Radio Survivor

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 to the more limited sonics of analog AM radio, we are led to expect HD AM stations to offer significantly better fidelity; they don’t offer any additional channels.

But compared to FM, there are much fewer HD stations on AM. This is largely due to the fact that the AM band is seriously congested, with quite a bit of interference. Adding an HD Radio IBOC side-channel to a station greatly increases the potential for interference to adjoining analog stations. A secondary reason is that the AM band is dominated by talk radio formats where fidelity improvement is less important.

In Chicago iBiquity (owner of HD Radio technology) says there are seven HD stations on AM. Over the course of several days throughout the last few weeks I was only able to tune in the HD signal for three of these stations, WSCR, WBBM and WGRB. My Sony receiver detected an HD signal on two–WRDZ and WVON–but could not tune it in. The receiver detected no HD signal for two stations, WMVP and WRTO.

Two of the three stations with an HD signal I could receive are primarily talk stations, WSCR and WBBM. The HD signals of both had a modestly extended frequency range than the analog signal, but with clearly audible digital artifacting on the high end, similar to a medium bitrate MP3 (say about 96 kbps stereo or 48 kbps mono). However, wider frequency range is of negligible use for talk programming. For these stations the primary benefit of HD is the loss of background noise and interference, which can be distracting even on a strong AM signal.

One HD signal, WGRB, features both talk and gospel music programming. Depending on the source–some programs are recorded live in churches–there is a perceptible improvement in fidelity with music due to the extended frequency response. However, the high end artifacting and distortion due to the low bitrate is sometimes too distracting to my ear, leading me to prefer the analog signal, even if the compromise is less high end.

On the whole the only real benefit I can see for HD Radio on AM is the significant reduction in background noise. On FM this is a limited benefit, since background analog background noise is already very low by comparison. But on AM it’s quite noticeable and losing it is mostly welcome. At the same time, I can’t say it’s worth the trouble.

Of the three HD stations I could receive, the only one I’m likely to listen to regularly is news/talk WBBM, where I also heard the least sonic improvement. I chalk this up to the likelihood that the station’s airchain has been optimized for AM. Because the HD signal is broadcast as a lower power level than the analog, I have to work, moving the antenna around, to tune in the HD signal. When I’m not specifically trying to test HD reception, it’s unlikely I’d bother with the effort to get the HD signal.

Much more so than with FM, I consider HD Radio on AM to be mostly useless and not worth the effort. It’s especially not worth the loud digital hash noise I receive on my analog-only radios on the frequencies adjacent to the HD stations. It’s like a line of digital litter strewn across the AM radio highway.

After the jump are my technical details and listening notes for each station.
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On Monday the trade publication Automotive News reported that the number of car makers offering HD Radio is up, mostly relying on stats provided by iBiquity, which owns the technology. According to the article pricey brands Volvo, BMW and Rolls-Royce now offer HD Radio as standard, while twelve other brands offer it as an option. Curiously, only one Japanese brand, the Toyota division of Scion, offers HD.

However, there are a lot of things one can buy as an option on a car, so the more important question is, Is anyone buying? On the surface, thing don’t look too bad for HD. Apparently 438,000 automotive receivers were sold in the nine months ending June 30, contributing to a total of three million HD Radio receivers sold in the US, both car-based and not. By comparison about eight million cars were sold in the same period, meaning only about five percent of new cars sold were equipped with HD Radio.

After reading a recent Radio World article, I wonder if at least part of the blame is due to the difficulty of actually buying the option. Writer Thomas R. Ray III, who is normally a cheerleader for HD Radio, recounts the difficulty he faced in getting an HD receiver in his brand new Ford Escape. It turns out the Ford dealership had never heard of HD Radio, and so he ended up with a factory-installed analog radio. He encountered further trouble integrating an aftermarket receiver because of the Ford’s much ballyhooed Sync system.

As long as HD Radio remains an option on most cars, I don’t think it’s going to see the kind of growth it needs to become a mainstream technology. As it is, there isn’t enough to recommend HD Radio to make it work the extra hundred bucks or so to the average car buyer, who is probably more concerned with a CD player or iPod connectivity. I remember back when I was a kid in the 70s that AM radios were standard and FM was an option. It wasn’t really until AM/FM radios became standard that you saw FM radio start to take off. I’m not convinced HD offers nearly as much extra as FM did thirty years ago.

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 several hours of listening I remain rather unimpressed by HD Radio.

