as with the $99 Radiosophy (after June it jumps to $120). Commercials will be added to the HD channels, after this year, if HD Radio ever becomes profitable, which is highly-doubtful, as consumers have not bought into this farce. LOL !!!

Hey Ronrob - I saw that you are also shilling for HD Radio over on radio-info:

http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,68865.0.html

Don't forget to shill on that HD Radio shill site, radioinsight - do you really think that this nonsense is going to make any difference ? BTW, I put a comment on the slipperybrick site, but I bet it won't get published. You are just another example that failed technologies can't sell themselves and need to be shilled.

For what it's worth, I don't think the AM IBOC is worth the hassle, but the FM IBOC is.

Fact is the decision has been made. The tech issues are largely unimportant to a very large majority of FM radio listeners, thus leaving us with a content vacuum. How it gets filled could be very good for radio in general. The fact that it needs to be filled will be underscored by IBOC and the extra space it brings to the table.

It's not all bad, you know.

What you are doing now is marginalizing yourself. If IBOC fails, it will be only after it's been fully exercized. No amount of this kind of stuff is going to affect that one bit.

(Which is exactly why I focus on the content side of things. Changes there are not done --not even really started yet. Therefore advocacy has a chance at actually being considered.)

The fate of HD Radio has been left up to the marketplace - HD Radio/IBOC is just one standard, as is FMeXtra. The destructiveness of HD/IBOC is not worth, at any expense - DAB failed in Canada, due to lack of consumer interest, as HD/IBOC will fail in the U.S.

BTW, you should check out the amount of interest in hdradio.com, the go-to site for further information about HD Radio:

http://www.statsaholic.com/hdradio.com

Now, check out Sirius and XM:

http://www.statsaholic.com/sirius.com
http://www.statsaholic.com/xmradio.com

As a matter of fact, there is a substantial movement against HD/IBOC, that has involved a number of HD Radio reporters. Read all the blogs and reader comments for HD Radio articles - almost all comments are negative. If consumer apathy continues, which surely it will, HD/IBOC will eventually fail. So, you need not lecture me on any supposed HD/IBOC decisions, that I am marginalizing myself, or that HD/IBOC is a "done deal". With HD radios not selling, this farce set up by the FCC, HD Radio Alliance, and iBiquity cannot go on forever:

"IBiquity Digital's Make-or-Break Point Approaches"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58846-2005Feb27.html

It will happen.

What do you believe is the cause of the current state of apathy regarding IBOC

,and

what support do you have for this state of affairs to surely continue on?

I'm asking because I believe your assertion, regarding the FM IBOC implementation is false and very difficult to support otherwise. So let's hear it plain and simple:

Could "Pocketradio" be the ghost of David Sarnoff?

Who knows?

Let's see the support and talk HD after that.

So,
What are the good HD radios to buy and where do you get them besides Radio Shack?

I got my JVC at Car Toys.

Consumer apathy made FM radio a failure. It also made color television a huge waste of money. It took them years to figure out that AM radio and black and white television was all the public wanted.

(FM radio and color television took twenty years to occupy half their markets.)

Pocketradio has NOTHING to support the ranting.

So,
What are the good HD radios to buy and where do you get them besides Radio Shack?


For home use I purchased the Sangean HDT-1 component tuner for $199 from Fry's.(I bought it to monitor the RDS/RBDS signal on the LPFM I program--the HD tuner was a "bonus".)

Pros:

-Has fairly narrow tuning and moderate sensitivity.

-Is able to connect to an outdoor antenna.

-Allows direct keypad entry of frequencies from front panel and remote.

Cons:

-No stereo indicator on analogue or HD broadcasts

-No way to force mono from stereo signal AND no way to force analogue on a station when HD is present.(this especially bugs me.)


Sangean also has a desktop radio that retails for $249, but has limited features and seems a bit "spendy".

Crutchfield sells an HD tuner (the Directed Electronics HD Radio tuner) that can be added to any car stereo. It is also spendy at $199 considering that it is just an "add-on" tuner. When my budget allows ( gotta save some $$$ for my trip to Grey Cup in November ) I might pick this tuner up only because it displays RDS/RBDS, I just have to see if it will display full text or or just the Programme Service name like most car tuners with RDS/RBDS.)

I tried a bunch of HD radios at the Ibiquity hospitality suite at NAB in Las Vegas yesterday.

The Radiosophy boom box looks promising, has some features I hadn't seen before, but the prototype was very rough.

