A friend of mine asked me the following question:

What is HD Radio? How does it work? How does one get an HD signal/station on the air?

This friend of mine is looking to get an internet station started. I don't think this is the way for him to go, but I don't know how to explain it to him.

This friend of mine also recently told me of an offer for a $3 million line of credit he received and sent me the letter. I didn't even have to get halfway through it to recognize it as a variation of the Nigerian Scam.

My friend isn't an idiot, but I feel that now, after trying for several years to get his idea off the ground without success, that he's now at the grasping at straws stage.

Thanks for your help.

HD Radio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio

HDRadio= Highly DistortedRadio,NOISY too!!!!!

Why is your friend's desire to start an Internet streaming station germane to the HD Radio question?

My guess is they're starting an Internet station and they were interested in gaining exposure/listeners via simulcasting on an HD channel.

I think the best way to explain it to them is to explain that the HD "stations" are owned/programmed by the same companies that own the main station, and probably the only way any of the stations would be interested in providing access would be if he has the money for a 24/7/365 lease of an HD2 or HD3 channel.

There's a simple way around the "noise and distortion" from HD Radio: Buy one! I find myself constantly listening to programming I wouldn't ordinarily choose because the sound quality is so breathtaking!

One good way to hype up the Internet radio is to just talk it up in lots of venues.

It's called astroturfing. Rope in your fans and get them to talk it up. If you've got no fans, well...

make some up, then have them talk it up. Yeah that means loserville chatting up teens hoping for a spark!

I think that it would be very interesting if stations started leasing out their HD2/HD3 channels. Unfortunately, I suspect that the mindset of most people in station management will prevent this from happening: they would see this as creating competition for themselves.

but by running multiple station in every city, they are used to competing with themselves already! right?

62kgw:
They consider themselves to be "narrowcasting" to specific ages/groups. So instead of programming for everyone, they're programming for 25-44 females on the AC station and 18-34 males on the rock station, for example.

they would see this as creating competition for themselves.
Exactly... why open the door to a new programming provider, when the company that already holds the keys to the transmitter can set up an additional computer with a few hundred songs, and call it an 'HD2' station, for example?

One good way to hype up the Internet radio is to just talk it up in lots of venues.
One other thought on online streaming audio... there still has to be something compelling for a potential listener to want to give it a try. On another thread, there was a comment along the lines of 'nobody cares about your Live365 station' - I'm going to guess this is because people have associated Live365 with being nothing more than an internet version of the all automated stations (and when I bothered to try to listen, there were a few gems, including Skeptical's rendition of "The Beat," the "Hot Hits Atlanta" station, NMFM, etc. - people that devoted a bit of time/energy into the sound and feel of their station and it showed; but most of the "stations" sounded more like someone uploaded nothing more than their MP3 folder - I mean come on, how tough is it to voice a few liners?).
So, even if people were to promote the living daylights out of their product like many of us here agree should be done - whether it's a 100 kw radio station or an automated internet feed - people still have to have a reason to tune in. If not, they won't.

Agreed on people having a reason to listen. Must be some differentiator there, or there is no real value proposition and with that, no motivation to consume the product.

One reason for opening the door to new content creators would be to establish something new in the market place. That's a nice differentiator, and may well carry significant value.

Having opened that door, the stations who opened it might be in a control position --should be to permit the use of the thing in the first place.

Newflyer nailed it on the minset that I was trying to describe. It is the same as type of mindset as one sees when a radio group holds on to a signal and keeps trying unsuccessful format after format instead of just trying to find a buyer for it or LMAing it to someone.

In the HD subchannel case, consider this: If a radio group owns several stations and listeners drift one station to another within the group's ownership, it is a wash. Many radio groups sell their ads as package deals, with the commercials playing on several radio stations. Most importantly, a radio cluster has the ability to control what demographics/psychographics they are trying to reach with their stations, and how much overlap in listenership exists between its different radio offerings. On the other hand, if a HD subchannel got leased out, the "landlord" company would lose control over the programming on that subchannel.

"My guess is they're starting an Internet station and they were interested in gaining exposure/listeners via simulcasting on an HD channel."

Well MY guess is that the term "HD" struck this person as being some superior method of transmission; he probably didn't realize that, unlike HDTV, HD radio is a higher-fidelity version of traditional radio broadcasting that simply allows for the same amount of fidelity that has always been heard from CDs and records. In contrast, HDTV provides a level of video resolution not previously available in any home video format. The difference is that, with standard-def TV, the resolution was basically the same as the resolution available with DVD's. With radio, the CDs/records available to the consumer has always provided the sound quality that HD radio is only now able to provide.

On a side note, I wonder if HD radio really does provide a higher-fidelity listening experience right now. Realistically, I really doubt that the final processing is different for the HD signal. In other words, if the normal FM signal, and processing, is limited to 15 kHz, does the HD signal really use a different processor that truly allows for more fidelity? In this day and age, I'd be surprised to learn that an FM station actually invested in different processing for the HD signal, due to the fact that HD listening is still very, very limited. If I'm wrong, somebody tell me. I'm genuinely curious.

Many stations use 2 processers or a dual unit such as this:

http://www.orban.com/products/radio/fm/8500/

So the HD audio can have the full 20khz and the Pre-emphasis "squish" required for the analog transmission is not applied to the HD side, so the HD sounds more "open".

I had previously thought that HD2 stations sounded better than HD1(something about the mid-range)but with some of the selections on Charlie, I can't see where the sound could be improved. I also heard a rather impressive sounding drum solo on KGON!

What are the bit rates allowed for HD-1, HD-2, and HD-3? I thought that I had heard somebody mention that HD-1 always has the highest bit rate of the three streams, but I can't find anything authoritative.

"HDRadio= Highly DistortedRadio,NOISY too!!!!!"
Give it a rest 62. We all know you don't like it and obviously don't listen to HD Radio.

On AM, Those stations (3) sound better than all the other non HD Stations on AM. KEX and KDZR are the best sounding stations on the AM dial, in HD. I don't listen to 1330 so I can't comment on it. KEX sounds great in HD, And when the HD kicks in on 1640, you can certainly tell the difference. Listening to music on 1640 sounds just like listening to FM stations. My grandaughter likes listening to Radio Disney on my HD Receiver.

On FM, you can certainly tell the difference between those stations using HD and those that do not. The CC and Entrecom stations in HD sound much better than the CBS stations that are not in HD. They are just cleaner and sharper sounding. You can usually tell when the HD kicks in. Even my tone deaf wife can tell the difference.

Generally speaking, given a choice, I do not listen to non HD stations on FM anymore. I also like to be able to have a readout as to what is playing at the moment since they no longer tell you what you are listening to.

I was reluctant to get HD radio thinking "Why do I need it?". Now that I have it, I wouldn't go without it.

It is not distortion and noise. Far from it.

Assuming I'm on the right track, they start out with 96. If there are 2 streams, it's usually 48 and 48. If there's an HD3, it cuts into the HD2 and the HD1 remains at 48. That's the way I understand it.

would/can sombody syart up an independent hd2 station,by leasing the hd2 channel from an other owner.Perhspa have a back-up signalhd2 channel leased from a different station to simulcast and toswitchover quickly as needed!would this concept work?much easier/cheaper/quicker than buying a FM or AMstation??for somebody who wants to get in the Broadcasting business from scratch??

I have heard of other splits, such as 64-32, but yep, 48-48 seems to be the most common.

If a station choses to use "Extended Hybrid" modes which adds more OFDM subcarriers toward the center of the channel, they can add another 40Kb (or so). I just checked, and according to my tuner NO Portland FM's are using these higher modes (all are MP-1).

Ibiquity "white paper " here:

http://www.ibiquity.com/i/pdfs/Waveforms_FM.pdf

See tables 7-12 for service modes MP-2 to MP-7.

Noted that KOPB HD is still off the air, but as I remember, they were running MP-1 mode, even though they were broadcasting 3 HD channels.

Jr_tech,
Thanks for the requested correction.

I doubt HD radio will take off until Ford, GM, and Toyota start issuing the radios as standard equipment in cars. Let's face it, radio depends on commuters; no one sits by the fire and listens to the radio at night anymore. As soon as stock radios include HD, I think we'll see a more mainstream perception of the technology- sort of like FM in the 70s.

Shane,
You are quite welcome!

I agree 100% about the relationship between car radios and mainstream acceptance of HD. We also need HD portables, but low power HD chips seem to be slow in development... Perhaps by next Christmas ??

(W)ould/can (somebody) (start) up an independent hd2 station(?) (M)uch easier/cheaper/quicker than buying a FM or AMstation?? (F)or somebody who wants to get in the Broadcasting business from scratch??
As I said earlier... why would the company that holds the station's license (CC, CBS, Entercom, Cumulus, Salem, etc.) want to do that, especially if the potential tenant's plan is to put a new competitive station on the dial? That's what the stations owners themselves are in business for! The idea sounds similar to an organization leasing an SCA channel, however the only ones I've ever heard of (haven't done extensive research on the subject) were either for Muzak (completely different audience/client than commercial radio) or foreign language programming where the foreign language has no other radio outlet.

(Perhaps) have a back-up signal hd2 channel leased from a different station to simulcast and to switch over quickly as needed! (W)ould this concept work?
Considering many companies own more than one station on FM in the markets they serve these days, I have no clue why they would want to do this except in some sort of emergency. It's true I'm a nobody with no inside info., but still, why would competitors set themselves up like this?!

I agree 100% about the relationship between car radios and mainstream acceptance of HD. We also need HD portables, but low power HD chips seem to be slow in development... Perhaps by next Christmas ??
That could be what it would take for HD Radio to catch on, if all the new MP3 players (or maybe even cell phones) had HD Radio tuners.

KOPB HD is off the air while a problem is diagnosed on their combiner section. The analog transmitter is running into their aux antenna while tests are being done.

We tried to run extended hybrid mode on KQOL back in October, but had too much trouble with the communication between the Importer and Exporter. Manufacturers are about to release an updated version of the Ibiquity code to offer better control of the channel allotments in all service modes.

RE: audio quality of the channels - - it really depends on the station. Does the STL run at 20 kHz of bandwidth, are separate processing chains being utilized, etc.? Of the 6 HD signals for Clear Channel in Portland, all are running on independent processors. Unfortunately, KKCW-HD2 is running an Orban 8400 which is bandwidth limited to 15 kHz. The other 5 have processors capable of 20 kHz of bandwidth.