Primary HD Channels

First off I will address the question of sound quality and fidelity. iBiquity claims “drastically improved sound quality” for HD Radio over its analog counterpart. I do not agree with this claim. Tuning between the analog and primary HD channel for each station I could perceive slight differences in sound quality between them. The biggest difference is the loss of background noise and hiss in the HD channel. Now, this is a very subtle difference, primarily perceptible during quiet music passages (which are rare on commercial FM) and voice breaks. This leads to the perception that there’s a bit more dynamic range on the HD channel, but it requires fairly high listening volume to clearly detect.

While I welcome the lower noise floor of HD, I otherwise don’t perceive any other significant increase in fidelity. On nearly every station I listened to the primary HD channel sounded nearly identical to the analog FM. Much of commercial FM is overcompressed, and I found that if a station’s analog signal was so overprocessed, so was the primary HD channel.

Sometimes I would lose the HD signal–since it’s broadcast at a much lower power level than the analog signal–and I never noticed just by listening. I had to look at the tuner’s display to know for sure. The shift between the HD and analog signals is pretty smooth sounding on the Sony tuner. I can tell when it happens, but it’s quite unobtrusive. If I’m not paying close attention to the radio it can happen without me noticing.

All of the 19 HD FM stations I received are stations that come in reasonably well in analog in my apartment in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the far north side of Chicago. The Sony XDRF1 turns out to have very good analog FM performance, bringing in the analog FM signals of these stations better than any other radio in my house except my Tivoli Model One, which is another room. Of the 10 stations where I couldn’t tune in an HD signal, 8 of them don’t come in clearly in my house in analog, either. For two stations my tuner did not indicate there was an HD signal present. More details listening notes by station are at the end of this post.

Secondary HD Channels

The other big advantage touted for HD Radio are the additional subchannels a station can have. Each HD station I listened to broadcast one or two additional channels. By and large the second HD channel had decent sound quality, but that nevertheless never matched the quality of the primary analog or HD channel. This should be expected because there is only so much digital bandwidth for each station to exploit, and the FCC requires that the primary HD channel–which must have the same programming as the analog signal–have the biggest share of the bandwidth.

The second HD channels typically sound like a good webcast station. That is, they sound like medium-quality MP3s with bitrates of 128 kbps or lower. I hear more compression and less dynamic range than the analog side, and some rolling off at the high end. Right now I’m listening to WXRT’s commercial-free HD channel 2 called “Channel X” and it’s pleasant to listen to, no more fatiguing than most web stations.
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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 barely listened to the service, largely because I don’t own an HD Radio and rarely have had access to one. In order to judge the actual merits of the system against what I already know are some of the constraints, I really think I should do some critical listening.

I’d been thinking about buying an HD Radio for a while, mostly considering the Sony XDRF1HD HD Radio Tuner. It’s received very good reviews for both its analog FM performance as well as its HD radio performance, and it’s comparatively inexpensive with a street price of around $80. Then I walked into a local electronics store today and found one in an open box special for even less, so a I bought it.

It’s an audio component tuner, not a radio, so it doesn’t have a speaker. It’s made to fit into an audio component system, which is where I’ll install it.

I have not yet given it a real listen, so I can post no results yet. However, I will be sure to keep Radio Survivor readers updated on my new adventures in HD Radio.

It’s the rumor that won’t die. Last November the blogosphere was alive with reports that iPhones have a latent FM radio built-in, just waiting to be turned on by Apple. However, the new iPhone 4 is on the streets and there’s still no sign of that radio-in-waiting. Now AppleInsider reports on a patent application from Apple that points towards not just an FM radio but possibly an HD Radio appearing in a future iPhone.

An FM radio is already featured in the current generation iPod Nano, as well as MP3 players from competitors like SanDisk. Microsoft’s Zune even has HD Radio. But all of these devices are media players only, not smartphones. As of yet there are no major smartphones available from a US carrier that have FM radios.

According to a recent consumer survey, that might be a major oversight on the part of manufacturers. Research firm Vision Critical asked more than 4,000 adults what missing feature on the iPhone 4 they would most like to see, and an FM tuner was the top pick when averaged across respondents from all three countries.

An FM radio was the most popular in Canada. Vision Critical senior vice-president Jeff Vidler suggests this is because streaming services like Pandora are not available in Canada and because mobile data charges are higher there.

But here in the US features like having a choice of carrier (39%), a 4G network (38%) and an eight megapixel camera (33%) were all more popular amongst respondents than an FM radio (30%). Still, the radio was more popular than a larger display or wireless syncing.

