Making Radio Stronger In A Disaster
Tom Kent Thrilled With New HD Radio
5-7-2012
In a letter to the Radio Industry, Tom Kent, of the Tom Kent Radio Network details his first experience with an HD radio and implores the radio industry not to give up on the technology. He says it's the most excited he's been about radio since working at WLS in Chicago back in 1980. Read he entire letter about HD here.
"I recently got a new car with HD radio. My fellow broadcasters, I implore you PLEASE don’t give up on HD radio! This is the most excited I’ve been about radio audio since I worked at WLS in Chicago back in 1980 and I heard AM stereo. Imagine AM stereo in HD! As Steely Dan would sing…”No Static at All”….yes AM that sounds just like FM! I know we’ve all been hearing about it for years but until you’re driving down the road trying to loosen your load with seven women on your mind and listening to “Take it Easy” by the Eagles in FM-HD, well you just haven’t lived. The sound is the best I’ve ever heard coming from any radio EVER!"
"Like many of you I never heard HD in a car so I quickly dismissed the idea. After all, how could we expect our listeners to go out and invest in new gear when they have so many other options. The auto listening experience has got me really geeked on HD radio. My local affiliate WMJI 105.7 FM here in Cleveland sounds amazing in HD 1 and HD 2. The sound quality absolutely blows away satellite radio which I also have in my car. No offense Mel, but every one of your satellite channels sounds like a bad washed out internet stream. HD terrestrial radio sounds even better than a CD and the side by side comparison of satellite vs. HD….well, there is no comparison."
"I’d like to call upon our industry to rally on behalf of HD radio. Yes, right now it’s dead in the water. The only way it’ll take off is if the automotive industry equips their radio platforms with HD radio as standard equipment and even then critical mass would be at least five years away. Five years isn’t that long and if that were to happen, the future of subscription radio would be in serious jeopardy. For me now that I have HD in the car, my free satellite trial will end with no renewal. Terrestrial radio needs to lobby the car makers to step up and give their customers something truly excellent for free!"
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(5/10/2012 12:10:37 AM) Any radio technology that relies on the hope and prayer that at least one of the adjacent frequencies is empty enough to allow the IBOC digital signal to decode is doomed from the start. In the real world, FM tropospheric scatter and AM ionospheric skip do their best to insure that adjacent channels are interfered with. In IBOC’s case, marketing is irrelevant – since from day one atmospheric science has already guaranteed this technology will be doomed. You can't change the laws of physics. |
| - William Hepburn |
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(5/9/2012 10:00:27 AM) The optimal and maximized use of allotted spectrum is good. What many broadcasters object to are the usurious licensing fees payable to a private consortium owned in large part by the very same greedy conglomerators that ruined our medium and industry, the inferior and inflexible technology and ancient encoding algorithm, and the egregious interference to the real world coverage of one or both first adjacents. |
| - Peter Tripp |
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(5/9/2012 6:11:39 AM) http://www.consumeraffairs.com/lemon_law/secret_warranties.html TSBs address factory defects such as HD radios. |
| - TSBs |
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(5/8/2012 9:14:40 PM) The power increase that was granted will help HD Radio a lot in terms of reception, and the asymmetric power increase approval should be coming through any day now. Be patient. The future is digital radio, and digital radio in the U.S. is HD. Well not just the U.S., but on other continents as well, including Europe, Asia, and Africa. |
| - Steve |
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(5/8/2012 9:13:08 PM) You can see how desperate some people are to attack HD Radio. TSBs by automakers don't indicate any problem beyond the need to explain to customers how the system works. Most issues in BMW's TSB are either problems that also exist on analog FM, or are the result of insufficient transmitter power on HD because the station has not yet upgraded to higher power HD service. A clueless station that doesn't know how to align analog and digital is not a problem that BMW can fix! |
| - Yoav Cohen |
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