Missing_kskd,

I can support my rant:

“Sirius, XM, and HD: Consumer interest reality check”

“While interest in satellite radio is diminishing, interest in HD shows no signs of a pulse.”

http://www.hear2.com/2007/02/sirius_xm_and_h.html

Check out the go-to site for consumers for HD Radio:

http://www.statsaholic.com/hdradio.com

Now, check out the go-to site for the iPod:

http://www.statsaholic.com/apple.com

HD Radio - LOL !!!

Is there anyway of finding out how many have been sold in the PDX market or the overall penetration of HD radio as far as how many are in the market.

That's the same stuff you posted earlier.

Let's try again:

What do you believe is the cause of the current state of apathy regarding IBOC

,and

what support do you have for this state of affairs to surely continue on?

Pocketradio, I want to make a coupla things clear.

I am not in favor of AM IBOC. The FM IBOC appears to be an interesting tech that has little impact on existing radios and presents several compelling value adds to the radio medium in general.

Since it has been authorized, the time for this kind of discussion is long past. Now, either the buildout ends up actually adding value, or it does not. On the FM, I think it will and I've posted why here more than a few times before.

Consider this:

Having invested in the tech, then getting nothing should it fail, what then happens to radio?

IMHO, there is more at risk here than just expensive radios and some hash. Radio itself, for better or worse, is being reintroduced now. So, that impression matters, even with analog radio.

Should the digital add on fail, radio then becomes marginalized and the perception of "old" will take far deeper hold than it does now.

I like radio. In fact, I love radio and always have. I love AM radio the best, frankly.

Going forward, I'm more interested in seeing better, vibrant and relevant radio, than I am seeing this messy tech fail.

My question is aimed squarely at this aspect of things. What support do you have for the idea that this state of affairs will surely continue?

Guys,

The Digital Alliance...or whatever it's called...was a dicey proposition from the start.
It was based on the theory that "competition" between stations is bad.

This "establishment group" decides together what formats belong on HD2 channels to make sure they're not competing against each other.

It was announced in the trades at the time, and I couldn't believe what I was reading. If you believe that unique programming is needed and competition betters the product, this was clearly restraint of fair trade.

Secondly, they're preaching to the choir. I believe the only promotion for HD Radio exists in the form of a commercial bank on HD Alliance Radio stations.

At best, they're stealing from their Analog Audience to build a Digital Audience. All the while, this is fueled only by commercials on their own stations touting "...stations between the stations." Nobody's gonna plop down $200 for benefits that are explained so vaguely.

Let's face it, they can't tout "commercial free" on their analog airwaves, because they'd be biting the hand that feeds them.

The only thing that could save HD Radio is a valiant lobbying effort on the part of the NAB.
Lobby the FCC for all future AM/FM tuners to include HD circuitry after an FCC mandated target date.

There is a precedent. Such a ruling from the FCC is what placed UHF circuitry in all VHF televisions after a specific target date. Without that impetus, UHF was doomed.

The one fly in the ointment is that apparently IBIQUITY licenses transmitter and receiver circuitry. They're the ones that would benefit most from this gambit.

Radio should be IBIQUITY's partner, and share in Receiver royalties...or shut them down.

Terrestrial AM/FM is still the dominant CUME medium, because of the sheer proliferation of receivers. INTERNET RADIO is pouring on the steam, and will surely be #2. A $2 Billion investment can create WIRELESS ZONES for 95% of the US Population. A subscription fee will allow access via Laptops, Desktops, & Cell Phones virtually anywhere you travel in the US.

The Cell Phone with Headphone circuits comparable to IPODs will eventually turn every Cell Phone into the "new transistor radio."

That's good news for any music programmer...but "programming" is visionary not a "template" affair. Creativity, stimulation, desirability...making listeners afraid if they don't listen...they're going to miss something is a gift. Bean counters are not intuitive.

Towers and Transmitters will become "horse and buggy" thinking in the next few years. People want content.

Content is the only thing that can effectively sell HD Receivers. Yet content can be more easily "demonstrated" than advertised...when and if all AM/FM receivers contain HD circuitry.

Towers and Transmitters will become "horse and buggy" thinking in the next few years. People want content.


I concur.

It's likely. I do suspect lawyers and business models might get in the way of this in the shorter term...

On the content being the only thing that can sell receivers, I completely agree.

I disagree on there needing to be a lot of receivers before anything meaningful can take place.

A coupla threads back I posted several ideas for getting the average joe to seek that content. There are many more options on the table.

IMHO, that's just a big excuse to avoid actually doing the hard work that's gonna be required to aggragate and create new content forms for the medium.

Also, these kinds of activities done now, are done in a fairly risk free environment. The pool of listeners is small and eager to get some use out of their investments.

Later on, that pool will be bigger, but expectations will also be set to a higher degree. If the early adopters are out there talking about the new stuff, and it's actually new stuff, the rest has a strong chance to follow on in the usual way.

