HD Radio - The ups and downs

Now that you have a basic idea on what HD Radio is, lets talk about the ups and downs. As an owner of a car stereo with a built in HD receiver, I have a good idea of what the positives and negatives are.

First, lets start with the positives.

The first most notable feature, and probably the most important feature is the multicasting. Multicasting opens users to some unique formats, depending on which market you are located in. I have heard All Beatles, 90's stations, dance music, Texas country, and much more.

Second, some stations will scroll information, such as station name, song, and artist...even on AM HD.

Third, most of the HD-2, and HD-3 stations are commercial free. There is nothing more annoying then commercials.

Now, for some of the negatives.

First, it takes a good 5 to 10 seconds for the HD signal to lock in (at least, on my stereo it does). It would be nice if the station could lock in much quicker.

Second, you will notice that on the HD website, it claims that your signal will be "CD Quality and static free." That is sort of true -- until you get too far away from the signal. HD signals do NOT get to broadcast at full power because it is said that it causes a "hissing" type sound on the analog signal. For that reason, if you are in a part of town where you get a decent signal on the analog, you may have trouble getting a signal on  HD. A good example on a station where this occurs would be KDBN "93.3 The Bone" in Dallas. The Bone has by far, one of the poorest signals in the metroplex and cannot be heard very far outside the metroplex. I was traveling through the Flower Mound - Denton areas in the metroplex listening to their HD-2 signal, "Energy 93.3 - All 90's," and there were some spots where the signal would drop in and out.

It's annoying when the signal drops out on an HD-2 signal because like digital TV, there is no static. You either have the signal or you don't. So, if you lose the HD-2 signal, the only thing you will pick up is silence. Not a "weak" signal with a little bit of static. You either have the signal or you don't. I would rather have a signal with some static than nothing at all.

Third, it can be annoying when the HD-1 signal switches back to analog in a spotty area. For example, KSCS-HD1 Fort Worth - Dallas sounds much quieter then their analog signal. So, when I'm driving back out here to Texas Tech and I begin to lose KSCS, and eventually, the HD-1 signal reverts to analog. I can hear this loud and clear because there is a notable volume increase. Now, IBOC isn't the one to blame for this. The only thing to blame would be the station itself, however, consumers that are new to this technology might blame the equipment more so than the station.

Fourth, while HD Radio opens you to unique formats, none are quite as unique as what you might find with Internet Radio and Satellite Radio.

Fifth, while it is cool that you can pick up the song and other information on your stereo, the truth is that most standard stereos in cars without HD capabilities can pick up station information via RDS. While RDS text isn't quite the same as the text used in HD Radio, it is very similar...and I do not see a significant difference. I guess this feature is good for me, becauase my standard stereo in my '05 Civic was one of the few that didn't have RDS!

I do not own a tabletop HD Radio, so I cannot say much about that, but I've heard of more frustrations with the tabletop radio than the car radios.

That is all for now. On the next post, I will talk about what I think will happen to HD Radio and why the technology has not kicked off at all.

Thanks for reading!

-Brett