Like their television counterparts, radio broadcasters continue their digital transition amidst a challenging economy.

While some stations are still converting to HD Radio, the pace has slowed as many radio groups, having completed their major-market build-outs, delay the rest in order to slash their capital expenditures for 2009.

Yet work on the digital transition continues in several forms.

While HD Radio transmission equipment is still evolving and improving with each generation, so are HD Radio chipsets, which now consume less power and need less room in radios than even a year ago. Along with all these developments comes lower manufacturing costs, helping to, in turn, reduce the cost of HD Radio receivers to consumers.

The consumer price for many HD Radio receivers is now just under $100; indeed, Teac recently announced its first HD Radio, a tabletop, which has debuted at Costco with an introductory price of $99. The HD-1 features iTunes Tagging and an iPhone/iPod dock, and is displayed prominently at select Costco stores with an HD Radio station guide next to the receiver.

PORTABLES

Almost 100 different electronic devices containing HD Radio technology are available at more than 14,000 retail outlets. More than a dozen home/office and auto HD Radio receivers feature Tagging, including products from Alpine, Dual, Insignia, JBL, Jensen, JVC, Kenwood, Polk Audio, Sony, Yamaha and Teac.

Meanwhile, the smaller and less power-hungry chips are key as HD Radio chipsets by SiPort and Samsung developed for portables are marketed to receiver makers. Proponents say we'll see HD Radio portables out this year; indeed, iBiquity has displayed a prototype KRI armband portable HD Radio receiver and MP3 player, the smallest HD Radio to date.

POWER INCREASE

However, antennas in portable devices are typically small and weak, and that's why the industry needs to be able to boost its transmitted FM HD Radio power, say digital radio proponents. NAB, many of the major radio groups, iBiquity and NPR have pressed the FCC to approve a voluntary 10 dB FM digital power increase.

Several papers to be presented during the Broadcast Engineering Conference are related to the power increase; iBiquity plans to discuss the latest test and regulatory efforts while transmission companies such as Harris and Nautel will discuss real-world case studies.

An Array of Tabletop HD Radio Receivers in iBiquity Digital's Booth at the 2008 NAB Show. Photo by Leslie Stimson

For example, specific challenges are involved in implementing the FM digital power increase, and tube transmitters are an alternative, in addition to solid-state models. Harris Communications Division Vice President, Transmission Research & Technology Geoff Mendenhall said, "The proposed 10 dB increase in HD Radio sideband levels presents a linearity challenge to common amplification of FM and HD Radio signals through a single transmitter." His paper, "explains the application of new, high-power, RF amplifier and power supply technologies to elevated HD Radio sideband transmission."

Sponsored Link

European digital radio facilities use a network of low-power repeaters and gap filler transmitters to increase and smooth out coverage.

"The gap filler takes the main signal off the air, manipulates it digitally and retransmits on the same channel," said Harris colleague Richard Redmond, director of strategic marketing for Harris Broadcast Communications' transmission business, about his BEC paper. "The concept is that we would apply some of this same technology to HD Radio to provide a low-power repeater of the digital side bands to improve performance, and reduce the cost of implementation."

Nautel is displaying its new NV solid-state transmitters that allow for an upgrade to the higher power FM HD Radio broadcasting, should the elevated power levels be approved. "We're very excited" to show off the new line, said Nautel President/CEO Peter Conlon, noting that the company is entering its 40th year of business.

NAB's President/CEO David K. Rehr and Bob Struble, president and CEO of iBiquity, believe the commission will approve the request this year.

Proponents "want to do this, they just want to do it in a managed way," said Struble. "Where we're going to need to get to is, what does 'managed' mean?"

He and other digital radio proponents believe the larger, faster data pipe made possible by HD Radio would especially help broadcasters eager to bring in extra revenue with benefits like iTunes Tagging and real-time traffic data. Both the Clear Channel Radio Total Traffic Network and the Broadcast Traffic Consortium work with stations that are transmitting traffic data in analog over RDS carriers and in digital via their HD Radio technology.

NDS is working with chip manufacturers like Texas Instruments, Samsung, SiPort, NXP and others to work the Radio Guard intellectual property into HD Radio chipsets in this calendar year. Radio Guard is the name of the NDS conditional access capability for HD Radio. The technology is used in one of the Dice HD Radios now for radio reading services.

AUTOMAKERS

NDS is also talking to stations about managing entitlement and access control and delivering the right content to the right radio. It's looking ahead to when stations will want to use the technology for premium services, say to deliver a pay-to-listen one-time event or special advertising-free content over their multicast channels — and generate revenue.

Despite challenges faced by automakers this year, more of them have committed to installing HD Radios in their vehicles. Both Ford and Kia plan to offer HD Radios in their products in the 2010 calendar year.

They join other automakers that have made a commitment to HD Radio: Mercedes, Audi, Hyundai, Volvo, Toyota Scion, Mini, Jaguar and BMW.

BMW recently released results of an engineering demo in Philadelphia that it says validates using HD Radio to deliver advanced traffic data. Testers said the results show gains in the speed and volume of data delivery, using digital algorithms paired with HD Radio.

Testers equipped a BMW 5 Series with custom hardware and software including an HD Radio data tuner and custom visualization and logging software; they drove throughout the Philadelphia metro area and transmitted traffic information during rush hour to the test vehicle in 14 seconds using 52 messages.