Hearing that the KOPB-HD is off the air, I checked the 91.9 translator to see it sounded like, just out of curiosity. There is still some interference, of course, from the KGON-HD, but it is a bit cleaner. I do realize that this is a receiver bandwidth issue and that radios with narrower bandpasses are less likely to experience this problem.

I had asked about the bit rates because I am a bit skeptical about the claim that HD-2 could sound better than HD-1, when it uses a lower bit rate.

Now for a very plaintive question: why is there a need for trolling on this topic? The interference and performance issues are engineering issues, and they should be discussed as such. There is no need to bring in taunting, debate society tactics, or marketing guy bullshit in here.

Likewise, KMUN (91.9 Astoria) seems to be a bit cleaner this weekend even though signal levels are fairly low. Right now, I am listening to Muschi's Nachtmusik and the RDS kicked in indicating "KMUN FM". I have not seen that in a long time!

I'm amazed to hear that KKCW HD2 is limited to 15khz because that's one of the best sounding stations to my ears! The timing of KOPB-HD being off the air on the heels of the Golden Hours announcement made me think they were removing the HD3 and restoring bits to the HD2.

Most people have very little, if any, sensitivity to sounds in the 15-20kHz frequency range. I think that the perceived quality depends almost entirely on how the processing handles the dynamics and the spectral characteristics of the audio below 15kHz. In other words, it is a combination of the compression ratios (I am talking about audio level, not data reduction here), the crossover frequencies, and the overall EQ that the processing imparts on the sound. The quality of the source material also plays a big part.

Sadly, on that last point, the mastering quality of many pop recordings seems to have gone down in the last decade or so. I have bought some fairly recent release CDs where a look at the waveforms shows that the mastering engineers turned the levels up too high, resulting in flat-topping of the waveforms. Audio processing generally doesn't deal very well with this type of material, and in some cases, it can make the distortion more apparent.

The reason it sounds better even with 15kHz audio is because the HD does not have HF preemphasis as does the analog.

The lack of HF pre-emphasis, limiting, and clipping would be a big factor. However, I had interepreted the original claim to be that the KKCW HD signal sounded better than the HD signals of other radio stations.

Not only no pre-emphasis or clipping with processing for HD, but since there is no concern about delay, so that they can use a final way-clean look-ahead limiter.

FM HD Radio listeners get spoiled by the lack of multipath, the lack of pre/de-emphasis and clipping, and 20 dB more stereo separation.

For HD2 processing, I assume some radio groups are using FM processors with the pre-emphasis turned off and hopefully the clipping turned all the way down. Others are using processors designed for data-reduced audio and limited digital bandwidth that have no clipping and anticipate what the codec will do to the audio and try to correct for it.

It would be a shame to process the crap out of an HD2 signal when it doesn't really need to be LOUD, it just needs to overcome road noise in your car.

Most stations besides OPB are running a 48/48 HD1/HD2 split. OPB HD3 was about 33 kbps, after they found out that 32 or less is locked into mono by Ibiquity.

So All three KOPB HD channels are (were...they are still off) running about 33/33/33 ? Wow, to my ears the HD 1 sounds better than that.

KOPB HD just came back on, several observations:

1. AIN (GH) is still on the HD-3 channel.
2. My tuner says "MP-1" so they are not running in the "extended hybrid" mode.
3. Bad echo between Analog and HD-1 during switching.
4. KMUN (91.9 Astoria) *seems* to be as "clean" as when KOPB HD was off.

....Author: Alfredo_t
Friday, March 14, 2008 - 2:53 pm


Why is your friend's desire to start an Internet streaming station germane to the HD Radio question?....

I received an email from him the other day, saying that MAYBE this is the way to go, like HD radio is something he just heard of.

This friend of mine has dreamed of starting up a for-profit internet radio station for about 7 to 10 years from now, with people broadcasting in-studio, or from remote locations around the world. He has never been able to come up with the capital he needs to get this project off the ground. He has led me to believe several times that he just about had all the I's crossed and the T's dotted, but it always dies before that happens. Recently, I had him forward me an email he received, offering a $3 million line of credit. I didn't even have to get halfway through it to realize it was a variation of the Nigerian Scam. Now, comes the HD angle. I can't believe he doesn't know that HD radio is what it is, an alternative signal owned by already operating broadcasters, that wouldn't get out of a local market, let alone around the world on the www.

So, when I received his latest "Golly gee, how about this?" email the other day, it struck me as another grasping at straws thing. He asked me to find out what HD Radio was, so I came here and started this thread, where I knew I would get the technical answers he was seeking.

Thanks to everyone for replying.

"I have bought some fairly recent release CDs where a look at the waveforms shows that the mastering engineers turned the levels up too high, resulting in flat-topping of the waveforms."

I know exactly what you mean. I subscribe to Rhapsody for 12.99 a month. I can listen to about 90% of all recordings ever released for free in "jukebox" mode. I play an album, and record it in real-time into Cool Edit Pro. Then I save the files and transfer them to my MP3 player. It's labor-intensive, but I get the whole album on my hard drive. I don't feel bad about it, because I don't sell or distribute the content. Anyway, when I look at the wave form from most new songs, I see that the loud part of the song is flat-topped pretty badly. The latest Flogging Molly album was an extreme example of this. It's fatiguing on the ears when played loudly. The exception to this is country music. It seems to be behind the times in production value, which in this case, is a good thing! I only hope that the raw audio is better modulated, giving hope to a future release of a more "open" sounding version.

A DVD audio release is often better than the CD release, in this regard.

Worth looking at, if you've found some great music, hammered this way.

Major bummer for me. It's just too ugly to bother with. A little of this can be good and artistic. More than that, and it's just crap.

Of course, with the current generations just hammering their ears with that crap, played loud, maybe the remasters won't actually matter!

As long as you're paying a subscription fee, it sounds to me like it falls in with the Betamax case and is perfectly legal.

The part that I find frustrating about these mastering errors is that there is no way to know if or how they can be avoided. Buying an audio DVD or a deluxe edition CD (if available) will get around the problem only if the recordings used to produce these media were upstream in the process from the engineering error that caused flat topping. What about MP3s? If a distorted CD was used as the source, then you are screwed.

This is germane to a radio discussion because recordings with excessive clipping can wreak havoc on broadcast processing. To make matters worse, the audio processing can highlight the distortion. The end result, in extreme cases, is that these distorted recordings sound quiet and grungy when played on the air.

"This is germane to a radio discussion because recordings with excessive clipping can wreak havoc on broadcast processing."

Is this true even with solid-state/ digital processing?!

Very true though about garbage in = garbage out!

What you are talking about in reference to audio levels on currently produced CD's are not "mastering errors"

It is intentional. It's the style now days. Loudness wars on CD, just like used to be on radio.

here is an article from a few years back that explains whats going on.

http://www.austin360.com/arts/content/music/stories/xl/2006/09/28cover.html

Kex say its "HD Digital",meaning hybrid digital digital i suppose?if it's broke dont fix it.it's broke now- too much noise!!!!!

Thanks for the link. Years ago, someone made a comment on rec.radio.broadcasting about the radio loudness wars that I think applies to the CD loudness wars: "Keep the compression UP. Keep the distortion DOWN." (This was in response to somebody that said that stations simply need to back off the audio compression.) I can deal with compression (within limits), but it is the clipping distortion that is awful. I was a bit surprised, by the way, to read in that article that at one time CD mastering companies refused to press stuff that was clipped.

I just don't get it. Radio has TSL and cume to worry about. Once you buy a CD, why does the label care if you pause the CD to listen to something else for a while? The motivation seems to be from a mentality that is completely void of artistic consideration. This is ironic, considering it's sometimes the ARTISTS who are asking for the loudness!

62kgw: iBiquity states that HD isn't an abbreviation for anything, so saying "HD digital" would be proper grammar.

http://www.ibiquity.com/about_us/trademarks

Click on "Trademark Usage Guidelines" for more information.

I don't see why the definition of "HD" is being brought up again. It was proven in a previous thread that "HD" is a marketing without any real meaning. Picture the following scenario: I run a company that creates a competing digital broadcast standard called "CD Digital." My marketing guys hope that the public associates "CD" with the sound quality of compact discs. Some people then start a rumor that "CD" stands for "Compatible Digital" because my system offers a hybrid mode that allows the signals to be received on conventional analog radios.

I just examined the waveforms from Boston's More Than A Feeling, and compared it with the brand new Alan Jackson CD. The dynamics are very similar. It's odd how engineers for Country music recordings stay more true to tradition. Maybe it's because the Country demo is older than the pop/rythmic demo.

someone here on pdxradio in the past has said if you cut out all above 5 khz, then its automaticly Percieved as LOUDERand the ratings go up!!!.which HD2's are doin thatnow??

HD2's Dont do that.

That's for AM HD and has to do with decreasing the effect of interference, something that's really needed at night in many cases.

I have two question and a comment regarding the two subjects that this thread has split off into. I hope that I'm not too incoherent from my lack of sleep last night.

Question, subject 1: Are there full-blown professional independent Internet-only radio stations that turn a profit? By that, I mean that the station has people on its payroll, it delivers live programming (not just podcasts), and its operations are not subsidized by other radio stations, a conglomerate, or a program syndicator. In other words, has anybody successfully pulled off what Ousider's friend is trying to do? If so, who?

Question, subject 2: The FM Waveforms paper talks about the different MP-n modes, which provide one or more data channels (P-x and S-y). However, these channels are not to be confused with the HD-1, HD-2, etc. data streams that we talk about on this board. Does anybody know of a paper that talks about the different audio codec options? For instance, if a station only intended on running mono spoken-word programming on its HD2 and they deemed that they wanted the best possible quality on the HD-1, is there a service option to allow this? (Example: HD-1 is used for classical music, HD-2 is used for a full-time simulcast of BBC World Service)

Comment (and you know who you are): Please knock it off with the facetious comments. There are legitimate questions in some of your posts, but the legitimate aspects are overshadowed by the sarcasm and snide remarks. I am reminded of a skit that I saw on 3-2-1 Contact or some similar PBS show when I was a kid. The message behind the skit was that if you yell and insult people, you're not likely to get very useful help.

does HD Radio sound better than wifi Eadio??

........Author: Alfredo_t
Thursday, March 20, 2008 - 11:30 am


I have two question and a comment regarding the two subjects that this thread has split off into. I hope that I'm not too incoherent from my lack of sleep last night.

