Engineering Radio » HD radio

The never ending HD radio debacle continues to not end

Paul Thurst — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:02:21 +0000

Especially on the AM band.

Radio World, bless them, has yet another article about the public’s lack of awareness regarding HD Radio®. Calling it “lack of awareness,” is overly kind and I think they are missing the point. It would be better phrased “apathy” or “indifference.”

There is a general misconception in the world that one either loves or hates something. That is not true, the opposite of love is indifference, not hate. The public has voted, with their wallets, for things like 3 and 4G wireless devices, satellite radio, iPods and other entertainment venues. Why? Because HD Radio® is not an advance, it is a repackaging of old ideas with slick marketing. The general public has viewed the great digital radio conversion with a jaundiced eye, opting to sit on the fence and wait for something better. What has iBiquity given them?

The technology itself is a step backwards with many band aids needed to affect the same coverage area as analog FM. A technology that has poorer building penetration, less coverage area , mobile reception issues with no appreciable difference in sound quality or program material offerings. A power increase from 1% to 10% analog carrier power (20dBc to -10dBc) hasn’t really made a difference. Now, studies are underway looking at asymmetrical sidebands and same frequency repeater networks for FM IBOC. All of these things, not to improve radio reception, but rather to achieve the same coverage as analog FM.

The AM HD Radio® has even greater issues.

There is nothing at all surprising about the public indifference toward HD Radio®.

Quality gear

Paul Thurst — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:25:30 +0000

I went to put the HD transmitter back on the air for WEBE yesterday, to be confronted with this:

Harris Deathstar HD radio exciter

Swearing ensued.

The fault is with the RF upconverter, which is unlocked. I don’t know why the GPS is unlocked, I’ll have to climb up on the roof and look at the antenna.

Why again, are we bothering with this?

More HD radio news

Paul Thurst — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 13:53:37 +0000

Link to: HD RADIO™ GOES THE WAY OF THE LASERDISC PLAYER.

An interesting take from a non-broadcaster that gets it mostly right. The premise for HD radio™, as the author states, was to serve two purposes; improve sound quality and add extra programming channels. I have a few issues with this statement:

Regarding the improved signal, that still holds true, and can be especially beneficial for AM radio, which has struggled for some time with signal degradation.

I would argue the opposite. HD Radio™ has done nothing to improve the signal quality of the AM band. It has, in fact, degraded the band further by adding digital hash to adjacent channels, limiting the on channel analog bandwidth to less than 5 KHz and creating on channel background hiss.

Thus, HD Radio™ has done neither of those two stated goals. In addition to that, from the radio station owner/operator’s perspective, it is expensive to install, expensive to license, expensive to operate and has no audience.

Hat from here.

Ford begs Broadcasters: “Please install our wonderful HD Radio product.”

Paul Thurst — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:00:22 +0000

In an open letter to broadcasters, the entirety of which can be found here: Ford Exec Writes Open Letter to Broadcasters, Jim Buczkowski, who’s official title seems to be “Henry Ford Technical Fellow and Director, Electrical and Electronic Systems Research and Innovation Ford Motor Company,” nearly begs broadcasters to install HD Radio technology at their radio stations.

One thing that seems to be missing from the open letter, something mildly important called: Disclosure. According to iBiquity’s own website, Ford Motor Company is an investor in the technology. Other investors include:

Clear Channel
CBS Radio
Grotech Capital Group
J.P. Morgan Partners
New Venture Partners
FirstMark Capital
Harris
Texas Instruments
Visteon

Not an inclusive list by any means, but something to keep in mind when reading the letter or the latest iBiquity advertising in various trade magazines.

Back to the letter; the cliff notes version is this:

Through the use of HD Radio, AM/FM broadcasters can now embrace the digital age
Drivers now have many choices for in car entertainment, including satellite radio (Sirius XM) and online services (Pandora, et.al) that offer “Crystal Clear” audio
Through Satellite radio, MP3 players, and IP streaming services, drivers now have extra features like: Title, song and artist; Song tagging; iTunes; album art, etc which they have become accustomed to
Installing HD Radio will be a big upgrade and make AM/FM station on par with those “digital age” services

For the first part, there is not a single broadcaster in the country that is not already aware of HD Radio. Every radio station manager and owner knows that it exists, most people in the general public do not. Radio stations are hesitant to install HD Radio equipment because it is expensive, has a questionable return on investment, is unimpressive and technically dubious.