If the recent Apple patent really means an FM radio, then maybe we’ll see it in iPhone 5. If so, then I won’t be surprised if other smartphone manufacturers follow. It’s also possible that one of Apple’s competitors will try to beat them to the punch.

Actually, with the new AT&T data caps pouring some cold water on streaming music to the iPhone I’m more convinced of how desirable an FM tuner would be to the average consumer than I would have been a month ago.

The National Federation of Community Broadcasters just wrapped up its annual conference this past weekend in St. Paul, MN. The NFCB has been a true anchor in the community radio movement, both supporting individual stations and advocating on their behalf in DC. This year the FCC actually graced the conference, with Commissioner Mingon Clyburn giving a speech on June 10.

Commissioner Clyburn certainly let loose quite a few surprises, starting with suggesting that TV channels 5 and 6 could be reallocated for non-commercial FM radio, low-power FM or AM broadcasters. While she said that she wasn’t suggesting an immediate change, Clyburn said that, “it is time for us to take a serious look at
where these services fit within the overall spectrum plan, and that Channels 5 and 6 maybe a good home.”

The spectrum allocated to analog channels 5 and 6 sits just below the FM band’s lower limit of 88 MHz. Before the digital transition you might remember being able to hear channel 6 TV audio at the bottom end of your FM dial. Although the transition meant full-power stations lost their analog audio signal, low-power TV stations were permitted to remain analog. As I’ve reported before, there are several low-power channel 6 stations taking advantage of their proximity to the FM dial to function effectively like radio stations rather than TV.

Any reallocation of channel 5 and 6 spectrum would require dealing with the few full-power stations that chose to stay put rather than move to different spectrum space. It would also have to deal with the LPTV stations on channels 5 & 6. My guess is that these stations could be offered to move into spectrum allocated for digital, though it might take some horse trading. It’s also likely that those few LPTV stations on channel 6 are going to be very reluctant to move and give up their radio-like business, although it’s just a matter of time before the FCC kills that business model by forcing all LPTV to go digital.

Commissioner Clyburn also suggested that community stations consider the charms of HD Radio. She acknowledged that, “limited receiver penetration and the cost of digital transmission equipment may make owning an HD Radio station an unappealing option for community radio groups.” However, she also proposed that “HD can provide yet another way to promote broadcast diversity and expanded programming option.” She even suggested that community stations or groups seeking stations could partner with other commercial or non-commercial stations to program their secondary HD-2 and HD-3 channels.

It’s pretty rare for community radio to get such a courtesy call from an FCC commissioner, and all the more rare for a commissioner to drop so many bombshells. I’m cautiously optimistic to hear such support for community radio and an apparent willingness to consider an expansion of the FM band in order to accommodate more non-commercial stations. I do have to note, however, that there’s no indication that an expanded band would be only for community radio. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see if the idea gains any traction with the full Commission.

My pal John Anderson at DIYmedia.net alerts us to a new group blog written by some fellow radio survivors who intend to hold public radio’s feet to the fire, called Keeping the Public in Public Radio (KTPIPR). Featuring the contributions of public radio supporters, authors and broadcasters, the site is covering the changing landscape of public radio which often mirrors commercial radio in emphasizing national programming and ratings over local service.

The site’s bloggers hailing from Boston and Austin are focusing on changes happening at the public stations in those cities, WGBH and KUT, respectively. Concerns over KUT, owned by the University of Texas, stem from July 2009 changes in which three long-time DJs had their roles reduced while the station’s playlist became more “structured.” More recently the site has been critically following plans for the station to take over the university’s on campus bar and music venue, the Cactus Café.

For WGBH complaints arise from the station’s December, 2009 decision to go all-talk, canceling long-running folk and blues programs. A growing priority on news and information programming has been happening at public radio stations nationwide for well over a decade, with many long-running local music programs coming to an end. Even back in 1997 when I attended the CPB’s Public Radio Program Directors conference the emphasis was on research indicating that moneyed listeners valued keystone syndicated programs like All Things Considered more than local programming, especially music. Since then the trend has only grown.

KTPIPR isn’t only focusing on Boston and Austin, it’s got at least four other stations on its radar for regular coverage, along with keeping a wide angle lens on the national scene. The site also takes aim at NPR for the network’s support of HD Radio, calling it the “Huge Debacle.”