Question, subject 1: Are there full-blown professional independent Internet-only radio stations that turn a profit? By that, I mean that the station has people on its payroll, it delivers live programming (not just podcasts), and its operations are not subsidized by other radio stations, a conglomerate, or a program syndicator. In other words, has anybody successfully pulled off what Ousider's friend is trying to do? If so, who?........

Alfredo, you described exactly what my friend is trying to do. I haven't heard of anyone else who has been able to pull off what my friend is trying to do.

I am all for chasing dreams, but I'm at a loss as to why this one has taken so long and is seemingly no closer to fruition than when I first heard about it.

There's an additional reason that I'm interested in whether anyone has successfully run a profit-making Internet radio station: A few weeks ago, I heard a commercial--I think on K103--for a company that sells advertising time on "Internet radio stations." In my recollection, the purpose of the commercial was to draw investors. When I heard this ad, I wondered, is this legitimate or is it a scam?

Under optimal conditions, HD Radio on FM sounds better than anything short of a well mastered compact disc.

I heard the above mentioned Internet radio advertising commercial again yesterday, this time on KINK. The name of the company is TargetSpot. They are trying to attract customers, rather than investors, with their commercials. They provide a do-it-yourself commercial making kit of software tools, and then somehow get these ads put on Internet radio stations (i.e. I don't know whether they run the stations or if they just buy advertising time on them).

What is up with 1640, Radio Disney?
I noticed yesterday and today that the HD does not stay locked on that station. Where it normally does. On Friday about 4:30PM, Driving on Sunnyside Road just below the towers, it would not stay locked, nor would it stay locked driving out Sunnyside to Damascus, or even by Toys-R-US. The signal should be strong there but it did not stay locked. Their 1330 signal does. Normally it works in that area but not the last couple days. Normally, I don't listen to it except when my 11 yr. old is in the car and she likes everything Disney and likes the station because she likes the music. She was getting annoyed that it kept dropping in and out of lock. At least it was in sync.

I noticed the same thing on 1330 but didn't sample 1640. I was in the K-Mart parking lot on the Milwaukie Expressway, well within the 100mv/m coverage area, I would say!

From Hillsboro with a Sangean HDT-1 tuner connected to a "long wire antenna" (only about 100 ft), I notice many dropouts on 1640... 1330 seems to be ok. Normally both are solid during daytime hours. I checked the signal strength of the 1640 HD sideband at 1654.56 Khz (using a communications receiver) and it appears to be strong (10db over S-9) and CONSTANT, even when the dropouts are occuring.

time to turn HD junk off onthe AM band!!!!!! too much noise!!!!poor quality!!!return to Pureanalog AM Please.?

No.






And stop asking.

I'm not trying to be demeaning, but I think that it is completely unrealistic to expect that comments and requests on an Internet message board could override management decisions in radio or any other professional enterprise. I don't like how IBOC sidebands are adding to the interference on the AM band, especially at night, but I am not Cris Alexander (Crawford Broadcasting VP of engineering), Jeff Littlejohn (Clear Channel VP of engineering), or any other radio "bigwig" in a position to mandate or forbid the use of IBOC equipment at any radio station. Why do you waste your time with overly general complaints that don't contain enough specific or new information for anybody to find discussion worthy? And why am I wasting my time trying to be rational?

you got to do what you got to do, and try to influence whoever might listen!!!!!!!Sometimes Local peoplewho know the issues at least superficially do have influence over the bigwigs back east!!can we Presume Jeff Littlejohn and other professional bigwigs approved the removal of teHD from 620????If it's(HD) so important,why haven't they tried to to modify whatever to be able to turn itHD620IBAC) on again???even I can tell them how to fix it, if they have no idea about what they could do!!!!!!If I had more resources, I or somebody could hire a JLab to take accurate measurementsto re-inforce the casualamateur observations!!!but would a bunch of dB graphs change their policiesif they were set up by the financial dreamer dept??

According to the Ibiquity website, the following communities will soon have HD radio stations: Bend, Coos Bay, Hood River, Myrtle Point, Newport and Reedsport.

Where are you finding that? the list that I see does not show these stations... It does not even show KQAC which is known to be broadcasting in HD.

http://www.ibiquity.com/hd_radio/hdradio_find_a_station?state=OR&sortBy=undefine d#stationlist

According to that station list, KEX is a Full Service/AC radio station!

Above the map is a drop down menu that says, "Show all stations/Markets" and another for the right state. Once you're on "Oregon", it should work. KQAC has only been authorized for about 3 weeks! The website probably doesn't constantly update.

Thanks! now I am getting this:

"We are having minor technical difficulties with our station guide, which will be fixed shortly. In the interim, if you are aware of any errors, please notify us by email at broadcaster@iBiquity.com."

AT THE RISK OF BEING REPETATIVE,keX 11 90am IN THE PAST HAS SOUNDED CLEAN AND BREATHTAKING!THE am SIGNAL NOW IS QUITE TERRIBLE WITH THE HD NOISES!mY WIFE(ALSO KIND OF "TONE DEAF"?? COMPLAINEDTO ME ABOUT THE HISS NOISEON KEX RECENTLYDURING THE C2C SHOWBESIDES SWITCHING THE DIGITAL hd OFF, THEY SHOUULD ALSO TURN OFF THE TREBLE FILTERS TO RESUME THE HIGH QUALITY ANALOG SOUND!!!!!i HAVE NOT LISENED MUCH TO THE OTHER AM-HD STATIONS.i ASSUME THEY ARE AS BAD AS 1180-1190-1200IS NOW!!!???i SHOULD NOT HAVE TO BUY A NEW RADIO TO HEAR GOOD AUDIO!!!!!

I didn't check the Ibiquity site again last night but it seems to be just fine now. It worked about 20 minutes before your post.

62, turn OFF the caps.

You are in the minority. KEX in HD sounds just great. No noise, even when the MAX goes by. If you are having trouble on that old radio, try tuning to the center of the frequency. Even on an old radio, KEX now sounds better than KISN did in it's heyday on the old transmitter with old radios that put a constant ringing into the audio due to the 455kc IF second harmonic at 910. There was always a whistle depending how on/off frequency you were. Plus they always overdrove everything for loudness on that old 1kW transmitter. 50 years later, everyone can reminisce about how good the station was but they forgot that the audio was not clean... compared to the other stations playing the same stuff at the time. KGW always sounded good on that old transmitter and so did KEX and KXL on AM.

62 - KEX in HD has the best sounding (audio-quality anyway) on the AM dial!

Come over to the dark side! HD radios are cheap these days!

Since this thread was brought back from the dead, I'd like to make a comment/question about the other topic that it tried to address: Internet radio.

Some weeks ago, I visited my friend Ethan and his brother, who operate an Internet radio station called "Mountain Radio" as a hobby. The station's format is "chill music" (modern easy listening with an electronic/new age flavor), and there is a one-hour live talk show every Sunday morning. At the time that I toured the station, Ethan showed me that there were 15 listeners. He said that this was a fairly typical number.

Years ago, a friend had suggested to me that I should put together an Internet radio station, and I was seriously considering it for a while. What has made it seem much less attractive is the catch-22 that on the one hand, automated jukeboxes are a dime-a-dozen and are not exciting to listen to (in my opinion), but on the other hand, I seriously question whether I would want to make a commitment to sit behind a mixing board even for 2-4 hours a week for an audience that will seldom break 20 people.

Check somafm.com

They offer 14 different music channels. Right now they have over 8800 total people logged on.
The "Chill" format indicates 4411 right now.

If you move on to 365live, a clearing house of Internet stations and formats, there are hundreds of thousands logged on.

Those two Internet reference points are just a small portion of what's offered.

I'm not saying "nobody listens to Internet radio" or "nobody listens to chill music." What I had suspected is more along the lines that there are so many Internet radio stations that unless you promote heavily and get to be an established brand name (like somafm), your listenership will be very small. The station that Ethan and his brother run has its own domain name, but they don't do any promotions.

Even though the Live 365 stations collectively pull in hundreds of thousands of listeners, it takes thousands of stations (according to the Live 365 site) to bring in this many listeners. Maybe affiliating with Live 365 improves listenership in the same way that a video is more likely to be seen if posted on YouTube than on a personal web page because people go to those web sites looking for those types of media. Still, it would be interesting to see some statistics on how many Live 365 radio stations are able to break 25, 50, 100, 200, etc. listeners.

Noticed that KOPB-HD is off... did the combiner melt down again?

Update 7:05 this outage made for a nice DX opportunity, however... I just got a first time ever ID of KXOT (91.7) in Tacoma. They were broadcasting Deutsche Welle news.

Props to whoever is programming KOPB HD-2... Portland has needed a public station that plays this variety of music for quite some time...

This is what KBOO should be doing but of couse can't and wont ever.

Heard on KWJJ-HD2 about 10:30 Saturday morning an ad/promo for attending an event in February. Didn't say whether it was 2008 or 2009. It was just before they played some old tune that sounded like it was taken from an early 1930's talkies movie (quality wise).

Ditto, regarding KOPB-HD2! Best music variety I've heard on the Portland radio dial hands down. Now if their technical staff could step it up to get USEFUL PAD running on the station(s). I heard an XTC cut off of English Settlement earlier today. Yum!

Maybe KBOO could focus on music with an HD-2 format. Of course, it sounds like they are a long way from there, considering they can't even time-align their primary signal after 3 years.

An update on the corporate jukebox formats; Smooth Jazz (KKCW-HD2) will be adding voice tracks from the likes of Ramsey Lewis and Dave Koz very soon. If you're into "Smooth Jazz", this format is sounding better.

I was somewhat surprised they didn't just move the satellite fed portion of the 105.9 Smooth Jazz format to 103.3 HD2. Is that what they're going to do now?

If KEX thinks HD is so greate, then how come they keep doing adds for the CCRadio SW version saying thats the best sounding radio for AM??!!Huh??

Likely, C.Crane paid the program syndicator of George Noory or any of the other syndicated shows that are played on KEX. This is the reverse of the situation with Dr. Dean Edell and Airborne. There, Airborne bought ads on the individual stations that run Dr. Dean. This was done to give the false impression that Dr. Dean endorses Airborne.

I wouldn't be too surprised if KEX accepted advertising from C.Crane for the CCRadio SW. These days, stations accept advertising, even if it doesn't fit the station's sound or it promotes something designed to compete with the station's programming, such as satellite radio.

Smooth Jazz was never satellite fed, even on 105.9. It was all done with voice tracks. There are relatively few changes to the music library on a regular basis, so you're only dealing with a small amount of WAN bandwidth to transfer logs and voice track segments. This also allows for easy time-shifting of the same day parts from coast to coast.