Making the comparison to Satellite Radio and or IP streaming services, which all require subscriptions or data plans, is a bit of a stretch. Someone who will pay a fee for in car entertainment is usually a tech geek. As the subscription rates for Sirius XM shows, that works out to about seven percent of the US population (~20 million subscribers/~300 million people). It is a bit harder to nail down those who listen to streaming products like Pandora, iHeartRadio or other webstreams in their cars, but I’d estimate not more than ten percent do.

While 3G and 4G wireless services are great, it still does not have the same coverage as standard and FM broadcasting stations. Last time I tried to listen to Pandora in my vehicle, it kept dropping out and was not easy to deal with. With TuneIn radio, I had the same experience during urban, suburban and rural driving. Thus, the “Crystal Clear” reception is also a bit of a misnomer.

Further, fooling around with iPods, iPhones, TuneIn, Pandora, etc while driving is not the best idea. Even on vehicles with built in IP connectivity or satellite radio, looking for song titles and other information while driving is not recommended. Thus, the value added services of HD Radio are of questionable at best in a moving vehicle.

I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but for as long as the iBiquity crew continues to spout disingenuous bull sh!t about their failed technology, I’ll keep posting about it.

Developments on the digital radio fronts

Paul Thurst — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:43:19 +0000

I am still in awe of iBiquity and I have to hand it to them for stick-to-it-tiveness. The newest “fix” for their FM IBOC system, colloquially known as HD Radio™, is in contour on channel repeaters. According to the article “Performance of FM HD boosters varies,” (Radio World on line edition), the reason for such boosters is to “increase or fill in FM Digital foot print so that the digital coverage matches that of analog.”

The idea that IBOC is somehow an improvement over FM analog is becoming (or has become) untenable. In order to make the new system cover the same area with the same reliability as the old analog system, on channel ~~bandaids~~ boosters are now needed? And what is with this extending coverage? How much more expense will radio station owners have to deal with to make this scheme work? And I still don’t understand where the improvement over analog only systems comes from.

As the article points out, however, all is not well in paradise; the IBOC booster signals interfere with analog signal close to the booster transmitter. This becomes problematic if the receiver is an analog only device. As of this writing, most of the radios in this country do not have HD Radio™ capabilities. Thus, radios that are currently working perfectly well will cut out can become useless around these repeaters.

For your reading pleasure, the entire NAB report can be found here.

Try as they may, neither the NAB, iBiquity or Greater Media can supplant the laws of physics. Then there is that insanity definition floating around:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

AM HD update and other ideas

Paul Thurst — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 15:30:43 +0000

Looks like the AM HD Radio™ juggernaut continues… To sink under it’s own technical faults that is. According to the list the number of AM stations running IBOC in the US is now down to 233 stations from a high water mark of 290 or so. That represents a total of just 4.8% (233 IBOC/4782 Total stations) of all US AM radio stations. On a related note, Bob Savage of WYSL 1040, Rochester, NY has a good idea:

I’ve always said – if you want to see surprising new life in the AM band, s**t-can the stupid irrelevant NRSC pre-emphasis filter and allow stations to run to 15 kHz during daylight hours and 10 kHz nighttime. Mandate C-QUAM in all receiver and receiver devices.

It will sound better than HD, be more robust, and cause far fewer problems. Plus it wouldn’t obsolete a single radio out there, while making a whole bunch of them sound a whole bunch better.

It is so simple in concept, so easy to implement, with almost no expense to AM stations. Again, Mr. Savage:

Most software-based processors have com ports which can be addressed by a remote control system like Sine Systems, so when the power gets reduced at evening pattern change, the bandpass can be changed at the same time…..vice-versa at sunup. No biggie.

For older setups a simple outboard relay and rolloff network could accomplish the same thing. It’s a little more complex but again, not a big deal.

Wow. Facepalm.

Wish somebody had though of that a few years ago, it might have save several million dollars and we’d have a different AM band today.

There are a few shoe horned AM stations around here that might be adversely effected by 15 KHz daytime bandwidth, but those are few and far between. By and large, most stations are spaced correctly where this could really work and work well. It certainly would not generate the chaos that AM HD Radio™ has.

AM IBOC turn offs?

Paul Thurst — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 18:39:04 +0000

I have received an e-mail from occasional reader John, who comments that many of the Windy City AM’s have turned their buzz saws off. I note myself today, the same can be said for many of the NYC AM’s. WABC has had their’s IBOC turned off for quite some time. The latest to turn off is WNYC on 820 KHz. Several people have noted the loss of noise on their signal this morning.

