media bytes: monday, december 4, 2006

Welcome to SDRadio for monday, december 4, 2006.
The GelderHead Thought Of The Day: Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement. ~Foster C. Mcclellan. Visit the Gelderhead.

Radio formats a new sound

Coming soon to a radio near you HDRadio, the new transmission standard of putting digital signals in the air for crisp sounds, and jumbled masses yearning to hear.
You’ve heard the spots on radio: hear the stations between stations. In San Diego the stations-within-a-station include KPBS’ Groove Salad. Programmed in San Francisco by Soma FM, the music is outstanding. The station bills itself as a “nicely chilled plate of ambient beats and grooves.” This weekend at home, I listened to the station for a couple of hours on Saturday and no spots, announcements or the like.
At 94.1, Star gives Adult Alternative on the secondary channel. Spanish Contemporary Hits, is Channel 933’s HD2 station.
US 95.7 has ‘All New Country.’ 101.5 KGB is the only station in the market to offer local programming on the secondary channel. It’s Dave, Shelly, and Chainsaw all day and all night. Perfect for the fan who may have missed or would want to hear the show again … and again … and again.
107.9 K-WAVE is the only station that North County can receive without loosing the HDRadio transmission.
On the AM side of the house: KOGO-AM is currently the only station in the market to have HDRadio. LA stations include KNX-AM 1070, KSPN-AM 710, and Radio Disney at 1110. Currently, HDRadio leaves the air near sunset as co-channel interference is an issue on the AM band.
There is a lot of promotion on HDRadio and early next year a new campaign will hit the airwaves. The push is to tune in to alternative programming on the station.
Don’t expect to be driving and hearing the HD2 or HD3 stations on FM. Reception is paramount here and listeners will experience a drop out if the signal received is not strong enough for a clear reception. In my drive on the 78 freeway from Oceanside to Escondido, I got the Triple A station on 94.1 all the way to San Marcos Blvd. Then the signal cut out because of Mount Whitney directly south of Cal State. The HD2 station did not recover until the return trip from Escondido.
The only station I was able to receive clearly with HDRadio on the FM band was K-Wave 107.9 from San Clemente. The religious broadcaster has an advantage of giving North County a city-grade signal. On the AM side, KOGO-HD was heard everywhere. All AM HD broadcasts are not on in the nighttime hours — meaning when it is dark, HDRadio on AM is not heard.
There is also another issue for stations to consider: the return on investment. Currently, multicasting is officially being tested and the FCC does not permit commercials or paid advertisements. While impressive that a station can have up to three stations in one, what is the reason to tune into a muliticast station? Commercial free programming is nice, however for the station there is no advertising hook to help pay the costs of a new transmitter, music fees — and additional production costs of having the audio service.
My recommendation is to educate yourself prior to buying a radio for the car. HDRadio.com is a good starting point, however that is primarily a site constructed by the company promoting the digital standard. I found Wikipedia as a non-biased site to research. Visit HD Radio on Wikipedia.
It can be an expensive choice, however with much searching I was able to purchase a new model this month for less than $130 online — and will get a $50 rebate from the company. For San Diego stations: Commuters heading south on the 5 freeway, Encinitas is the line where HDRadio reception is clear. Likewise, on the 15 freeway side, Ted Williams Parkway is the area where I received stations without dropouts. Note that all radios are different, however the specs on my model are impressive and when compared with other HDRadio owners. Other owners that I found have the similar results in geographical reception.
Satellite radio clearly shines in this area as the audio quality is similar. The sky-broadcasters also do not have restrictions form the FCC nor do they have the limited reception problems that ground-based FM or AM stations have. Meaning in the same drive on the 78, my satellite radio did not loose reception once (even under bridges).
Desktop HDRadios models are not impressive at this time. The over-priced models do not give the ability to fully hear the fidelity of HDRadio on the FM side. Most models that can be found do NOT INCLUDE the multicasting function. The same with car radios. Make sure to get the multicasting function, otherwise, you’re missing part of the offering.
While much promotion by the HDRadio industry, it’s still a Stay Tuned item for the home, and only upgrade for the car if you need a new car radio. Noted: KyXy is promoting HDRadio, and yet is not offering the digital transmission at this time ….

Where Are The Missing Links?

The hosting service was notified and should have the issue resolved by Wednesday. There was an upgrade to the service last week … so please Stay Tuned!

This entry was posted on Monday, December 4, 2006 at 5:59 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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