Well, apparently I'm an old dog and this is clearly a new trick. I just assumed that since KIJZ was staffed with well known jazz musicians that it was a service, provided by satellite. That's what happens when you get out of the business for 10 years. You can't identify an apple when presented with an orange! Thanks for setting me straight, Chris.

1040 KXPD, Tigard has their HD running now.

No stereo content - yet.

KEX is STILL the only HD AM that I can lock in Hillsboro without resorting to using my outside "longwire" (ok it's only 100 ft... not really long).

KEX HD is difficult for me most of the time because of electrical interference from television sets during the day. About the only Portland HD AM I can get is KDZR 1640 because it is pretty much alone during the daytime even up here. Most Portland HD FM stations I can get but only a few are difficult and this is using a roof top antenna.

DID ANYONE NOTICE ANY EFFECTS TO AM HD RELATED TO THE LIGHTNING THE OTHER EVENING??.PLEASE DESCRIBE THE SYMPTOMS TRIGGERED BY THE LIGHTNING.,.OR IS IT TOTALLY IMMUNE TO LIGHTNING INTRTFERENCEEITHER TO LOCAL OR DISTANT AMHD SIGNALS??HOW ABOUT FM HD??

I believe the lightning struck your caps lock button.

A friend donated an older model HD car tuner to me so that I could do my own listening tests. This radio does not have the capability to decode the "FM" multicast channels (HD-2, HD-3, etc.).

So far, I have sampled all of the Portland stations offering HD broadcasts, but the only one that I have listened to for extended periods of time so far is KEX.

Of particular interest to me at this point is the mediumwave system's (technically, it's not AM) immunity to interference and the quality of the audio codec. For all listening tests, I have been using a home built outdoor loop antenna. My location is a few blocks from downtown Hillsboro.

My general observation has been that the mediumwave system can tolerate short, one-time bursts of interference or signal outages. However, it cannot handle continuous or repetitive inteference, even at moderate-sounding levels. I have not been able to get HD reception under the noisy signal conditions that many people consider to be a big, if not the main, detractor to AM listening.

I have observed several examples of how the system behaves when subjected to impulse noise:
1) During the thunderstorm on Sunday, there were interference blasts of varying duration. I was only able to receive the KKPZ and KDZR in HD for a few seconds out of some 10 minutes of listening to each. KEX HD was received, but it blended to analog once every minute or so.
2) A lot of impulse noise is generated when I run the microwave oven because the circuit that it is plugged into has grounding that was retrofitted to it, and the ground takes a different path back to the breaker box than the hot and neutral. These blasts of interference repeat every few seconds, and they knock out the KEX HD, even under otherwise good reception conditions.

During the day, I can receive KXPD, KEX, KKPZ, and KDZR in HD. At night, I can only receive the KEX HD. I have not had success with receiving any skywave HD stations. I sometimes experience nighttime selective fading on KEX that knocks out the HD. The general rule of thumb for nighttime HD reception seems to be, if you tune an analog radio with a "normal" bandwidth to +/-10 kHz from a HD station, and you can hear other radio stations punching through both HD sidebands, you will not be able to receive HD.

The codec is very interesting in that the amount of audible artifacts seem to depend on the bandwidth of the source material. While listening to KEX during "The Sunday Magazine" and "The Billy Cunningham Show," this effect became pretty apparent. Telephone audio sounded clean and artifact-free. Studio audio from Billy Cunningham had a slight amount of audible artifacts; that is, it could be heard if one listened closely. Audio from the KEX studios had very audible artifacts.

KXPD and KEX have the least audible artifacts. Both KKPZ and KDZR have high frequency artifacts that are noticeable and somewhat annoying; the sound is a lot like playing a damaged DAT tape or a bad CD-R. I do not know whether these artifacts are the result of the signal-to-noise ratio on 1330 and 1640 being marginal (thus forcing the receiver into "core" mode), or if it is due to these stations encoding the HD signal differently. Although I only had a chance to listen to it briefly this morning, the KXPD HD sounded pretty good in that it was relatively artifact-free and the bass notes sounded "punchy" (i.e. not over-processed). The stereo imaging was very poor, though.

This morning, I was able to receive K103 HD in Eugene...and heard Smooth Jazz 103.3 HD2.

What type of antenna were you using? Does KKCW normally put a signal into your location, or was this a short term phenomenon, such as ducting or skip?

This was during short term atmospheric enhancement, using a regular dipole. I was only able to hear 103.3 HD for a few minutes. The HD indicator was blinking on 100.3 and 105.1, but it never locked in. I didn't see any hint of an HD signal on 92.3 or 97.1, probably due to the low antenna elevation.

iT CAME TO MY ATTENTION THAT KGO SWITHCED OFF THE HD AT NIGHT. ANYONE KNOW WHAT TRIGGERED THEM TO DO THAT??

This report is old, but I have not seen an indication of KGO HD (from my location in Hillsboro) since.

http://www.radioworld.com/pages/s.0121/t.8847.html

This morning, I found that I can now lock in KXPD HD without resorting to an outside antenna... did they increase the HD power?

Also, I hear no evidence of stereo on KXPD at all.

update 10:30
Darn, my microwave killed the HD lock for a few minutes while I was heating coffee. 7 seconds after the microwave stopped, the KXPD HD locked in again. Loop antenna for the XDR-F1HD tuner is about 12 feet from the microwave.

check this out! HD radio for under $100.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=1055 1&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665401984

> Also, I hear no evidence of stereo on KXPD at all.

When I listened to KXPD briefly yesterday morning, I heard some parts of the mix moving a little bit across the soundstage, as if somebody were turning a pan control back and forth. It sounded similar to the joint-stereo mode of some early MP3 encoders. KDZR had much better stereo separation in that it sounded like a real stereo mix, but the high frequency artifacts were very noticeable and annoying.

Notalent said:

"check this out! HD radio for under $100."

YES!... that's what I am using now. It is also a GREAT DX tuner... I am logging stations that are 1st adjacent to the Portland stations that I have never heard before. (such as KPQ 102.1 in Wenatchee and the low power KWAX repeater on 92.9 near Salem). See Review by K6STI:

http://www.ham-radio.com/k6sti/xdr-f1hd.htm

"An extremely sharp digital IF filter eliminates adjacent-channel interference in nearly all cases."

"Sound quality for slightly marginal to deeply compromised signals is strikingly better than that from conventional tuners. The performance of the Sony XDR-F1HD on stereo FM is spectacular and unprecedented."

This tuner is indeed really good for pulling weak FM stations "out of the mud", and is now the only tuner that I use for FM DXing.

Oh Yes! It does HD as well
And for only $100

The Sony XDR-F1HD is available from Amazon for $99.95 with free shipping. If you purchase before 9/30, there's a $50 rebate.

http://www.hdradio.com/rebate/

All of the ABC AM stations have discontinued HD operation at night until improvements can be made on co and adjacent channel interference.

IN OTHER WORDS BECAUSE OF THE NOISE AND INTERFERENCE!!!!!!WHAT A SURPRISE??i THOUGH IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN DUE TO COVERAGE ISSUES?HOW ABOUT KSL AND KFBK??BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD??

I will do a bandscan tonight with the ol' SRF-42 to see which of the out-of-market AM stations are still running IBOC at night. If there are any, I will try to see if they can be received in HD--though I don't have much hope that they could be, based on my overall lack of success with nighttime HD reception.

62kgw,
In rehab did they teach you how to type without the caps lock on? Just curious.

I did the bandscan, and the only skywave signals with HD sidebands that I could find were KNX (1070) and KSL (1160). I am hearing lightning crashes and the propagation isn't too stellar tonight, so this is probably not the night for skywave HD reception.

While doing the bandscan, I found the San Francisco 1550 playing a funny song about breasts. We are in the safe harbor hours, so they can get away with it. I think one of the lyrics said, "God, can you save the girls with small boobs for me!"

My car has been in the shop so I just got a chance to sample 1040. It sounds similar to FM but they're running too much bass. That's just a processing thing so maybe, it will work out for them. Just listening around Clackamas, I didn't hear many dropouts, even at 200 watts and really, only on top of 1520.

Yesterday, during daylight hours, I sampled the four Portland area mediumwave HD stations again. This time, 1040 was definitely running stereo audio. However, their sound now had much more noticeable artifacting than before. I also noted that the tuner that I'm using almost randomly switches back and forth from mono to stereo on all four HD stations in our area. The "ST" indicator blinks on and off, and the sound blends back and forth. I will try another antenna sometime tomorrow to see if the loop is to blame.

Alfredo, sometimes what you are describing can be attributed to an insufficient ground on the tuner. especially a car tuner, needs to have a ground strap installed from the metal chassis of the radio to the metal of the car. helps tremendously.

I will try some different grounding configurations and of course, a different antenna. I am not yet using the radio, though it is a car radio, in a vehicle. Instead, the signals are coming from the outdoor loop antenna that I mentioned earlier. This antenna has two tuned circuits coupled together in what was once called a "bandpass" configuration. It could be possible that this distorts the signals in an unacceptable way, as I designed that circuit back in 1999 and never intended for it to be able to pass IBOC signals. The next antenna that I intend to try is a longwire without any tuning circuits. As it is set up right now, I don't hear any traces of impulse noise on the analog signal, but it can't hurt to try something different.

I'd highly recommend you take a look at the AM white paper on the Ibiquity site to get a better idea of the waveforms you're trying to decode. It should help make more sense of this for you. http://ibiquity.com/i/pdfs/Waveforms_AM.pdf

The stereo information is buried in the digital sidebands immediately adjacent to the main analog signal, and only modulating at 37 to 43 db below the carrier (depending on the affect on sideband regrowth these are dialed down). These carriers can really get buried by analog audio bandwidth greater than 5 kHz, very dense modulation, or just low carrier level in comparison with the noise floor at that spot in the MW band.

When we're talking about 'core' mode, this is the primary digital sidebands, with a mono signal encoded at roughly 20 kbps. At that low a bandwidth it is tough to mask the encoding artifacts. Some approaches are to limit the bandwidth, or process lightly (no limiting). The latter can be tough to accomplish if you're trying to achieve a seemless blend to analog.

I've found that KEX is able to maintain a robust signal on the primary digital sidebands (on my Kenwood radio) out to about the 1mV contour. I have not had the time to set up a rig for testing the robustness of the secondary carriers.

