Radio World - November 19, 2008 - (Page 18)

HD Radio At the Top 25 Page 19 Radio World FIRST PERSON Covering Radio’s Digital Transition November 19, 2008 Exploring HD Radio Availability in Philadelphia Shopping for HD Radio Receivers in the City of Brotherly Love by J.R. Russ As a fellow broadcast consultant and researcher, I often ran into Thom Moon in the Diary Audit rooms of Arbitron years ago. When I saw his report in these pages on the availability of HD Radios in the Cincinnati area earlier this year, I thought it would be good to check out availability in the Philadelphia market. I am no stranger to HD Radio signals and their shortcomings, having a Dual XHD6425 USB HD Radio indash receiver in my car, a Sony XDR-S3HD tabletop at home and Radiosophy HD100 in my Washington office. I chose “the usual suspects” as far as retailers, the first being a Best Buy in Conshohocken, a suburb to the northwest of the city. It is line-of-sight to the Roxborough antenna farm approximately 10 miles away and under 2 miles from the 50 kW signal of KYW(AM), 1060 kHz, which is broadcasting in HD Radio. As I looked around at the table radios at the Best Buy, an employee named Justin asked if he could help. When I said, “I would like to see the HD Radios,” I got a blank stare for a moment, then he brought Zach over, who said: “Hmmm, we don’t have any of those.” He went to the next aisle and said, “We had a Sony Boom Box, uh … but, that’s gone too. I guess we don’t have any.” Their display center featured two HD Radios, an Insignia NS-C5112 and a JVC KD-HDR30. The Insignia, less expensive at $79, could not pick up a signal of any sort. The JVC, at nearly $100 more, worked. The JVC was able to get good analog signals of WBEB(FM) and WYSP(FM) among others; however, all signals were analog. When I asked if they were HD Radio Sean replied “I think so.” Then I discovered how to manually tune the radio and found the ’80s format of WBEB HD2. I said “See? There are different channels.” He said in slight amazement, “Oh.” I checked WYSP and received no HD Radio indicator and was unable to tune the simulcast of KYW(AM) that airs on WYSP(FM)’s HD2 and could tune in no other FM digital stations. I then switched to AM, hoping to amaze him when he heard the allnews KYW jingle in crystal-clear stereo. Sorry. No AM reception, even at such close proximity to the 50 kW transmitters. And the auto radio department is in the northeast corner of the store, so only a cinder block wall stood between the station and true HD Radio reception. After about five minutes of trying to pick up more stations, I decided to allow him to wait on other customers looking at satellite radio, which was playing nicely on separate Sirius and XM displays. Tweeter I went to Tweeter, an audiophile store primarily serving the northeast. Tweeter is far more professional and expensive, and therefore less busy. I was greeted by Peter, who pulled a large remote control with an LCD screen from under the central desk. He proceeded to demonstrate the Sonos ZP90 Zone Player with optional remote. This device merges the Internet and a home stereo. He was able to surf the Net and played the IBOC streams of FMs WXPN and WHYY, saying he is “into jazz and classical music.” See PHILLY, page 20 Photos by J.R. Russ “How about car radios?” I asked. “Oh, yeah, maybe over there. Ask for Sean. He knows all the radios there.” A stroll to the corner of the store found Sean; a repeat of the question sent him to a JVC KT-HDP1 Transportable HD Radio kit resembling a satellite radio receiver with an RF modulator to transmit to the existing car radio. These were in sealed packages and were not able to demo the sound. I said I would prefer a new indash radio and would like to hear one. http://www.daysequerra.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Radio World - November 19, 2008

Radio World - November 19, 2008 IBOC+Satellite? Subscribers Not Impressed The New World of AM DA MoM Contents Newswatch Buterbaugh Legendary in Upper Midwest From the Editor Buterbaugh: His Colleagues Look Back Workbench: What’s Wrong With This Picture? KFI Back at Full Power With New Tower 3G or Not 3G? That Is the Question Exploring HD Radio Availability in Philadelphia HD Radio Scoreboard Digital News GEP For That Bird Without a Wire A Chat With Bay Country Radiolicious Brings Radio to iPhones People News Belar FMHD-1 Clears the Skies Reader’s Forum Radio Thrives in Digital Age A Vote for Change

Radio World - November 19, 2008

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