According to Ibiquity’s own website, only six AM stations in the NYC market are currently using IBOC.

What does this mean?

Could it be that management is finally realizing that the cure is worse than the disease? The disease being alleged poor audio quality, and the cure being IBOC itself.

Wait until the patent expires

Paul Thurst — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:15:46 +0000

If I had to pick, one of the most egregious things about HD Radio™ is the fact that it is a proprietary system. Ibiquity owns the licenses for the IBOC HD Radio™ technology. If the FCC were to force radio stations to convert to all digital transmission, like they did with TV, then one corporation would then own the modulation method for all of the radio stations in the country. It would also own all of the secondary (HD2 and HD3) channels by virtue of the password protected software and would, as current contracts are being written, be allowed to inspect the books any time they want.

This could lead to some very interesting situations, especially if Ibiquity chose to flex some muscle regarding programming content, formats, music, politics, news coverage, or what have you. Lets not forget, Ibiquity’s investors are large broadcasting companies like Clear Channel, Cumulus, Citadel, Univision, and so on. Smaller broadcasting companies could likely get caught in a go along to get along situation.

If you have never played with an HD Radio™ exciter, let me tell you, everything is locked down. Every function needs a password from Ibiquity and there is no way around it.

Ibiquity’s proponents dismiss this concern and continue to say “Just wait until the patent expires, then it will be an open system.” Except that the “patent” is not going to expire. Ibiquity owns 16 patents for their IBOC system. Only one patent needs to be in effect for the HD Radio™ system to remain proprietary. The last patent was issued on May 10, 2010. Ibiquity simply needs to make some small change, update, or tweak and they can file for a new patent, which will add another 10 years. This can continue indefinitely.

The patent is not going to expire.

HD Radio equipment, on trade

Paul Thurst — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:49:17 +0000

It has been about a month now, has anyone taken them up on this:

iBiquity Digital and Citadel Media announced a partnership which will enable stations to upgrade to digital while avoiding cash expenditure. Stations will have the opportunity to provide on-air inventory to Citadel Media in exchange for the HD Radio license fee and equipment supplied by Broadcast Electronics, Continental, Harris and Nautel.

I was sure that my former employer, now that I have left the company, would at least look into this. I know there are many other frugal like minded companies out there that look at trade as being “free.” Anytime I had a building project, like paving the parking lot or replacing the roof membrane, the first question asked was “Can we trade it?” I hated dealing with trade. Often, it would end up as a half paved parking lot and the general manager asking “Gee, what happened?”

I would be surprised if this iBiquity scheme didn’t generate at least some interest in the HD radio holdouts. Has anybody heard anything else on this?

Digital Radio: A solution without a problem

Paul Thurst — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 12:22:40 +0000

Or, it could also be phrased “A solution that causes more problems.” Radio World, once again, has a good article on the consequences of increasing IBOC power of the FM hybrid system. Especially telling is figure 24, a fuzzy 400 Hz sine wave showing how much distortion is added to the analog signal by a mere 4% HD signal. I’d be especially interested to see the results of the full 10% now allowed.

Naturally, HD proponents will cry “But this is only temporary! Wait until the transition to all digital!”

Bunk.

If HD radios were indeed flying off the shelves as iBiquity claims, and if the public expressed interest, okay, maybe. Clearly, that is not the case. The only thing that HD radio is doing is creating more interference. Period. More interference to the parent station and more interference to the adjacent channels all for an audience that does not exist. Another way to put it: NOBODY IS LISTENING. One of the station that I service had a Harris Deathstar go off line for four days. NOT ONE PHONE CALL, NOBODY CARES!

The public did not perceive a technical problem with analog FM broadcasting. Of course, that can always change as the band gets filled with interference.

Lets see where FM IBOC stands:

Rolled out with 1% digital power vs analog carrier, the system was found to lack building penetration and generally performed poorly in mobile listening environments (NPR labs study, Nov 24, 2009)
FCC allows up to 10% digital power vs analog carrier to overcome these problems, a few stations implement some type of power increase
The shows that self interference is the largest problem IBOC needs to fix, one that is un-fixable due to the laws of physics
The public yawns, turns on their iPod

IBOC is a failure, both in AM and FM bands.

We are watching the self destruction of radio broadcasting in the US.