If all those major stations kgo,etc gave it up, then isn't thaMajor Blow/setback for the entire AM HD Radioimplementation plan???? did stock price for ibiqtity drop??

If ABC stations(KGO,etc.) were supposed to delete AMHDIBOC, then how about 1640disney radio?Dis-noise??Also KEX is affiliated withABC news?they should also dfelete the HD Noises,soon please??

Are there any radios that can display whether the MA1 or MA2 mode is being transmitted? Or, does anyone know what Portland area stations are using?

The comparison of the longwire vs. loop antenna proved interesting. If I use the longwire antenna, stereo reception of KXPD and KEX is solid during the day. However, KKPZ is not received in HD, and KDZR is received mono HD.

If I use the loop antenna, I have to be careful to tune it dead center to receive KXPD without the stereo dropping out frequently. All four stations can be received in HD with the loop.

1040 appears not to be running any processing their HD audio, except for the gain leveling that they apply to the network feed. The reason that I say this is that the volume on Portland commercials that are dropped in tend to not match the network feed. Yesterday, I heard some commercials that were extremely loud, and today, I am hearing commercials that are buried in "the basement."

At the time that I am writing this, I am listening to KXPD on the longwire antenna, and the stereo light has started blinking on and off. I will keep listening to see when skywave interference clobbers the HD.

My Sangean HDT-1 says KEX, KXPD and KDZR are running MA1... can't lock onto 1330 right now, will try it in the morning.

Update 8:30:
KKPZ is also MA1... I had to attenuate the longwire signal a bit, because of overload from 1360.

I was able to get HD reception, with the loop, for a few minutes after KXPD went to its night power.

Disney kept the O&Os that air Radio Disney and sold the former ABC O&O stations. Clear Channel owned KEX has nothing to do with any of that.

I did a check on Radio-Locator of KGO and KDZR to find the owners of each; these both used to be Disney/ABC.

KGO: Radio License Holding Viii, LLC
KDZR: Radio Disney Group, LLC

Is this "Radio License Holding" company a real company, or is it a Radio-Locator placeholder name. For instance if one were to look up WLS AM or FM, the same name comes up but with a different Roman numeral at the end.

Searching for KGO on the FCC website comes up with the following:
"RADIO LICENSE HOLDING VIII, LLC"

Probably a lot like the KEX search that comes up with:
"CITICASTERS LICENSES, L.P."

(Yes, I know one's Citadel and the other's Clear Channel... just making a point.)

"Is this "Radio License Holding" company a real company, or is it a Radio-Locator placeholder name."

KGO is owned by Citadel and is known as "Citadel Broadcasting San Francisco".

From the KGO website:
As of June 12, 2007, Radio License Holding VIII, LLC, licensee of KGO(AM) and KSFO(AM), was subject to a transfer of control (as defined by the FCC) from The Walt Disney Company to the shareholders of Walt Disney Co. and Citadel Broadcasting Corporation, pursuant to a transfer of control application filed on FCC Form 315. See, Citadel Broadcasting Company, Memorandum Opinion and Order and Notice of Apparent Liability, FCC 07-41 (released April 4, 2007).

But none of that will satisfy 62kgw's mind. He really needs to just buy an HD radio and he will discover that KEX and KDZR sound just fine with HD and there is no noise. You may not like the programming but the sound quality does improve on AM with HD.

To answer his other question about lightning on HD, I drove from Lake Oswego through Portland to Troutdale about 9:30PM-10PM on Wednesday evening during the lightning that was lighting the sky and the HD light stayed on the whole time and I heard no noise or change in the audio. Just my experience at that moment.
1040 does sound good. Love the bass. Best sound on AM right now.

You have had more success with HD reception than I have had, but the locations that you cited are closer to the transmitters of the various HD stations than mine (downtown Hillsboro). I would be more than happy to let 62kgw listen to the HD Radio that was provided to me so that he can have some data on which to base his comments.

From what I have been hearing, the AM HD quality question depends on which is more annoying to you as a listener: High frequency digital compression artifacts (HD)? Or medium level background noise with a few occasional louder crackles (analog AM)? For example, when I listen to 1040 in HD, there is no background noise; it is dead silence. The bass notes have a lot of punch, due to the lack of processing (although this might just be a temporary situation). However, there are high frequency artifacts that are very noticeable on voices and on some types of instruments. The treble sounds crisp on cymbals and hi-hats, although occasionally, it sounds somewhat fake. By comparison, the former Sunny 1520 in AM stereo had no audible digital artifacts. However, the background was never dead silence, and there was processing, though relatively modest in its application. The highs did not sizzle on Sunny 1520 in AMAX stereo like they do on 1040 in HD. KXPD in HD is much like listening to a Real Audio stream, whereas KKSN-AM in AMAX stereo was much like listening to a type-normal cassette recorded and played back on a good cassette deck.

KOPB HD-2 now has title and artist data.

When might CBS finally launch their HD streams?

live and local DJ's had title and artist data!!!

It's related to the new antenna being operational.

"live and local DJ's had title and artist data!!!"
They seldom if ever imparted that knowledge to the listener.

...But the live & local DJs were not digital. They don't fit in "the plan."

they (live local DJ'sadded interest and kept listeners listening,plus they did indeed often give listeners title and artist ata along with other important information,lame humor,trivia,weather and traffic!!! time to cancle "the plan"!!!the diagram referenced above clearly shows the primary and secondaryt digital HDcarriersa within the audio spectrum near the main carrier,thus putting digitalnoises in place ofand addin to the normal analog audio modulation!!!!

Well, 62, as is normal with a lot of your info, I don't know what you were talking about in the last half of your last message. However, regarding the first half, yes, they did occasionally give title and artist data but as I said, they often did not. Sometimes, they would announce what they were going to play before they played. it. That is pointless because I may not know what it is until I hear it. If I hear something new, I need to be told AFTER it has played, what it is. Otherwise, it is pointless and hence no info was parted. Usually, after a selections is played, it is followed by a jingle, spot, or just chatter without telling you what you just heard. Maybe it is 3-4 songs later when they told you, which by that time it is completely forgotten. It is still that way, I am sad to say. I remember in the good old days, meaning good music days, of KXL-FM, they would tell you the next 3 selections, play them, then tell you what they just played. That works but probably is boring to today's fast action nonstop music. Having a live person to say something every 3-4 songs is kinda pointless to being live. May as well VT it for all the good many live voices do today. I know it doesn't go along with most thinking on this board but if people want to hear just music, a live announcer brings nothing to the table. My oldest teen (18) is not loyal to any station. As soon as talking/commercials start, she changes to something else that is playing music. She could care less whether it is Z100, 98.7, 99.5, 107.5, or any of the others you all say are great. I think she is not alone among her peers in that. They will stay on a station until the commercials start and go to the next one. Riding in a car with her is nothing but button pushing. The younger one (11) puts on Radio Disney and leaves it there as that is her favorite station, as she told me driving to lunch today. 1640 in HD suits her just fine. And she knows the words to all the songs they play.... most I have not even heard of.

Just my experience. Yours may vary. The kids are not radio experts like most of the people on this board proclaim to be. They just know what they like and when sitting on the dock without a radio, they play their ipod with sharing headphones or put it through their cell phone speakers for their friends to hear, also.

Alfredo,
I may have better reception for AM than you because I am on the east side closer to the transmitters. Not as close as Semoochie but closer than you on the other side of the west hills. I don't know that my experiences are as good as yours. Certainly, I have not researched it to the depth that you have. While riding in the car, I may not notice artifacts as you do or, more likely, they don't bother me. I want good crisp highs and deep solid lows. I get those with AM-HD and they are quiet with full sound. That is what is important to me. Even with artifacts, it sounds better than what we accepted listening to 910-KISN back in the '50's and early '60's with the overdriven modulation, sound, and 2X455 IF whistle all the time. KEX and KGW always sounded better but just didn't have the "kick" that the mighty low power 91 did. Basic AM sounded much better then than now. They didn't cut the lows and highs. We used to pump a lot of bass in our 56 Chevy's and Pontiacs back then with the tubed radios with the vibrators. And, most of it was all mono music on records. You could hear the scratch at the beginnings due to the repeated cueing of records. The term "disc-jockey" had real meaning back then. It was more art than merely pushing buttons on cd-players, cart machines, and computers. Many stations had 3-4 turntables in the control rooms back then, even with cart machines. Carts were used for spots and jingles, not music at first.

Having the song title and artist displayed on a radio makes the radio "feel" a lot more like an Internet audio stream or a MP3 player. Although this seems very dry and "mechanical" to me, I can appreciate why the majority of users might see this as being more user-friendly than having to listen for an announcer giving out this information.

Before this capability existed, radio stations tinkered around a lot with how they structured the announcing around the music. Here are some examples:

1) In many of the 1960s KISN airchecks that I have, each song is announced twice--once as the song is starting to play and once as the song is ending. The DJs talked over the music on this format.

2) 3 song sets became a defacto standard at many FM stations, including college radio stations. There were variations to how this was done:
2a) Announce the three songs, play them, then announce them again as in the KXL-FM example mentioned above.
2b) Do an optional teaser for one of the songs in the set, announce the first song in the set, play the three songs, and then announce the songs in reverse order after the last song ends.

3) Many college DJs got into the habit of abusing approach #2 by making the sets arbitrarily long, say 5, 6, or even 7 songs! I tried to break the WITR DJs of this tendency without much success. The problem with this, as I tried to explain to them, is that if you have a long list of songs, listeners are not going to easily be able to associate each song they heard with its title and artist.

4) Many stations today are using a pseudo-set approach to deliver "long music sets." Only the first song after a commercial or other type of break gets announced, and the song plays. Pre-produced station IDs or liners are used to break up the transitions between songs. Thus, one hears: end of break--song #1 announcement--song #1--liner--song #2--liner--song #3--etc. In this approach, the last song before a break might also get announced.

Oftentimes, a song would only be announced if it was climbing the charts. If it was already a hit, it was assumed that people already knew the song title and artist.

This from All Access:

-----------------HD Radio Receivers Bust The $100 Barrier----------------

IBIQUITY, the developer of digital HD RADIO technology, said that the all-important $100 price point for HD RADIO receivers has been smashed. The new under $100 HD RADIO devices from COBY, ILUV, JVC, PIONEER, RADIOSOPHY and SONY will see home, office and automotive uses. The latest prices represent a 30% reduction compared to a year ago.

