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    July 31, 2009
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    July 31, 2009
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Will408's Reviews
 
HD Radio Portable Player
HD Radio Portable Player
When you're on the go, listen to your favorite HD and FM radio stations using this portable player that features a belt clip for easy portability.
 
  • Tech Insider Network
Customer Rating
2 out of 5
2
Horrible Digital Sensitivity
on July 31, 2009
Posted by: Will408
from Santa Clara, CA
After I spent an hour with this radio, I am convinced the 2 or 3 reviewers that gave it 1 or 2 stars are the smart people that actually understand the technology. The rest of them claiming the radio rocks have no idea what they are talking about or raving about.
HD Radio's transmission rides on top of analog FM signal as sideband noise unlike DTV which is transmitted on a different channel/frequency. As such, if you can't receive digital well, it falls back on the received analog signal seamlessly (using a synchronization technique). You think it might be on HD Radio but it's very likely on analog FM. HD-1 is a simulcast of the analog FM programming that is traditionally associated with the station.
The digital receiption of this radio is horrible compared to other more expensive desktop units. It has a hard time recoverying the digital transmission consistently. The firmware is also not well written. When the RF signal level recovers, it doesn't try to go into digital mode... At least it doesn't do that quick enough... Sometimes the HD Radio symbol is showing solidly (indicate it has a digital lock) but you can actually hear the analog inteference (indicate the radio has already fell back on analog FM).
The only way to truly test the digital receiption is to find a HD Radio station and go to the secondary channels, i.e., HD-2, HD-3, etc. Because these secondary channels are not simulcasted, there is no fall back to analog. You can easily tell the receiption cuts in and out as it blanks out... So bad that you can't really listen to the program.
Also, the auto seek function has such a high SNR expectation, if won't find you many stations. Instead, you should go to HD Radio website and find your local stations, so you can manually tune to them, so the radio gets enough time to recover the digital signal and switch to digital.
What's great about it: Good Price
What's not so great: Poor Digital Receiption
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Sound Quality
3 out of 5
3
Durability
1 out of 5
1
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6of 8voted this as helpful.
 
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