Update: the show archive is live. I’ll be a guest on WAMU-FM’s Kojo Nnamdi Show today at noon Eastern Time for a discussion about the future of digital radio entitled “Radio After FM.” This is part of the show’s “Tech Tuesday” series. WAMU is the public radio station serving the Washington, D.C. area. Scheduled to […]
Tag Archives | IBOC
Is AM revitalization a cover to force an all-digital transition?
We received a couple of comments on my post about the revitalization of AM radio pointing to pieces that make convincing arguments that it was not a mere suggestion made at NAB last week to go all-digital with HD Radio on AM. Rather, there are forces at work to put this into policy, contrary to […]
Radio industry journal acknowledges problems with AM HD
Following on the heels of my unimpressive AM HD radio listening test last week, industry stalwart Radio World magazine published a report that comes to terms with the fact that “AM HD radio has stalled.” In fact, I’d say that characterizing AM HD as “stalled” is very optimistic. Instead, reading the same article I come […]
HD Radio on AM – Not worth it
One of the supposed advantages of HD Radio is improved fidelity over analog. As I observed in my listening test of HD on FM, there’s almost no real improvement for HD over the analog signal. The advantage for HD on FM, then, is the addition of one or two more channels of audio. However, due […]
First day with HD Radio – not impressed
I spent the better part of this afternoon listening to my new HD Radio receiver, the Sony XDRF1 HD, tuning through the Chicago FM dial. There are 33 FM stations broadcasting HD in Chicago according to iBiquity, which owns the technology. I was able to tune in the HD signal for 19 of them. After […]
Crossing over to the (HD Radio) Dark Side
Amazon.com Widgets Perhaps the title for this post is a little hyperbolic, however I feel like I have a confession to make: I just bought an HD Radio receiver. Yes, I’ve been quite critical here about the technical specs of In-Band-On-Channel digital broadcasting, a/k/a IBOC, a/k/a HD Radio. However, I must admit that I have […]
BBC Pruning Back Digital Radio Service
While digital HD Radio in the US generated some light interest during January’s Consumer Electronics Show, the BBC was sharpening its hatchet in anticipation of taking a few whacks at its digital radio service. The UK has had the Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB) service since the mid-1990s, predating HD radio in the US by a […]
FCC OKs Increase in HD Radio Power. Increased Interference Ahead?
On Friday the FCC’s Media Bureau quietly announced that it adopted an order to allow FM stations broadcasting a digital HD signal to increase their power levels up a maximum of 10% of the power of their main analog signal. While the National Association of Broadcasting and iBiquity have been agitating for this change for […]
The decade's most important radio trends #6: HD Radio launches, but who listens? Who cares?
June 12, 2009 is a day that will live on in broadcast history. That’s the day that the nation’s television broadcasters switched off their analog signals and went all-digital forever more. But does anyone remember January 7, 2003? That was the date of the very first digital HD Radio broadcast, originating at Detroit FM station […]