am/fm

HD Radio: Ready for prime time?

HD Radio is the best way to listen to broadcast radio. AM and FM HD Radio stations simultaneously broadcast analog and digital signals, and these stations can display the song title, artist, and other data. The first HD Radio stations went on the air in 2003. Too bad HD Radio is a secret.

Based in Columbia, Maryland,iBiquity Digital is the developer behind HD Radio. I recently spoke with Bob Struble, HD Radio's president and CEO, to catch up on what's new. Struble told me there are 2,000 stations broadcasting HD Radio in the U.S., and … Read more

Music radio? Is anybody listening anymore?

I read Matt Rosoff's Digital Noise blog all the time, and his recent lamenting radio's irrelevance hit me hard.

I think Matt was mostly referring to AM or FM radio, but what about Internet or satellite radio? Me, I'm still a die hard Sirius subscriber and listen to Left of Center, Sirius Disorder, and Underground Garage channels many hours a day. They turn me onto new music all the time, so I buy an average of two CDs a week.

Of course, now that the hoopla over the Siriius/XM merger has died down and the stock … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 753: RIAA killed the radio star

OK, now this is weird: the music industry is trying to undermine the way the music industry distributes and promotes music and has always distributed and promoted music. They're calling radio piracy. What has the world come to? Also, RIM totally biffs it with the BlackBerry Bold; hackers crack the London Tube and ride around for free; and Microsoft sets a date for Windows 7. Somebody reserve the church. Listen now: Download today's podcast Episode 753

Internet provider halts plan to track, sell users’ surfing data http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/24/AR2008062401033.html… Read more

Listen to HD Radio--without buying any new hardware

Sony just sent me the XDR-S3HD tabletop HD Radio to review. I'm not quite done with it yet--I'm still evaluating the sound quality and reception versus the Polk Audio i-Sonic--but it appears to be a perfectly capable HD Radio. The big advantage of the Sony is that it's the first name-brand tabletop HD Radio that's available for under $200. That edges out the earlier Sangean HDR-1 ($250), as well as the Boston Acoustics Recepter HD and Cambridge SoundWorks 820HD (both $300). (While the Radiosophy HD100 is available for a scant $99, the photos alone don't exactly inspire confidence). The relative advantages and disadvantages of the Sony versus those competing models will be covered in the full review later this week, but the bigger question I keep running into when reviewing these products is this: is the HD Radio format good enough to justify the purchase of a dedicated radio?

HD Radio's extra stations For me, the supposed increase in sound quality just isn't that much of a selling point--you're just hearing those same lame Clear Channel playlists, albeit on a digital rather than an analog band. But the multicast (or HD2) stations are a different story. They're substations that offer alternative programming that's unavailable on the analog dial. For instance, New York's WPLJ offers adult contemporary music on its main station (analog and digital), but has two multicast stations--95.5-2 and 95.5-3--that play '70s and '80s music only, respectively. And because the industry is trying to hook people on HD Radio, these HD2 stations--for the time being, anyway--often broadcast free of commercials.

OK, now we're getting somewhere: there's some exclusive content dispersed throughout the HD Radio dial, so maybe it's got some value after all. But then I remembered something. When Tivoli Audio announced its two new NetWorksGo Wi-Fi radios last June, CEO Tom DeVesto defended their lack of HD Radio reception by saying that it was essentially superfluous: most of the multicast HD2 stations would still be available, just via Internet streaming instead of over the air. So I decided to put DeVesto's claim to the test.

… Read more

Another candle alternative

Coolest Gadgets has posted another gadget for making things easier when the lights go out.

The Blackout Buddy for $30 from Ambient Weather is an AM/FM radio and LED light with clock that comes on when everything else goes out.

Like the lava lamp night-light, you keep it plugged into an electrical socket to stay charged. It then automatically comes on when the electricity turns off.

The Blackout Buddy can also be used as an alarm clock, and even has a headphone jack.

Personally, I like getting stuck using candles for an evening. But if you prefer flashlights over … Read more

Find local stations (and unused frequencies) with Radio-Locator

Need to find info on anything radio related? Check out Radio-Locator. The site offers a searchable database of AM and FM radio stations around the U.S. (and the world, in fact). You can search by ZIP code (most useful) or state, or look up specific stations by their call letters. If you search by ZIP code, you'll get a list of all the stations that should be accessible in your area, along with distances and signal strengths and hyperdetailed information on the stations themselves (the owner's address and phone number, FCC license info, programming genre, transmitter location … Read more