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Are you a hard core Charger fan and want to see the team and enjoy the local radio broadcast? The apparent out of sync is not your fault, nor is it Rock 105.3’s broadcast.

Blame it on new technology, especially if you have HDTV at home. Depending on how you get the HDTV signal could make the sync problem worse.

Scenario 1: HDTV with an outside antenna: The signal from the stadium is encoded, then sent up to the satellite to the broadcast center — and resent up to the satellite and then rebroadcast by the local station. That is at three hops on the TV side. Radio wise, it’s broadcast booth to the station. If watching this way, the radio and TV will be close in sync.

Scenario 2: HDTV via satellite. The signal takes the same path as the first step — but has an added hop from the local station to the satellite to your home. Each step — an over 50,000 mile hop — adds latency to the broadcast. The radio and TV will be further out of sync.

Scenario 3: HDTV via the local cable company. The signal takes the same path as the first step, and then enters the home to the set up box. This adds micro-seconds to the delay and further widening the sync between radio and TV.

In my case, on Sunday’s broadcast, I had scenario 1. Jim Richards of Clear Channel in San Diego ensures me that HDRadio broadcast on Rock 105.3 is turned off so there is no delay for the fan wanting to hear the action at the stadium or at home. The wild card factor, at least for me, is the HDTV transmission that adding delay.

In other words, currently, if you want the audio to sync up, best to watch it on the old fashioned analog TV with the radio. It’ll be close to real time — at least until the analog TV broadcast is turned off in 2009.

Stay Digitialy Tuned!