"This price point brings the superior performance of HD RADIO receivers with attractive functionality to a much broader audience," said IBIQUITY Pres./CEO BOB STRUBLE. "Having world-class device manufacturers throw their support behind HD RADIO broadcasting, and bring devices of this outstanding quality to the retail market at such an affordable price is yet another signal of the mainstream interest in the technology."

> IBIQUITY, the developer of digital HD RADIO technology, said that the all-important $100 price
> point for HD RADIO receivers has been smashed.

This is the first time that I have seen or heard the word "smashed" to describe the meeting of a price reduction goal. Some marketing guy must have massaged this press release. Now, I only wish that a $3.50 price point on a gallon of gasoline could be "smashed."

The COBY model is the one that should be "smashed."

I have to confess that when I go to parties, I sometimes get "smashed." Haw haw haw!

the HD exciter generator circuit boards at the transmitters should be smashed/recycled for thescrap metal content!! to provide someone a fix today!!!!

This is sort of odd... right now KOPB, KOPB-HD1 AND KOPB-HD2 are running the same programming. KOPB-HD2 is lagging the other two by about 30 seconds, but is the only one to display the title/artist info.

Since KOPB is running the same program on all three of its HD subchannels, is there any audible difference in sound quality between the three?

They appear to be running the "OPB Music" (HD-2 and stream) program "In House" on Analog FM (and HD-1) Sat.& Sun. evening. To my ear (tin) the program sounds "brighter" on HD-2. Title and artist info is not displayed on the HD-1 or analog channel. Odd that the HD-2 broadcast is about 30 seconds behind the analog and HD-1 broadcast. I have not listened to the webstream of "OPB Music".

http://opbmusic.org/shows/1

According to announcement on KEEX, coast- to- coastAM has the best audio of any radio program ever!!???.Also, all you need to heareit all is CC RADDIOPLUSwith it's specially tuned speaker!!!!(i.e thus,you do not need HD !!Can anyone provide details on how coast to coastprogram might have the best audio ever?Perhaps UFOAlientech Audio processing??

When I listen to Coast to Coast, I prefer to wear a special aluminum foil hat with built-in Sony 7509HD headphones... sounds great!

"Can anyone provide details on how coast to coastprogram might have the best audio ever?"

Switch your Superadio's MW bandwidth into "Wide" mode.

"According to announcement on KEEX"

Who/where is KEEX? Is that internet radio?

should have typed "announcement on K E X",OK?

Or maybe, you should have typed "Kkkk-Eeee-Xxxx!" to convey the reverb that they use in their station IDs.
In my opinion, the quality of the Coast-to-Coast AM feed is pretty good when George Noory is on. When KEX went to its backup transmitter (with audio processing that had a wider bandwidth and less level compression), it was pretty impressive. It still sounds pretty decent on IBOC, but, of course, the codec adds audible artifacts. As far as I know, Noory does the show from a radio studio and not from his home. Ten years ago, when I used to listen to Art Bell on WHAM, the sound was pretty good, too. I believe that I remember hearing that Art used to have a satellite uplink, paid for by the program syndicator, back then.
Other shows that are done from personalities' homes, such as the Dr. Bill Wattenberg show, use other means to get the audio to the station control room, and there is a noticeable difference in the quality of the audio coming out of the KGO control room compared to that from Dr. Bill.

The CC Radio+ is "tuned" for talk, not music. Totally separate from AM-HD. They are not related.

This becomes a question of whether "good" audio means a natural sounding reproduction of a human voice, which was what I was referring to in my post, or whether "good" audio means audio that has been equalized for maximum intelligibility of a human voice in noisy conditions. For instance, if you were to ask HAM radio operators who are into contesting, where they try to log as many contacts as possible in a finite amount of time, about the audio that they use, the HAMs would tell you that they roll off frequencies below 500 Hz! Of course, this would make the voice sound very tinny and unnatural and possibly unpleasant to listen to for extended periods of time. However, it does help to emphasize the part of the audio spectrum that is most important to hear the differences between different speech sounds. I would think that 62kgw should be aware of this because this topic has come up before.

Back when I worked at Telco, The regular telephone lines were equalized/set for 300-3kHz bandwidth. That is basically where all speech is. The audio lines for tv and radio audio, network feeds, etc., were equalized from 20 - 15kHz. We frequently would run equalization tests on those lines around 2-4AM. Anyone working at network radio stations at 6AM back in the mid to late '60's would get a daily phone call from us around 5-6AM verifying their network line was intact and sounding fine.
Eventually, in the early '70's, network audio and video went from telcom to a private microwave outfit, the name escapes me now, but they were downtown around 12th and Morrison or near there. That freed up the telco microwaves and cables for telephone service.

There has been a lot of talk lately about global warming causing the fires in California now. Some say it is due to environmentalist restrictions. Before there was any of that, I remember in the '50's and '60's that we would pretty much hear about the forest fires around Redding every year because they would burn up the long distance cables and would need to be replaced. It was always in the 110's in Redding back then.

I think K E X is really giving out a "mixed message" about HD,CCradio, etc.oh well??

Jimbo--

That's how Muzak used to do it too, before satellite/microwave distribution became commonplace (figure around early 50s-mid 70s or so.) The local FM radio stations which *didn't* get the giant 8-hour long 1/2-inch reel-to-reel tapes from Muzak would rebroadcast the signal from the phone lines over their SCA channel, instead.

According to legend, at one point in time Muzak was the largest consumer of telco bandwidth in the USA........

I think most talk show hosts who work from home use ISDN (128 kbps) to the studio where the producer and the phone lines for the callers are. IP is an option, but the delay between the host and the callers is still a problem. Then there is some type of link to the satellite uplink.

For Your Time with Kim and the 2nd Shift, Entercom uses linear audio through T1 circuits (1.544 Mbs) to ABC Satellite in NYC. I'll have to ask whether the uplink is on their roof, or what link they use to get to their uplink.

The highs on HD Radio are always going to sound "better" because of the lack of pre/de-emphasis on FM, and the increased frequency response on AM.

Finally, in the early 60's, the savings & loan office in San Diego that my father managed had Muzak by dedicated phone circuit.

The old Muzak PA amplifier that I was given originally got its audio from a dedicated phone circuit. In those days, there were probably a number of different non-telephone users of telephone company lines, such as:

Muzak
radio station STLs
burglar and fire alarm companies

I could easily see how Muzak might have been the single largest user of dedicated lines, as they would have had a separate line going from the telephone company exchange to each and every client in the service area of that exchange; think of all the banks, office buildings, restaurants, and hotels that this might have included in some cases!

I went to K-Hits website to look at their A-Z list and clicked on an HD Radio lineup. It showed KPOJ as "coming soon"!

Does this mean that Clear Channel is going to give IBOC another try on 620 kHz, or is this list out of date?

The list appears to be up to date. It mentions 1040, doesn't show an HD3 for KOPB and has KXJM on 107.5. It isn't the one on the Ibiquity or FCC site.

This from All Access:

----------------------Coby Unveils New HD Receivers----------------------

COBY ELECTRONICS is introducing an all-new range of receivers to put the power of HD Radio broadcasting into the hands of consumers nationwide. The new products will give users access to hundreds of new HD2 and HD3 channels and 1,700 crystal-clear AM and FM HD Radio stations -- all subscription free -- at home, in the office, backyard or anywhere they want to be. COBY’s new HDR-700 Portable HD Radio System and HDR-650 Component HD Radio Receiver debuts in AUGUST, 2008.

"Our new receivers are the perfect way for consumers to get in on the HD Radio experience," COBY Head of Marketing MARK FARISH. "We're excited to be among the very first manufacturers to enter into this fast-growing CE category and to introduce our signature feature-loaded products designed to help consumers capture the remarkable sound quality and rich reception of HD Radio technology at the most affordable possible price points."

DO THOSE cOBY RADIOS INCLUDE THESE FREATUR RICH FEATURES?S:CQUAM am sTEREO, WIDE RANGE ANALOG AMAUDIO,NARROWBANDWIDTH FOR DXING???GOOD ANTENNA?REASONABLE BATTERY POER TIME?

http://www.cobyusa.com/?p=prod&prod_num_id=194&pcat_id=3005

http://www.cobyusa.com/?p=prod&prod_num_id=193&pcat_id=3005

look pretty nifty...

The question of whether these COBY radios have some of the bonus features found in some SONY tuners, such as C-QUAM, adaptive noise reduction on analog broadcasts, and extended AM audio response is a good one. Unfortunately, we're not going to know the answer to this until somebody tests and reviews one of these tuners. The specifications that COBY publishes for their products do not go into this level of technical detail. Clicking on the "spec sheet" links for these radios yields a one page "sparkle sheet," rather than a real product datasheet.

According to the experiences that others have had with COBY on this board and elsewhere, one should not expect a high-reliability, performance optimized product from that company. COBY's business strategy is to serve the low cost, high volume consumer market. Thus, the hardware components of this radio are likely a reference design, and the DSP code is licensed from somebody else. The only engineering that I would expect out of COBY on this product is in the outer case of the radio.

Coby/Durabrand = Garbage! Price Product with poor quality, avoid it! IMHO and just my 2 cents.

I see that the COBY tuner is listed on Amazon (not available) but no sign of the portable yet. COBY is not my favorite brand, but if they are the FIRST to get a portable HD to the market, I may try one. The chipsets for portable HD (Samsung?) still draw quite a bit of current, so I wonder if they really get 5 hours on a charge. Hopefully, K6STI will get one of these to test.

A search on Google shopping shows that the COBY HDR-650 tuner is about $100 and the HDR-700 table radio is about $170. Both of these units cost a great deal more than I would have expected, as COBY is (in)famous for their $30 DVD players.

In my opinion, people who have money to burn are welcome to buy one of these radios, test it, take it apart, and write a review. At this point, the SONY would seem a safer bet, as presumably, it is built more durably and its bonus features are known and documented.

"about $170"

Ouch!

One of these new radios is supposed to sell for $49!

Perhaps with the $50 rebate? Or is that the real "street price" ?

Hey Chris Weiss!

I'm sure you already know, but man the delay echo when my radio goes back and forth from HD to analog on KEX is killing me! :-)

It wouldn't normally bug me but when the traffic report comes up and says "there is a big delay on" (flips) "so be sure to find an alternate route." I go "ahhhhhh"!!! :-)

Fixed.

Awesome! Chris... You da man! Thanks!

