If you're new to PopularWireless, you may want to subscribe to the RSS feed. Also visit our forums to meet the many regular users of the PopularWireless community. Thanks for visiting!
In the interest of full disclosure I want readers to know that I am employed as a full-time manager of RadioShack dealership store. A dealership is a privately owned RadioShack e.g. not a company owned store. With that in mind this is my review of the Accurian HD Tabletop radio RadioShack model 120-1686. I am writing the review because my sincere interest in HD radio and of course everything wireless.
Since I turned the first Accurian HD radio on in the store last year I wanted one. The sound for the size is quite impressive. The price was perfect when compared with classic AM radios like the CC Radio Plus sold by CCrane.com as well as the more expensive HD radios. (I also am the proud owner of a CCRadio!
) The Accurian HD tabletop fills a medium size room with plenty of very pleasant sound. When the radio is on a shelf as apposed to being in the middle of the room it has a bit more bass or boom.
What really intrigued me was the hybrid-digital IBOC radio or HD radio capability. The store I manage is south of Washington D.C. by about 30 miles. We are considered outside of the major radio markets both Washington D.C. and Baltimore. Most of our local stations are owned by the same small company and only one in Southern Maryland - WPRS 104.1 in Hughesville that broadcasts in HD. We do however receive a number of very good HD FM broadcast stations and these stations are starting to drive consumer interest - including mine - to purchase the HD radio.
Radio stations WAMU and WJZW piqued my interest because both FM stations have HD only broadcasts on their second HD channel that I enjoy hearing. WAMU at American University has WAMU-2 that broadcasts blue grass around the clock. WJZW-2 has a progressive or new-wave easy listening channel they call 24 by 7 Sunday brunch music. I thought now is the time to try HD radio.
I am a realist. I understand radio theory, wave propagation, digital radio modes and radio antennas. Going into this purchase it was a given that because of where I lived, being so far away from HD content, that outdoor antennas would be a requirement. Because of the distance to HD radio stations even an outdoor antenna was not a guarantee I would receive the content I wanted.
This is really what sets terrestrial HD radio apart from satellite radio like XM or Sirius Radio. Satellite gives you what you want where you want it in more places. HD radio service is limited by by the physics of terrestrial radio wave propagation and can actually disappoint. Satellite while not disappointing in this regard has a $13 a month subscription fee. I was an XM radio subscriber for five years and loved everything but the bill. I also didn’t use it enough to make the bill worth paying. My subscription was ended when I realized I had not turned the satellite radio at home on in over six months.
My home is twelve-miles south east of the store and east of my home the terrain rises to a few hundred feet making reception from the north west on FM radio difficult. The house is some 50 or more miles from most of the HD radio stations. Washington D.C. is to the northwest and Baltimore is farther to the north. See the map.
So I took the Accurian home and hooked it to a Winegard HD 6010 omni-directional antenna temporarily mounted to a five foot pole on the back porch. I hope that results are better if I can get the antenna a little higher.
I can receive just one FM HD radio station:
I hear a strong analog signal from WAMU but no digital signal. WJMZ is all fuzzy. Bummer.
Using the supplied AM antenna did not give me a single HD signal. Connecting a good ground with an 80 foot long wire antenna gave me:
During the evening when the sky wave phenomena is apparent in the AM band I heard the following HD AM stations with unreliable on-off HD signals:
The radio gives me great audio on standard analog AM and FM stations. I was able to listen to Art Bell on Coast to Coast AM on WGY with an excellent analog signal most of the morning. Sunday afternoon I enjoyed WMAL AM in HD.
I am going to keep my fingers crossed that radio stations in and around Southern Maryland will develop HD programming like WAMU and WJZW have. Radio stations now have to create the market for HD radios. Retailers have been offering the radios for over a year now. HD radio will not succeed unless creative radio station owners and operators get to work and build content.
