Is Hi-Def radio passing into ‘has-been…

Is Hi-Def radio passing into ‘has-been’ (maybe – ‘never-was’) phase? I actually never bought one.

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3 Responses to Is Hi-Def radio passing into ‘has-been…

  1. Art Stone says:

    A couple weeks ago, the FCC allowed radio stations to boost HD power, since typically it shrunk the reliable listening area. When your HD radio starts getting errors, it drops back to analog FM – since digital needs buffering time, the Analog signal has to also be delayed to mesh properly during fallback.

    It was an idea with dubious technology choices and no rational business plan. In Europe, they did a clean digital switch to HD using new spectrum. That’s the way it should have been done. There is talk of creating an all-digital FM band in the old analog UHF channel 5/6 area – but that would mean an extended dual allocation or forcing people to replace all their FM radios (like just what happened to TV). To get the best use of digital, you really want all of the stations coming from one single signal, not 50 different signals each carrying one station.

    If you recognize what I just described as Sirius and XM (or cable/satellite TV), you would be correct. The idea that a radio station would not control its own transmitter is an idea the NAB will never embrace – in fact it undermines the entire power structure of FCC licensing. If each town could have 100s of “stations”, there won’t be enough audience to fund any of them – likely those channels would just be filled with Clear Channel style national networks with minimal pretense of being “local”

    Wireless mobile broadband is probably the end game. GPS type devices are providing a better alternative for drivers to getbreal time traffic than waiting for “traffic and weather on the 8s”. Smart phones already have free apps with real time traffic maps and alerts. My 30ish nephew with 2 children says he never listens to radio. We are the last radio generation

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