Portable HD Radio at best Buy

[Dan.Strassberg]

It's gotta be the Insignia (isn't that LG?) unit that was pictured in
Tom Taylor's column this morning, because, according to Tom--for the
moment, at least--it is the the _only_ pocket-sized HD radio. No way
that unit has a speaker; it's too small, but it looks a lot larger
than even the largest cell phone and looks to be bigger than a lot of
PDAs. Also, no info on whether it receives AM-band HD broadcasts,
FM-band HD broadcasts, or analog broadcasts on either band. Also no
word on the price or the playing time per recharge of the built-in
Li-ion battery. Taylor says the small footprint is the result of a
new, smaller and less power-hungry chip set, but I have a feeling that
the playing time is going to turn out to be on the brief side (maybe
four hours) and the sensitivity is likely to leave much to be desired.

I have an LG ATSC to NTSC converter box and it works pretty well, but
it is not fair to predict how this radio will perform based on the
performance of the converter. The radio's performance is pretty much
determined by the behavior of the chip set and the chip set
manufacturer probably is a different company from the one that
manufactured the converter box's critical chips. Also, I think
converter boxes are on something like the fourth generation of their
chips, whereas this is only the second generation of HD Radio chips.
It is likely to take several more generations of chips before the
radio performance and battery life reach an acceptable level. Another
reason why it is likely to take a while before the radios are very
good is the small unit volumes of HD radios that are being sold. Low
volumes mean little cutomer feedback, not to mention little incentive
for the chip manufacturers to work very hard on improving the chips.

-----
Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Hall" <aerie.ma@comcast.net>
To: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 3:21 PM
Subject: RE: Portable HD Radio at best Buy


> I'd be interested in knowing if the radio has a speaker, or if you
> have to
> listen on earbuds. There is not really much point in having
> crystal-clear
> digital sound if it's playing through a 1 inch speaker. It really is
> getting
> very hard to find a moderately-priced portable or table top radio
> these days
> that has decent-sized and decent-sounding speakers.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org
> [mailto:boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org] On
> Behalf Of
> Larry Weil
> Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 3:06 PM
> To: Boston-Radio
> Subject: Portable HD Radio at best Buy
>
> Well, if you can find one:
>
> http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9375071
> <blocked::http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9375071&st=HD+Radio&
> type=product&id=1218094581941>
> &st=HD+Radio&type=product&id=1218094581941
>
> I'd like to hear if anyone here ahs bought one, and if so what you
> think of
> it?
>
> Larry Weil
> Lake Wobegone, NH
>