I had not noticed this before, but another inexpensive brand, Jwin has a sub-100$ (about $86) HD radio listed on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Jwin-Electronics-I168-HD-Radio/dp/B0015YMY7W/ref=pd_bbs_sr _9?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1216851066&sr=8-9

So far, VERY poor reviews.

Based on the reviews, I would steer clear from this one, too! The product description claims that HD reception is supported on both the AM and FM bands, but according to the first review, the manual plainly states that HD reception is not supported on AM.

I didn't think Ibiquity would license the technology to anyone who didn't include HD radio on AM, at this point.

unless it doesn't have an AM tuner in it. They might support an FM only device like in the current G3 cell phone models.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/20/AR2008072002323. html

So, will radio ever go the way that TV is going? In the near future will you be required to have an HD radio because they are going to discontinue the current FM broadcast method?

The Amazon review that I was referring to states that the radio's instruction manual claims that only analog reception is supported on AM. Of course, the guy could be wrong or lying.

Jwin instruction manuals sometimes are poorly written and difficult to understand.

There's no advantage for the government to drop analog broadcasts on FM. It doesn't free up any space as it does for TV. I doubt if it will happen in my lifetime unless it all goes away and everything is wireless internet, cell phones or some new undreamed of technology.

> In the near future will you be required to have an HD radio because they are going to discontinue the
> current FM broadcast method?

I think that the outcome of the 2009 NTSC switch-off will greatly influence whether or not an analog FM sunset date is ever mandated and if so, how it is handled.

From the point of view of generating revenue for the FCC, there is more money to be made in selling off 6 MHz chunks of spectrum space (a television channel) than 200 kHz chunks of spectrum space (a FM broadcast channel). However, I can see two important parallels between using DTV and using digital-only HD Radio on the FM band: (1) both technologies allow for multicasting. Thus, theoretically, existing licensees could lease out one or more sub-channels to third parties thus eliminating the need for those third parties to pursue broadcast licenses or their own. (2) Both technologies use DSP-based filters that can feasibly be made more selective than the filters in analog tuners; this could allow for closer frequency spacing of stations in a given geographic area. I think that the FCC likely sees these two points as strong arguments that HD Radio is a more efficient use of FM broadcast band spectrum space.

I pulled in KEX in HD in Bend yesterday. It sounded great, but it didn't sound like the audio was in Stereo? Is it just my radio?

Possibly weak signal conditions forced "core" mode in your radio. This results in a low bandwidth stream which is not stereo. Also, some of the talk shows appear to have little (if any) stereo information, I just about jumped out of my seat the first time I heard AM HD when a singing ad with great stereo (sleep country?) aired during a dull mono-sounding talk show.

KEX-HD sounded pretty good last Christmas!

I've noticed that most of the production on KEX is mono. Some of the commercials from outside organizations are stereo, though.

SEVERAL NIGHTS AGO A CALLER TO COASTTOCOAST-am ASKED ABOUT RADIO CONVERTING TO DIGITAL!THE CALLER MUST HAVE BEEN ABSORBING THOSE DTV ANNOUNCEMENTS AND BELIVED THAT ANALOG AM Rdio was going to go away!!!like analog tv will disappear in feb 09!no mention of the noise however!!!!the host Norry did not have much to say to promote hd radio other than claiming it was happening!not much of an endorsement!!!????Maybe someone should call in to explain how it ties in to the fairness doctrine conspiracy to suppress talk radio??

"Maybe someone should call in to explain how it ties in to the fairness doctrine conspiracy to suppress talk radio??"

I don't see the connection... perhaps you could start by explaining it here... then make the call!

If I were in Noory's position, I think that I would be between a rock and a hard place. I would just say that the FCC does not have plans, at the moment, for a shutoff of analog radio broadcasts and leave it at that.

What I do find interesting--and I believe that this was by design--is the confusion that non-technical people are experiencing with these DTV commercials and the marketing that consumer electronics retailers are doing on the coattails of the 2009 shutoff. There are at least two retailers which are using slogans like "beat the digital conversion deadline" to sell TVs. I would bet that many people who won't be affected by the NTSC sunset date because they get their TV from cable or satellite will go to appliance and electronics stores out of fear of their TVs becoming obsolete. I am not implying that the sales associates will lie to prospective customers; rather they will do what salesmen do and try to make the point that the new TVs are so great that the prospective "customer" should buy one, even if his/her existing TVs work.

re:"I'm not trying to be demeaning, but I think that it is completely unrealistic to expect that comments and requests on an Internet message board could override management decisions in radio or any other pro"
intellegent engineering pros shouold evaluate the merits of a suggestion/reccommendation!NOTmake quick and dirtyjudgements based on who/where it came from!technical details are more important than office politics!!!

I just returned from Lincoln City and thought I should mention the existence of a new HD radio station in the form of KQAC 88.1 airing Classical music.

would CC have a script telling their on-air hosts exactly what to say about the topic?they are presently presenting a mixed message!!HD and the CCplus can't both be the best sounding!!??would a host be penalized somehow if he says something negative about HD radio?or if the caller or a guest says something bad about it and not get "corrected"?????Maybe I should call in to some of these showslike c2c??

I don't see the problem here. C Crane sells radios! They may "push" their own brand in a commercial but they do also sell the Sangean HD tuners:

http://www.ccrane.com/radios/hd-radio/sangean-hdt-1-hd-radio-component-tuner.asp x

Jr_Tech:

How do the two Sony HD Radio units compare, when it comes to DX reception? (I only have the XDRS3HD.)

Radioexpert:

Sorry, I don't know for sure, I only have used the XDR-F1HD tuner. I have read that the tuner is a later design, so possibly it "hotter" than the table radio.
Brian B. (K6STI) does not have a review of the XDR S3HD on his site. His review of the XDR-F1HD (and the cheap price) is the main reason behind my purchase of the tuner. I have not been disappointed !

http://www.ham-radio.com/k6sti/

"...both technologies allow for multicasting. Thus, theoretically, existing licensees could lease out one or more sub-channels to third parties thus eliminating the need for those third parties to pursue broadcast licenses or their own."

Kinda' sounds like how the SCA channels were used for the first 40 years or so of its existance, before the FCC deregulated it.

(Think we might see a "revival" of Physician's Radio Network sometime in the future? ;o)

I bought the Sangean HDT-1 from C. Crane recently and it works pretty good with their heavy duty "T" wire antenna. It pulls OPB in for me like no radio ever has.

Semoochie, that is our newest station licensed to Gleneden Beach with nice coverage of the central coast. Engineering projects like that are fun! Soon we will have improvements to Hood River and The Dalles. Did I mention that I like my job?

I noticed that all the Entercom HD stations on the Stonehenge combiner are off the air. KNRK is on but its HD2 is off. KRSK is on normally and KBOO is on so it isn't a matter of all the Entercom stations or all the Stonehenge stations being off.

Interesting! 93.1 "El Rey" KRYP has been at low power, all day long. I couldn't hear it at all in Eugene, and the signal was barely there in Albany, and quite weak in Salem.

Odd combination of transmitters that are on and off! Did lightning strike the tower last night?

As far as I know, KBOO is the only HD that goes through the combiner to the "master" antenna. KNRK combines analog and HD, but uses a separate antenna at the very top of the tower. The remaining stations (KWJJ & KGON) transmit HD from "aux" antennas on the legs of the tower, and KRSK transmits from Skyline.

Work was being done last weekend and this weekend on the interior of the Stonehenge master antenna.

They said it would never happen: KBOO's HD is in sync! Are you listening, KMHD?

KBOO's HD is no longer in sync, primarily because it hasn't been on the air for weeks!

...And even amongst the dedicated radio fans on this board, nobody notices that it is off the air for several weeks?? This almost sounds like the stories of some early FM simulcasts in the 1950s and early 1960s: If the board op forgot to turn on the FM transmitter when signing on the station, the only person that would care enough to call the station would be the station manager.

I have not checked for KBOO HD for a while... I sometimes listen to the bluegrass program Sat. morning, but have not done that for a while !

DX opportunity: With KBOO digital sidebands off, KLCO (90.5) Newport can be heard from Hillsboro. KLCO repeats KLCC (Eugene).

I noticed it earlier. I just thought the situation would be more temporary than it has become.

There are people that still listen to KBOO here? :-)

Seriously though, I emailed them once about the audio not being in-sync with the analog and HD radio and was told it would be fixed that weekend.

That was about 4 months ago...

They fixed it and everything was perfectly fine. Then, they went off the air.

I¡¦m writing mostly on the top topics of the post: But HD try to make it better in the next thing Americansƒº

OK Guys Charlie it was a fun one like you are in mind hear¡K If it¡¦s broke don¡¦t fix it! UHHH: NO THANKS: Did you look at the business model Wall Street has funned over the last 12 years we are back too year 2000 baby¡K NO THANKS GUYS>>>

I Rather be better than that in the entertaining game but have our colleges accept the Charlie changes to what you can make for the community politically and them personally. Not just make hot words and it laying in the sun in business models getting moldy and rot on the radio beach of fun¡K Been there done that: NOT FUN and NOT ENTERTAINING for their growth in life: Jimbo that and this is why stations should try to multi-brand there stations if your teen is are.

WE are dumb sometimes consumed with stresses so like JavaScript we need to be lead in HD to direct us in the lead stations that play on a H3 station for our kids. If you¡¦re going to have a station called the lost leader then why not national wigs say ok in multi-radio songs, LOCAL DJ¡¦s, and then lead them online, radio freq, and or promotions. BUT that was a defense in my assignment in Alexandra 97.1 fm and ENtercom before I heard CHARLIE LASTING more than 2 years all made in radio land¡K

I have a bigger ideal in growth in all sways if it is a great life in what this post has gave¡K We just need all to work the ID3 and all that to get up to speed: I hope all HD/Radio swell in there ringing the clearer bells this Christmas night on air and do not yell change eh¡K

Joe

Ooooh. Missed this JR post first time around. Don't even try running this one through the universal translator, Chris! The Universe might implode.

Back on topic... I just noticed that KBOO HD is back on the air and in sync as well!

Is Joe Russel the New Dj Fresh???

Nope Joe Russel is Marconi and Dj Fresh was Marconi as well.
Hell, EVERYONE is Marconi...

-.-.- .. .- -- -- .- .-. -.-. --- -. .. .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.- ... - --- .--. .-- .... .- - .... .- - .... --. --- -.. .-- .-. --- ..- --. .... - ... - --- .--. -- --- - --- -- .- .-. .-.- --- -. .. .-.-.

*grin*

time to canclr HD on AM band!!