This is not a purchase I regret. I’m hoping that when I get the antenna up another twenty feet WAMU -2 will come in. Even if it doesn’t AM radio still has talk-radio content I enjoy listening to and all my analog favorites are available in the Accurian’s presets. Overall I am satisfied. Folks on the fringes of FM and AM reception may or may not receive HD. Folks in an urban environment will have lots of HD choices. HD stations can offer multiple channels of content. In the Washington D.C. area WAMU offers two HD program options in addition to their primary broadcast.
HD is an improvement for casual listening. FM sounds even better. HD AM sounds better than it did as analog but it does have a nasally compressed digital quality to it. Interesting to hear stereo on an AM signal. Talk programs have a clearer sound quality which is a plus for me. In a subsequent article I’ll write more about the buttons and operation of the radio itself.
Days after AM HD begins broadcasting at night complaints from listeners apparently drive Citadel stations to cease nighttime operation until it can be studied further. PopWireless has been following this story at http://am-iboc.blogspot.com/ Persons interested in following these events can find many articles on the subject at this great blog.
Radio listeners across America are trying to hide from a monster, but there is no shelter. After spending its adolescence in technical trials during daytime hours, IBOC has now come out at night. (PopWireless Comment: interesting and timely viewpoint. Please go to Karl’s blog to read the entire article)
In March of this year the Federal Communications Commission authorized AM HD radio stations to begin twenty-four-hour per day broadcasting on September 14, 2007. This is a major shift in the FCC Rules that formerly protected broadcasters against the expected and now prevalent nighttime interference to stations on channels adjoining an HD broadcaster.
The HD Radio Interference, we will coin it HDRI, is characterized as a loud obnoxious frying egg noise on top of an AM radio station’s analog signal. Here at PopularWireless HQ the kitchen is open and the eggs are cooking big time. A favorite here has been New York’s famous WABC where many enjoy listening to Coast-to-Coast AM in the early mornings. WABC is now plagued by HDRI making listening impossible at times. Across the AM dial the analog receiver is sizzling away.
What does this mean for AM radio? A few things can happen. The AM radio DX’er, the radio listening hobbyist that listens for long distance radio stations at night is not going to give up. These folks will adapt because the hobby is too exciting to give up. The average consumer of AM radio is going to either move to satellite radio, buy an HD radio and keep their fingers crossed, listen to the radio anyway and grit their teeth or just turn it off altogether. Only the radio station’s rating periods will tell who does what.
HD radio is still an expensive upgrade to a medium that basically cost nothing until now. The night worker that listens to a tiny transistor on the table at their job might have paid six bucks for the privilege. HD radios are still priced from $149 and up with most of the popular brands at $299.99. You guessed it. Folks that once listened to their favorite programs at night are going to either put up with the interference or flat out give up.
The FCC is forcing the new upgrade down our throats. It is economy building and social change all wrapped up into a neat little bundle. The bureaucrat thinks the public needs this cool new technology so the FCC is going to take actions which prompt the public to make changes. At least the consumer can elect to do nothing rather than consider an expensive option like a satellite radio subscription or an expensive new radio. But we have to wait and see. Will HDRI drive the public away from AM radio or will FM radio or even shortwave radio be the new entertainment destination?
The big impact will be on consumers already living in challenging AM radio reception areas. Here in Southern Maryland listening even to our local stations can be a daunting challenge. At nighttime, WTNT on 570 kHz lowers their power at sunset. The signal all but disappears requiring the listener to find the same program on stations in far away cities. All across the AM band listeners here are regularly annoyed by the relentless tick-tock-tick-tock and Morse code “RR” of Cuba’s Radio Reloj across the AM dial.
The laws of physics as those laws apply to radio propagation mean that many stations might be heard on the same frequency making listening difficult or impossible. Nighttime radio listening already had significant issues and now, on purpose, and even with great fanfare HDRI was introduced in the mix. Nighttime AM radio is now a complete mess. We will have to wait and see if it ever gets cleaned up or if people just accept the change.
Early adopters of HD Radio are only getting a fraction of the stations they should. (PopularWireless: Interesting HD radio point of view.)
SALE: Reg.
$169