If this is not the case, then waiting for a larger listener pool is highly likely to mean more of the same old same old. Quality alone will not have a serious impact, so IBOC ends up being largely useless.

Given the transmitter idea gets old, and I believe it will, working hard to establish content relevance now, with IBOC being the incentive, will pay dividends in this later time.

Let's say we have quick and easy wireless content purchases at the local Starbucks. It's an audio stream for somewhere under a buck. Get your coffee and get the news, or some show, or whatever right?

It's a stream of audio and who better to deliver that than the people who have been essentially streaming audio since we've been able to deliver audio?

That's the bigger content relevance race I think the radio industry is losing big on. If radio is not moving forward and innovating in this area, others are right? So, who really wants to be relevant when the towers don't matter so much any more?

Missing_kskd,

What's the point of digital radio - just more channels of the same tired programming. The radio dial already has more than enough radio stations, so what is the point in extra channels. Everyone knows that lousy content is the problem with terrestrial radio, not the delivery mechanism. If the programming on the HD channels was so great, then why not put it on the main analog channels ? Other exciting technologies are driving consumers away from terrestrial radio, so no matter what, HD Radio will never have a significant impact. Look at all the hundreds-of-millions iPod owners and Internet and cell phone users. Look at the consumer go-to site for the iPod/iTunes, apple.com:

http://www.statsaholic.com/apple.com

The consumer go-to site for HD Radio is almost dead:

http://www.statsaholic.com/hdradio.com

I am an AM DX'er, and doing my part to help HD Radio fail, including a significant group of us that is contacting many HD Radio reporters and posting comments to many HD Radio articles.

Robin_mitchell,

The cost of iBiquity's licensing fees for HD Radio chipsets cost $40 to half the cost of HD radios. Let the FCC try and mandate an analog cutoff date, or try and mandate that every radio contain an HD Radio chipset and you will see the end of terrestrial radio. I love AM DXing, but do you really think that consumers are going to spend multiples of the price of current $10 - $25 analog radios, just to replace the estimated 800 million analog radios ? And, and estimated 80 million analog radios continue to be sold every year. The only entity benefiting from this farce is iNiquity, but with few HD radios sold, how long do you think that this farce can continue ? DAB was tried in Canada and failed, due to lack of consumer interest:

"Digital radio in Canada"

"The Commission is very concerned about the stalled DRB transition. Roughly 15 of the 76 authorized stations (including the digital-only operation in Toronto) are not on the air. Some stations that once operated have since ceased operations. Few recievers have been sold, and there is no interest in expanding DRB service beyond the six cities where it exists."

http://americanbandscan.blogspot.com/2006/12/digital-radio-in-canada.html

I believe, the same thing will happen to HD/IBOC in the US, due also to a lack of consumer interest in terrestrial radio.

Even better than HD? Internet streaming, sounds great, AM or FM sound equal.

No antennas, no annoyance.

What's the point of digital radio?

On the AM band, I'm not sure. IMHO, AM should remain analog, combined with a solid bandplan that will clean up the dial over 10-15 years, but that's just me. The simplicity and propagation characteristics alone justify this. Given disasters and other profound disturbances to our daily lives, AM can always inform, entertain and that's something worth the hassle of preserving.

I still tune the dial, listening to far away people and places too.

On FM, it's a significant improvement across the board. In some cases accuracy suffers, but no multi-path is a biggie for a lot of people.

The chipset licensing is a bummer. Totally agree on that score. IMHO, that will work itself out. Before bailing on the whole venture, licensing will get better. It's that or lose any return on investment. It's just gonna take time.

I harbour significant concerns about AM IBOC. The FM stuff is largely benign, so it's a split thing with me.

When the comment periods were open, I engaged this as well as I knew how. Engineers from all sides sent me good info, I posted samples, etc... all aimed at educating people, and myself, so that our words had meaning.

That time has passed.

During that time, I realized I like radio and this tech represents a reintroduction of the medium to people. That's worth the effort, given the competeting tech coming down the line. At the end of the day, if all this tech buildout does not improve things, perhaps the content message will be received loud and clear.

If this happens, we can look forward to interesting radio again! So, I'm there. IBOC is not the end of the world in this regard.

And that's the point, if there is one. It removes the whole "radio is old" element from the discussion. (where FM is concerned --AM is old no matter what, but it's also distinguished and that's the key there) The multi-stream bit is really interesting in the choices is brings to the table where station identities, formats and presentation are concerned. I'm all for innovation here, particularly if people are part of the equation.

It's those people that made radio the medium it is. Either we find a way for them to add value and do what they do, or it's over for radio period. Again, the failure of IBOC to bring the masses to automated programming will only highlight that. When it does, radio will then improve.

