Editor: David Tanny
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Question: Should Radio Raise The Power Levels of HD Radio? (Aug 21, 2008)My answer: no. If radio wants to better blanket their licensed area with a stronger power level of HD radio, the only solution is to put up some signal boosters in areas such as valleys, tunnels, and places too far away for an HD signal to reach. I had an HD radio in my house for over a year, and the only HD signals that are for the most part reliable are those of KHTS 93.3 and KGB 101.5, simply because I'm in a line of unobstructed sight between me and the transmitters. That way, if I can't fall asleep, I'll tune in 101.5-2 for the all DSC channel and let them bore me to sleep. Works better than the Tom Leykis podcasts, which tend to overstimulate me when I don't need it the most, but even he is rerunning the same topics again and again.I can get the digital subchannels for 93.3 and 101.5 for most all of the time. Same thing with KPBS 89.5 and its two digital subchannels. The signals of most of the other HD signals are on and off, but that of KIOZ 105.3 and KUSS 95.7 are the worst since I'm about 15 miles away from their transmitters. I can't lock into their HD2 channels most of the time. Star 94.1, KYXY 96.5, and KSCF 103.7's subchannels go on and off too much for me to stand. A short term solution is to erect some boosters in difficult to reach areas so that HD radio would come in better. A better solution is to reallocate the VHF-LO band where channels 2-6 now occupy into the HDFM band so that we can have digital radio stations broadcasting at full power, as well as more noncommercial radio stations in analog or digital, and some AM stations can relocate there as they give up their often weak AM frequencies in favor of the new HDFM band that I'm suggesting. As for adjacent channel interference, the FM channels could be spaced further apart so that 104.3 and 104.5 wouldn't step on each other so much. Would 0.3 MHz be far apart? How about 0.4MHz? As for incresing HD power, I say no because that could cause more adjacent channel interference for fringe listeners who would end up getting Jack 93.1 and Channel 93.3's adjacent channel clashes to a point where neither station would be listenable. Too much HD radio on 93.3 can cause interference with 93.1 and 93.5. 93.1's strong HD signal can cause interference on 92.9 and 93.3. This leads me to wonder why can't the makers of the FM tuners simply improve the circuits so that we don't get any more adjacent channel interference on any given frequency? This has been going on for decades and they had many of those years to improve on that, but they didn't. Now we have millions of FM receivers in San Diego that can't get KLOS 95.5, KCBS 93.1, KLSX 97.1, KIIS 102.7, and other Los Angeles FM stations due to local adjacent channel interference because of the cheap FM tuners. I've been wanting such a tuner since about 1981 so I could tune in 94.7 KMET, now long gone, and other L.A. stations since then, and have the circuits knock out the adjacent channel interference from 94.9 (KBEST at the time). Nowadays, my wish is moot because L.A. radio isn't what it used to be almost three decades ago. Raising HD radio's signal would only give the FM signals a fatter signal footprint at the expense of adjacent distant radio station listening. In a crowded Los Angeles radio market, chances of a listener getting any San Diego stations with all of the HD signals in the area are slim to none. I used to get Q106 (now gone) when I was going up the I-405 past the I-10, but not anymore, thanks to KROQ-HD. |