HD Radio Web

One Response on Are any companies known to be working on a walkman-style HD Radio?

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  By Geoff S at June 10th, 2008

  I doubt it. They really need to perfect their tabletop and car models first. I tried one out at radio shack, a $300 boston acoustics. It was at a plaza store in the suburbs and they had it as close to the front window as possible hooked up to a set of rabbit ears. I could pick up about 25 analog FM stations in listenable quality. For HD stations, I could pick up 1. Just 1! There were about 9 other stations I knew for sure had HD transmissions but the signals weren’t strong enough for the radio to pick them up. You really have to have a super strong signal to get the HD, and the one station I got didn’t have any of the subchannels. The quality was slightly better but nothing to make me go wow. I was more interested in the subchannels that played different kinds of music, but unfortunately I couldn’t get any there in the store. Perhaps at home if I hooked it up to a big antenna it’d work better. Still, most of the channels have commercials and that’s one of the reasons I ended up persuing satellite radio. Sure I have to pay for it, but I have 10 times the selection and no commercials. It’s like the difference between cable and free TV.

  Anyway, AM reception on that radio stunk altogether so no HD was receivable there. I think it will be a few years for them to refine their technology before we start seeing better radios and perhaps then we’ll start seeing portable units running about.