I have been a radio kind of guy for years. Versus a television kind of guy that is.
My first transistor radio was pressed into my young hands in the mid-sixties. Yes, folks – I am that old. And that is OK.
Within a few years it was not enough that I owned a variety of radios – I was building them too. At 13 years of age, I built a multi-band shortwave radio from a kit.
I do have a fondness for AM Radio however. For those who have forgotten it, AM radio is that muffled old style of radio from 540 to 1600 (now 1700khz) that carried your early rock & roll music (for those of you over 30 [or 40!] that can remember such a thing.)
There was always something comforting about tuning across an old radio dial at night never quite sure what you were going to hear; the swish of static, the heterodyne of mixing stations, the clear channel trans-continental stations that used to be king.
Times have obviously changed. Media has been concentrated and centralized. Regional and local voices have faded… but not entirely. It is as if there are corporate forces at work to take away individuality and freedom… of choice. Just the other morning I was turning across a portion of the dial and I was hearing the same program every 10khz (in radio world, an individual channel)
Coast to coast AM as it is called is a program on a chain of broadcasters (I think owned by Clear Channel). It sounds to me like a faceless and homogeneous drone of, well, nothing of merit.
Fast forward to 2007. For the last couple of years (in the U.S.A.) a corporation called Ibiquity has been pushing High Definition radio – or HD for short. HD AM and HD FM.
High definition AM. Isn’t that a natural oxymoron?
Anyway. Long story short. AM HD is a hybrid of technologies. Standard old analog AM transmitting techniques exist alongside digital sub-carriers. Problem is, the standard channel separation of 10khz on the AM band becomes unworkable with this format. A station running AM-HD on, say, 810 khz generates interference from 790khz to 830khz! In days of old, interference was limited to about 5 to 7 khz from the center channel, not 25khz!
What this means for smaller stations (in the U.S.) is that their reach or range is diminished by co-channel interference.
If you are a Canadian or Mexican border station trying to serve a rural market, your signal could be crushed or diminished by the U.S. based noise makers. Acceptable? I think not.
What to do?
If you are an American who enjoys long distance or rural AM reception and are getting buzzed make sure you write the station and any stations that are getting slammed.
If you are in Canada, send an e-mail to Industry Canada or the CRTC. Trust me, they do listen.
You will hear more from me on this issue.
It is about radio sovereignty. It is about freedom of choice. It is about a free and accessible media. Radio is one of the last free domains of expression that is open to anyone. Do not let a single corporation take that away.
Comments
7 responses to “The fraud of HD (High-definition) radio”
> a corporation called Ibiquity has been pushing High Definition radio –
You are wrong, my brother.
iBiquity has never called it “High Definition”. However, they also are not actively (or even passively) trying to dispell the notion that that’s what the HD stands for (they don’t say what the HD stands for; they want you to imagine what it might be).
By Calling it “HD” radio, iBiquity is riding the coattails of HDTV, where the HD really does stand for High Definition
Don’t be fooled by the association. There is nothing High Definition about HD radio.
HD? Hog Doot? Horrible Din? Heaved-up Detritus? As you note, HD doesn’t stand for High Definition with radio, as it does with TV. As with so many of its hinky antics, HD radio gangsters try to dine out large on HDTV.
Most plausible definition thus far, HD means ‘Hybrid Digital’. Therein lies the problem. HD radio ignoramuses, perhaps during a 90s all night pizza & beer bull session, had the bright notion to hog glue digital signals to analog AM and FM. They ran with this nonsense, and proclaimed it wouldn’t cause interference to boot!
Isn’t this akin to running raw sewage and tap water thru the same main, expecting everyone to drink up, smack their lips, and demand more?
HD is an ill conceived, shoddily executed, long obsolete, serially superseded scheme to loot public airwaves, drive listeners into submission and destroy competition.
The scheme almost worked. HD gang counted upon stealthing it past citizens.
But we caught on. As distinct from HD’s boardroom brawlers, citizens aren’t afraid to tell the truth about HD’s jamming problem.
Here’s the juice:
Older consumers don’t want HD. Younger ones laugh at it. Manufacturers dislike it. Retailers can’t sell it.
Paul Vincent Zecchino
Manasota Key, Florida
18 September, 2007
Update, 25 October, 2007. Canada released reports which detail HD radio’s disruption of both AM and FM reception. They strongly advise against HD.
HD radio sales in America are, at best, flat. Recent articles note big retailers who once stocked HD receivers now do not, due to returns by disappointed customers. Those who do discourage informed consumers from joining ‘the HD Rollout’.
