[BC] Reading: Are HD Radios Made w/Crappy Tuners?

Fri Mar 30 12:13:27 CDT 2007

Hi!
There has been an increasing trend to put the junk in the hands of the consumers. In the days of the NTSC (never twice the same color) television committee, it was determined that it was essential to keep television receivers “affordable” (read cheap). This meant that a “receiver correction filter” was necessary in the TV transmitter. The committee assumed that it was the broadcaster’s responsibility to compensate for the defective television designs of the day. The RCA 700-series comes to mind. RCA was the dominant television manufacturer and, as if you could not guess, played a dominant role on the committee. This “correction” became problematical when subsequent solid-state designs did not have the envelope delay distortion of the tube designs. Manufacturers like Sony actually had to crap up their designs to emulate the distortion that was “pre-corrected” in the transmitter.

Early on, we had the “all American 5-tube AC/DC radio.” It was designed to be cheap but, because of some extraordinarily clever engineering, was quite sensitive and selective. Nowadays, just try to find a radio that works as well. Today’s gutless wonders have 100 mV/m sensitivity, while the FCC Rules assumed that a broadcaster would put 2.5 mV/m at the post office in the city served. So today’s radios cannot even receive local radio stations very well. I have a well-known, expensive, starts with B and rhymes with hose, radio in my truck that is all hype. Instead of investing a few bucks on engineering, the hose company relies upon advertising to make its next quarter profit projections. On a clear day, if I am near Boston, I can receive WBZ. The FM reception is not as bad. However, I have never heard anything resembling stereo coming out of those speakers. The trained consumer learns that anything with multiple speakers is “stereo.” The radio has a satellite receiver too, th!
 at fail
s near cities, hills, valleys, forests, and rainstorms –all the stuff we have in New England. It probably works okay in most of Oklahoma.

When the FCC forced HDTV upon the broadcaster, I thought things would change. Now nothing would get in the way of a quality receiver. I was wrong as usual. Early HDTVs were not even television sets! They were just computer monitors that required $600-$800 receivers in addition to the “screens.” Then, the FCC required that all television sets have HDTV capability.  Therefore, somebody created a tuner with the sensitivity of a crystal set and supplied it to all the manufacturers. When I bought my new flat-screen TV, I thought I could connect it to my outside antenna and use it in place of the Motorola HDTV tuner and Sony color TV that I had been using. Not so! It may have a “tuner,” but the manufacturer expects that “everybody” connect to cable. I thought the TV was broken so I brought it back. The technician said, “You can’t use an outside antenna for HDTV!” I asked him why the television stations were now required to transmit HDTV. He said he thought it was so that the cable!
  compan
ies could pick it up. Remember that, you TV chief engineers! You are burning up 100 kWh or more so that some cable head-on near your TV transmitter can stuff it into a cable. Anyway, I bought an in-line preamplifier for the TV. That let me get the Boston channels almost as well as the Sony.

Sorry about the long post --- err, “don’t get me started!”

--
Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Read about my book
http://www.AbominableFirebug.com

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Dana  Puopolo" <dpuopolo at usa.net>
> When I stayed in a Hotel in Secaucus, NJ, the clock radio there was so bad
> that it couldn't separate NYC class B FM stations 800 kHz apart. I found it
> pathetically amusing that the NAB used the same radio to prove that LPFMs
> would intertfere with full power stations 400 kHz away. Talk about choosing
> your data to agree with you!
> 
> -D
> 
> 
> ------ Original Message ------
> Received: 
> From: "Harold Hallikainen" <harold at hallikainen.com>
> To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
> Subject: Re: [BC] Reading:  Are HD Radios Made w/Crappy Tuners?
> 
> 
> > Stumbled across this with my morning coffee:
> >
> > http://www.hear2.com/2007/03/are_hd_radios_m.html
> >
> >
> >
> > -dan in lansing
> 
> 
> It seems that radio receiver design is extremely price driven, so
> performance is a race to the bottom. We have a GE SuperRadio that works
> well. The rest of the radios around the house turn religious (from NPR) as
> you walk around the room. My wife wants to throw them out and get some
> radios that actually work. They seem kinda rare these days, though.
> 
> Harold
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> FCC Rules Updated Daily at http://www.hallikainen.com - Advertising
> opportunities available!
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