KTPIPR has been going strong for about a month and a half. I’m always supportive of informed and critical coverage of radio issues, so I’m hoping the site’s authors can keep it up.

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 good half-decade. Unlike HD Radio, which broadcasts alongside analog signals, DAB uses a different set of spectrum dedicated exclusively to digital radio.

Although arguably superior to HD Radio’s IBOC system, both due to greater available bandwidth and not causing interference to analog stations, DAB isn’t necessarily doing any better in its home countries. As UK radio blogger Grant Goddard reports, many European countries are scaling back or ending their investment in rolling out DAB.

At the beginning of March the BBC confirmed rumored plans to shut down two of its DAB stations, the Asian Network, which serves South Asian communities, and 6 Music, which is a popular modern rock station. The 6 Music shutdown, in particular, has generated a significant outcry from listeners, with nearly 8,000 complaints filed with the BBC as of last Friday.

The 6 Music closure appears to hit a nerve because it was the BBC’s attempt at creating a cutting edge rock music station featuring more variety and up-and-coming bands than other BBC or commercial stations. Music celebrity hosts like Jarvis Cocker, Bruce Dickinson and Bob Dylan have had their own shows. When it debuted in 2002 it was the first new national service from the BBC since 1970. 6 Music was also intended to be a showcase for the new DAB service, supposedly taking advantage of the service’s enhanced digital fidelity.
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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 quite some time, it’s the backing of National Public Radio and its engineering report on the matter that was the likely tipping point.

But, as radio researcher John Anderson points out, this change is also likely to produce more interference complaints from listeners trying to tune in weaker stations adjacent to these higher power digital signals. There have already been significant complaints and concerns about digital HD signals interfering with adjacent analog stations with the previous power limit set at 1% of a station’s analog power.

The Prometheus Radio Project, in particular, questioned NPR’s support for the increase based on NPR’s own engineering data (PDF). Prometheus noted that listeners asked by NPR Labs to rate HD interference to analog signals at the new power levels gave the quality of the resulting audio a score of 2.7 on a 5 point scale, which is below a rating on “fair” on that scale. Prometheus further argued that,

The NPR Labs Study represents a “best case scenario” test of interference to analog. … Although the NPR Labs Study showed troubling levels of interference, the decision to use a single, highly selective receiver dramatically limited the extent to which these results can be extrapolated.

For its part, NPR responded to Prometheus and other critics [PDF], contending that they “generally misapprehend or ignore the [HD] testing methodology, the test results, or the results of NPR Labs’ prior [HD] testing.”
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I keep reading all this hype about how HD Radio is the big audio deal at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, yet I fail to quite see what’s so exciting. Sure, there are some new models of HD Radio receivers rolling out, but the number of new entries roughly equals the number of models being retired. The end result is that there will be about as many HD receivers on the market as last year. That’s big news?

I guess Ford announcing stronger support for HD and the new iTunes tagging features count for something. But where the rubber meets the road is whether car buyers are willing to pony up the extra cash for the higher-end stereos. While Ford is doing better than Chrysler and GM, the last time I checked, the auto industry isn’t exactly thriving. And let’s not forget that just few years ago the big hype was how the auto manufacturers were embracing satellite, yet that seems to have mostly resulted in lots of XM Sirius-equipped rental cars.

I keep searching for information about all these new non-automotive HD receivers and I keep coming up with the same iBiquity press release regurgitated all over the place. The release lists off a pile of model numbers, but no other info that might help me evaluate how great these new receivers might be.

iBiquity set up a special page just for “breaking news” from CES 2010. But today, the next-to-last day of the show, there’s no news to be found.

Only This Week in Consumer Electronics has any useful information, including the most valuable data of all: price. Amongst the models listed by TWICE, at $69 the lowest cost receiver is Radio Shack’s FM-only Gigaware-branded add-on for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The price isn’t outrageous, and marks only a $10 – $20 premium over a typical FM-only radio for the iPhone. Past that, all of the new HD receivers come in over a hundred bucks. That includes even the entry from discount electronics brand Coby, whose HDR700 has a street price of around $99.

I really believe that price is the key here. With the collapse in the quality of commercial radio programming, HD Radio really has not been able to sell itself on programming, despite the largest broadcasters like CBS Radio blanketing their stations with ads touting HD’s virtues. The quality issue is also debatable. So, at best, I think HD Radio is still a curiosity for most people who might be attracted by having a few more channels at their disposal, or having AM news, traffic and weather on the FM HD channels. But what are people willing to pay for this curiosity?
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