In marked contrast to the Canadian Government’s forthcomingness, recent articles indicate the US Federal Communications Commission concealed studies which, as did those of Canada, described HD radio’s penchant for jamming public airwaves.
HD promoters’ desperation is palpable. One wonders how much longer they’ll prolong their charade, in light of rampant consumer apathy and increasing international pollution of publicly owned radio waves.
Dr. Paul Vincent Zecchino
Manasota Key, Florida
25 October, 2007
You took the words right out of my mouth:
http://hdradiofarce.blogspot.com/
Quoting You:
“High definition AM. Isn’t that a natural oxymoron?”
Well, yes it is, and it is a farce in my opinion too. Call me ignorant, and though I am somewhat of a techy (as I am a programmer, work with pc – server technology, and I am an audio / video enthusiast etc) dude, yet with respect to electronics and the theory of…, I would consider myself a “Backyard Electronics Technician” per say, or enough to be less than dangerous…
Anyway, here are my thoughts:
I am under the impression that, simply put, HD, is really “only” referring to video. How it ever crossed that bridge to audio. By the way, even Satellite Radio, in my belief is not CD quality (and without the industry saying it – it being CD quality – inferring that S.R. to be somewhat higher definition than FM, but I do not think so) and thus classifying the HD Radio / Satellite Radio in the same realm as a “Jedi Mind Trick.”
In Short, the industry makes a choice to take an existing technology (in this case digital), implement / incorporate / apply it differently, then call it something else for marketing purposes. And instead of using the old term “New and Improved” – which is now old, they can take the latest hype, that being HD (because it is digitally based etc), and apply HD to radio… and so on…
Am I on the right track here? Thus marketing takes over again…
While we are on the subject of Marketing I can see the following for the future: (and I may cause some trouble here – but that’s me)
This is a bit of a different topic, but related in some funny way…
Analog audio, which never really saw it’s death per say, just got very thin for a time, seems to be making it’s way back and in a huge way. Records / Albums (and the equipment to play it – insanely expensive I might add) are seeing a resurgence in the market place, and my point simply being that I can see the Marketing of it changing from “Analog” to “Natural…”, maybe if they are bold, do the “Coke” thing, and call it “Classic Audio!”
And so it goes…
ok, so I goofed a bit. I see that HD – reading an above post, in the sense that it is used, that being “Hybrid Digital” is obviously not High Definition. Yet, my point remains the same as the marketing tactics I describe are being carried out.
An so it goes, again…
Hello,the following article appeared on the Radio Free Europe website about media jamming. It is ironic to note that one section of the U.S. government, the State Department, is denouncing something internationally that another, the FCC is giving license to domestically.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
U.S. Denounces Attack On RFE/RL Websites
By Andrew Tully
Eight RFE/RL websites were affected by the attack
(Bymedia.net)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has deplored the recent cyberattack on the website of RFE/RL’s Belarus Service.
State Department spokeswoman Jessica Simon said in an interview with RFE/RL that the attack was “another example of the assault against free and independent media in Belarus.”
The cyberattack began on the morning of April 26 and knocked out eight of RFE/RL’s broadcast services’ websites. Although it is still unclear who was behind the attack, the chief target appears to be the website of the Belarus Service.
The “denial of service” (DOS) attack began while RFE/RL journalists in Belarus were preparing coverage of protests in Minsk marking the 22nd anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster. DOS attacks can render a targeted website unavailable to users, normally by flooding the site with fake requests to communicate.
What all these attacks have in common, Simon said, is that they deny the country’s citizens the news they need to understand the world they live in.
Simon called upon the Belarusian government to take the necessary steps to end this kind of attack against RFE/RL.
Widespread Attack
Opposition websites in Belarus, including Charter 97 and the European Radio for Belarus, were hit at the same time as RFE/RL.
Nina Ognianova, the program coordinator for Europe and Central Asia at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said it’s the responsibility of the government of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to find and punish those responsible.
Ognianova said that in the current digital age, forces that she described as “enemies of the free press” always manage to find new, more sophisticated ways of silencing independent media and crushing dissent.
“In Belarus especially, RFE/RL service is significant now more than ever because Lukashenka’s regime has destroyed the other independent and opposition broadcasters,” Ognianova said. “So we certainly are very concerned about this short-lived but successful attack on RFE/RL.”
Ognianova called on the authorities in Belarus to mount an investigation into who initiated the attack on the RFE/RL websites and to prosecute them vigorously.
All the affected RFE/RL websites are back online again.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2008/04/8277ba11-4725-49d1-8e8a-803140435cfe.html
HD radio broadcast interference is part of an overall pattern in the U.S. of silencing diverse media expressions on broadcast radio that has included attempts at more and more media consolidation.