HD TV is probably infiltrating your known-zone these days. High Definition. It looks great on bigger screens. All stations have to be broadcasting it by February 2009. 42 inch screens are just about to slip below $1,000.
However, there is also HD Radio. Here, HD means Hybrid Digital. (That’s what you get in free enterprise naming …) It promises to bring you FM radio as clear as CD sound, and AM radio as clear as FM. In addition, each current signal (station) can broadcast 2-3 sub channels, along with text information. Thus, on 102.1 the local classical station, I can get Mozart, or Ravel at the same time, clicking between them. And, the LED screen of the radio tells me what is being played.
And, best of all, it is free — unlike the Satellite radio competitors. Not free of ads, of course, but free of monthly charges.
So, I confess, I bought one. Radio Shack has a couple of models and you can find table top and automobile equipment from various vendors. I got a car/home kit from Visteon, called the HDJump.
It isn’t cheap — over $100, perhaps into the $250 range, depending. But so far I like it. The sound is nice and crisp. If the digital is too weak, or doesn’t exist the radio picks up standard Am and FM. If digital comes into range it shifts seamlessly to it.
There’s certainly no hurry as most stations aren’t broadcasting in HD yet, but there are federal mandates to move that way, as well as economic and market reasons for the owners.
It may be too much to ask but given that the channels will be doubling or tripling in the next few years, could we get some reasonable news, commentary, science, history up on the airwaves?
For a look at your area and to see what is being offered HDRadio.com is a good place to start.
It is up to the marketplace to determine the fate of HD Radio, and consumers are not interested:
“4/4/07 – FCC: Market to Decide Fate of HD Radio”
“According to staff testimony at the meeting (which starts at ~1:01:00), the FCC appears unconcerned with HD Radio’s potential pitfalls and more than willing to let the industry set the pace of radio’s analog/digital transition. According to Ann Gallagher, an engineer in the Audio Division of the FCC’s Media Bureau, “substantial additional testing” by iBiquity and the National Association of Broadcasters justifies the expedited deployment of HD Radio. Stations may now commence multicasting and separate their analog and digital antenna systems without formal FCC approval.”
http://www.diymedia.net/archive/0407.htm
“HD Radio on the Offense”
“But after an investigation of HD Radio units, the stations playing HD, and the company that owns the technology; and some interviews with the wonks in DC, it looks like HD Radio is a high-level corporate scam, a huge carny shill.”
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/2007-03-07/music/hd-radio-on-the-offense
“Sirius, XM, and HD: Consumer interest reality check”
“While interest in satellite radio is diminishing, interest in HD shows no signs of a pulse.”
http://www.hear2.com/2007/02/sirius_xm_and_h.html
“U.S. automakers not jumping into HD Radio”
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN2632750220070427?pageNumber=1
“Bridge Ratings: Sweat the cell phone and don’t count on HD”
“In other words, Bridge says interest in HD radio is decreasing even as your station works hard to increase awareness. What can I possibly add to this honest and bleak picture that I haven’t said before? My well-intended warnings about HD’s “premature death” seem to be rearing their ugly heads almost two years later.”
http://www.hear2.com/2007/04/bridge_ratings_.html#comments
“But is ‘availability’ of HD radios the problem?”
“And one broadcaster reported to me that he asked an iBiquity rep how many HD radios had actually been sold as of the most recent accounting. And this was his answer: 150,000.”
http://www.hear2.com/2007/04/but_is_availabi.html#comments
“Is Pay-for-Play HD Content on Horizon?”
http://rwonline.com/pages/s.0049/t.4028.html
“HD Radio Effort Undermined by Weak Tuners in Expensive Radios”
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/7002/hd-radio2.html
“The FCC Tunes Into HD Radio–And May Turn Off Distant AM”
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2007/03/the_fcc_greenlights_hd_radio_n.html
“RW Opinion: Rethinking AM’s future”
“Making AM-HD work well as a long-term investment is seen as an expensive and risky challenge for most stations and their owners. There is the significant downside of potential new interference to some of their own AM analog listeners as well as listeners of adjacent-channel stations.”
http://www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0044/t.557.html