Harry Helms points me to a view on digital/HD/IBOC radio coming from the owner of one of the first stations to start broadcasting in the format, Robert Conrad, president of WCLV-FM, Cleveland:
The initial appeal to the consumer was to be improved quality of sound. But, frankly, the difference between a high quality analog signal, such as WCLV’s classical music programming, and the HD signal is minimal. …
We were also told that the HD would lessen interference with adjacent channel signals. That also appears not to be the case.
This is really very discouraging and is leading us to wonder why we should bother to promote HD.
When Conrad says, “We were also told…” one might better read it as, “Ibiquity lied to us when they said HD would lessen interference with adjacent channel signals.”
The most ironic/hypocritical thing about so-called HD radio is that it actually does exactly what the National Association of Broadcasters said LPFM would do if the stations were allowed to be spaced closer together on the dial. The NAB trumped up fake evidence of 10 and 100-watt stations causing massive interference to 10,000 watt stations. And yet, here are widely-spaced full-power stations throwing digital-hash interference all over the dial, and the NAB trumpets HD radio as the next big thing.
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