If we didn't have IBOC, radio would then be old and stale and on the decline. I think it would never improve without some incentive for it to do so. IBOC and the investment it took to get it up and running is that incentive, IMHO.

In this vein, I believe what you are doing just causes harm.

Missing_kskd,

Both you and HD Radio are a farce.

And you are...?

Why such formalities, Mrs. Merkin ?

Rejected your blather on opengeek too buddy. Nearly ever word I've ever written on HD radio can be found online. A whole lot of it was pretty tough. At the end of the day, the tech is here and I'm inclined to see what it brings.

There are many aspects to radio that have nothing to do with the tech.

Have a nice day.

I see two major problems with the "stations between the stations" ad campaign:
1) All of the ads that I've heard are generic ones that don't tell the listener what is playing on that station's secondary programs.
2) As far as I know, these ads are only being broadcast on the radio.

If you have a listener who is happy with what he is hearing on the normal analog service, what motivation is there for him to buy one of the new radios? With the current ad campaign, the proposition of buying one of these radios is a gamble that the listener might not want to take. What if none of the programming on the secondary streams is any good (as judged by said listener)?

If you have somebody who is unhappy with radio in general and is not listening, they won't hear the commercials and therefore won't know that these secondary programs even exist.

I want to avoid repeating myself as much as possible, so I'll just say that over the next several years, I do not see any abatement to the trend of all media be it aural (like radio) or visual (like television) is going to keep splintering into more and more outlets that each try to be more and more specialized. The companies operating on the broadcast spectrum are going to resort the Ibiquity technology because that is what is available to them to help them meet this goal.

A discussion of the long-term impact of this trend on the quality of the programming being produced is valid. However, as Missing_KSKD points out, the HD scheme has been approved and for now, that's that. If it is "meant" to fail, let it die a natural death. Nobody is forcing you to buy a radio with the Ibiquity technology (I don't intend to do so any time soon).

I believe that because of economics, not technology, the quality of all programming, radio or TV, is going to continue to decline in the short term. The people with the power to make high level programming decisions are going to opt for lots of programs/channels/streams (whatever term you wish to use) that are cheap to produce. In the long term, either somebody will try the counter-intuitive idea of concentrating resources on a few things that are or high quality or the public will learn to accept You-Tube quality material. Only time will tell.

I agree with this. All about choice going forward.

The quality, IMHO, will settle at the minimum for most people to consider listenable. From there, we get the maximum choice.

Too bad about the digital alliance. It's almost like a pace lap where everybody just holds their positions, waiting for the real race to start. When it's done, then we will see what's gonna happen with those extra channels.

Given the early state of things, from a content perspective, maybe it's not a bad idea to limit promotion to those currently engaged with their radios. They will be the easiest listeners to retain and migrate.

From there, it's a content race. At some point, I'll pick up a radio to listen to that whole thing happen. How it's positioned, ideally stations will compete, bringing us some new stuff to consider.

Missing_kskd,

See, my blather is all over the Net:

http://tinyurl.com/yog66n

Have a nice day ! HD Radio is a farce !

Well, it's not on my site, thankfully.

Listen, I'm just not about that kind of stuff. Any bozo can spam over the net. Doesn't take that long either. Constructive commentary is good, this really just isn't.

I'll just ignore you for now. You do what it is you think you need to do, and that's that.

That's fine - word is getting out, about the HD Radio farce. Use your voice and it shall be heard !

Kind of like those spam emails from Nigeria.

Well, it's Mrs. Merkin - what's up with the formalities ? Did you know that HD Radio is a farce ?

Mr. PocketRadio

pocketradio- Please visit a mental health professional for treatment for your obvious set of disorders.

Your posts here do not contribute to any meaningful discussion.

Do I gather correctly from your link above that you are not from the Portland area? If so, why are you here?

He is probably related to leonard khan.

just another cut and paster who hasn't even bothered to listen to an HD radio.

I'd be curious about his motive, that's about it.

Wondering the same thing Notalent.

Dear PocketPool:

I couldn't give a rat's ass about HD radio. I just think you're rude, especially for a newbie. We don't really work that way 'round these parts, son. Stay in Jersey.

It was clear from Pocketradio's first post that he came here to push his agenda, not to have a discussion.

Please don't feed the troll.

"Bridge Ratings: Sweat the cell phone and don't count on HD"

"In other words, Bridge says interest in HD radio is decreasing even as your station works hard to increase awareness. What can I possibly add to this honest and bleak picture that I haven't said before? My well-intended warnings about HD's "premature death" seem to be rearing their ugly heads almost two years later."

http://www.hear2.com/2007/04/bridge_ratings_.html#comments