I think Joe is what resulted after frreshie was crossed with 62kgw.

"time to canclr HD on AM band!!"

No, Actually, that is the best sounding stuff on AM. Time to convert all AM's to HD.

Are there (or have there been) any stations that are running the all-digital mode, even if it is just on an experimental basis? What really handicaps HD, particularly on AM, is the low power levels that must be used on the digital sidebands when running in analog compatibility mode in order to stay within spectral mask limits. Could a conglomerate that owns several stations in a market take one of its under-performing stations and convert it into a digital-only simulcast of one of its other signals, or are there FCC restrictions that prevent this from taking place?

I have one tip for some of the posters on this board who suffer from frequent typographical errors: get a web browser that has an integrated spell-check function. On this computer, I have Firefox 3.0.3. If I type something that is not in the spell-check dictionary, Firefox underlines it in red to warn me that I may have made a mistake.

Motozak2:

(Starting signal) I am Marconi.
Stop
What hath God wrought
Stop
Moto Marconi

Interesting.

Are there (or have there been) any stations that are running the all-digital mode, even if it is just on an experimental basis? [...] Could a conglomerate that owns several stations in a market take one of its under-performing stations and convert it into a digital-only simulcast of one of its other signals[...]

Wow, I've wondered the same thing, like some station changes to "Digital x," and is either all HD feeds of the clusters other stations, or is several different formats itself (not just HD1, HD2, and maybe an HD3). I've also wondered just how many formats could fit on one regular FM signal if someone were able to do that.

The other thing that could be an issue could be HD Radio licensing, not just FCC regs.

I believe the system is set up for 8 separate streams. It is the intent to operate fully digital and I haven't heard of it being expressly forbidden.

The eight possible channels with HD FM share and divide up the bandwidth, so if a station were all digital, it would give each program around 24 kbps. I hear the audio is locked into mono below 32 kpbs.

Interesting, I thought I remember hearing about the digital TV system used here (8VSB?) supporting up to 8 of the lowest-quality digital channels (480i?).
If so, does this make 8 a new magic number?

Funny, I thought 3 is a magic number. http://www.school-house-rock.com/3.html

Of course eight is magic in digital. Binary.

I must have been on the right track. I have 2 of the best in the business agreeing with me!

"Of course eight is magic in digital. Binary."
Actually, it is octal.
111=7
010=8

"Digital" is a series of on and off pulses therefore binary. How's that?

8 is "magic" in the same way that 2, 4, 16, 32, etc. are "magic": they are all powers of two.

I once got into a discussion with an engineer friend wherein he explained to me the difference between the terms "binary" and "digital."

Binary: having two stable states.
Digital: using arbitrarily chosen symbols to represent something else. In digital electronics, the symbols are combinations of binary signals but what these represent is totally arbitrary. Those symbols could represent dollars, voltages, instructions to control a microprocessor, instructions to reconstruct audio waveforms, etc.

Thus, logic circuits like gates and flip-flops by themselves are binary. They could be used as part of a digital system, or they could not. For instance, I could use a pair of flip-flops to convert the output of an oscillator into sine and cosine signals at 1/4 the oscillator frequency, with these sine and cosine signals being the carriers that are sent to I and Q modulators in a quadrature modulation scheme. That is not a digital circuit. Here's another example: the "in"famous Clapper device uses a pulse stretcher circuit and flip-flops to turn audio signals into waveforms that can turn lights on and off. That's not digital. (Note: I was surprised to find that schematics for The Clapper are available online. It is a fairly simple circuit.)

the 1's and zero's must be accurateltydecoded at the recieve end to recreatethe transmitted signal correctly!!but the recreation isn't necessarily perfect!!

the digital signal can also cause interference to other signals using the same transmission medium!!!examples:tune to 1180 or 1200 khz and all you get is noise!!a better system would not do that!!

"a better system would not do that!!"

Ok, given the limited total bandwidth available in the present AM broadcast band, presence of ground wave/sky wave effects, limited tower bandwidth, and a desire to make a smooth transition from analog mode to digital, how would a "better" system be designed?

I get static and noise on all the AM stations. A better system would not do that. That's why they made digital.

There are a number of different ways to clean up interference, but broadcasters and the Consumer Electronics Association decided that they wanted to pursue digital transmission via the Ibiquity system. Some years ago, I remember a rebuttal comment from the CEA to the FCC, wherein the CEA stated that the idea of using receiver-side DSP-based enhancements to remove interference from analog signals was not their preferred strategy because that technique would not allow for some features that "consumers want," namely the capability to send text and other data to receivers. That is what my eyeballs saw; whether the CEA is being completely honest and pure in their intentions is up for discussion.

I was going across the dial this morning around 8:30 and noticed all the Entrecom FM's did not have their HD going. Not even a flashing HD light. CC's were OK except 105.9 had trouble locking in along I-84 around I-205 till about 181st. Then it locked in. Don't know what is going on.

My first thought was that it might have something to do with the new FM on 96.3 but it seems rather early and K-Love hasn't applied for another frequency yet.

Jimbo:

Stonehenge Tower antenna work, which puts all the stations on their backup antennas, or in KNRK's case, onto their Mt. Scott backup site.

I', not asking, I am directing!!

The sound you are hearing now is that of the palm of my hand hitting my forehead.

"I', not asking, I am directing!!"

Huh??

Monday morning brought great Portland radio reception into Eugene. I was able to hear Smooth Jazz 103.3 HD2, for quite a while. The digital quality sounded "mushy" compared to what I'm used to.

KKCW-HD2 sounds nothing short of spectacular on my radio! I wonder what was wrong.

KEX is also telling listeners to get a CC Radio for best sound!!??and best reception???!!They must not have much confidence in //////////////hD??
huh?

62kgw: I think that we have answered questions like this before on this thread:

Quote:

Author: 62kgw
Monday, June 23, 2008 - 10:20 am

If KEX thinks HD is so greate, then how come they keep doing adds for the CCRadio SW version saying thats the best sounding radio for AM??!!Huh??

Author: Alfredo_t
Monday, June 23, 2008 - 12:40 pm
Likely, C.Crane paid the program syndicator of George Noory or any of the other syndicated shows that are played on KEX. This is the reverse of the situation with Dr. Dean Edell and Airborne. There, Airborne bought ads on the individual stations that run Dr. Dean. This was done to give the false impression that Dr. Dean endorses Airborne.

I wouldn't be too surprised if KEX accepted advertising from C.Crane for the CCRadio SW. These days, stations accept advertising, even if it doesn't fit the station's sound or it promotes something designed to compete with the station's programming, such as satellite radio.

________________________________________________


Author: 62kgwTuesday, August 05, 2008 - 8:55 am

would CC have a script telling their on-air hosts exactly what to say about the topic?they are presently presenting a mixed message!!HD and the CCplus can't both be the best sounding!!??would a host be penalized somehow if he says something negative about HD radio?or if the caller or a guest says something bad about it and not get "corrected"?????Maybe I should call in to some of these showslike c2c??


Author: Jr_tech
Tuesday, August 05, 2008 - 9:21 am

I don't see the problem here. C Crane sells radios! They may "push" their own brand in a commercial but they do also sell the Sangean HD tuners:

http://www.ccrane.com/radios/hd-radio/sangean-hdt-1-hd-radio-component-tuner.asp x

End Quote

On JEX last nitethere was a new different commercial for some newCcrane SW radio that has the latest technical features or something like that?no mention of HD!!???NO need for HD on a SW radio??

Shortwave broadcasters use a system called "Digital Radio Mondale" or DRM:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Radio_Mondiale

Here is a schedule of DRM broadcasts:

http://www.wwdxc.de/drm.htm

I have yet not seen a SW radio for sale in the US that has the ability to decode DRM broadcasts without attachment to a computer.

What I'd like to see is a true multi-codec receiver made available here that can decode FM Extra, Ibiquity (yup, gotta include that specifically for sake of completeness) Cam-D, DRM, ATSC audio, DVB......and for extra measure, let's also include a CD player that can play MPEG1 audio layers!

Oh yeah, don't forget Cquam, analogue MW & FM and SCA............

Retail price: $20,000 when you take into account various royalties and licence fees tacked onto what, in reality, is only (maybe) about $30 worth of actual equipment. "Discover It" at a RadioShack near you!

Hey, it might happen! Psshhhh, yeah....and monkeys might fly outta my butt......... ;o)

> Retail price: $20,000 when you take into account various royalties and licence fees

Yup! You're onto something there. In this age of low cost, high volume manufacturing in overseas plants that are highly automated, the way to prevent one's product from becoming another low-profit commodity item is to make parts of the design proprietary and to tack big licensing fees onto those proprietary elements.

By the way, do you know what happens when $30 hardware fails or it becomes superceded by more advanced products? Well-meaning owners take said products to "recycling" facilities that in turn illegally sell the scrap electronics to overseas buyers. The products then end up in Guiyu, China or backwoods places in Nigeria, India, or elsewhere. There, peasants break down the obsolete electronics using very crude methods, thereby slowly poisoning themselves and contaminating the environment around them. I am not making this up; 20/20, 60 Minutes, and other investigative news shows have run stories on this.

"20/20, 60 Minutes, and other investigative news shows have run stories on this."


Ahhh,
Selective Journalism at its best. And you believe what you see on them? Tsk Tsk.

There is more than 20/20 doing reporting on this mess. We have a significant electronics recycling problem.

Supposedly the appliance and electronic recycling centre on Lower River Road will be shutting down in January.........

> Ahhh,
> Selective Journalism at its best. And you believe what you see on them? Tsk Tsk.

You can also go to the websites of the Basel Action Network and other environmental groups. This is pretty thoroughly documented. Who would have to report on this for you to accept that it is happening?

Cam-D is not a licensed technology. Leonard Kahn filed too late.

This morning, I received a piece of advertising e-mail from Agilent. One of the application notes included is about doing proof-of-performance measurements of IBOC stations with their N9340B handheld spectrum analyzer:

http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5989-9969EN.pdf

I haven't read through this entire marketing bulletin yet. Glancing through it, it appears that they are pitching some add-on software that automates the process of setting up the spectrum analyzer to take the spectral compliance measurements. I thought the techies might enjoy this.

Eugene's 89.7 KLCC turned on the HD, earlier this month. I first noticed it on December 12th, but forgot to post it.

From Hillsboro, I see the "HD" indicator blinking and station id, but no hd lock. 89.9 and 89.5 are both very strong at my location, so it will take a bit of work to get 89.7 hd.