jkeithsr

Hi....new Lexus owner and first time poster.
I"m regularly getting dropouts on my HD radio reception.
Anybody else experiencing this or have any insight on the issue?
Is it the stations or my radio? It happens in all environs: in the wide open spaces
and in urban areas.

Thanks

BertL

Congrats on your new Lexus and welcome to CL.

I don't have reception problems with HD any more than I do with regular FM on my 2013 RX450h with Nav, e.g signal diminishes as I get further from transmission towers, etc with both FM and HD and some channels are not so great if I'm a long way from them.... All normal radio technology challenges IMO. But I don't get "dropouts" or temporay silence as I do with say SiriusXM when I go under a bridge at slow speed or in parking garages -- if that's what you mean. Overall, I'd say my HD is higher quality than the same FM station in every case I've tried.

Have you tried isolating this... Is your problem with multiple HD stations? Do you have a similar problem with FM (non-HD) on multiple channels? Do you have the same problem with a single station that transmits in both FM and HD?

AZJoe

I don't think the dropouts are that uncommon problem w HD radio. It depends on signal strength and line of site transmission source. The detector in the radio needs a certain signal strength to amplify. If it doesn't get that signal it switch back to the regular AM signal.I live about 40 miles from a favorite AM/HD station and as I travel area and have some mountain between me and the transmitter, the radio switches from HD to AM. Its annoying to hear the change in quality. At least thats my experience.

jkeithsr

Thanks for your replies. It's primarily one HD station and I have no issues with the regular FM's.
Satellite....at least so far....has given me no difficulty.

Dadikins

I have an HD radio in my office, and frequently exhibit dropouts - sometimes I can go for weeks with no issues, other times it gets to bad that I have to change the station. Most stations are around 20 or 25 miles away from me.

And I'm "stationary". I did need to position the antenna in such a way no minimize dropouts (including covering it with paper, because the sun shining in the window would contribute to the dropouts!).

Adverse weather plays a huge factor in dropouts. Since the signal is digital, instead of getting "static" when there is interference, you experience a "drop out",

Also, the amount of "bandwidth" allocated to an HD station also makes it more likely to drop-out (for example - an HD1 station usually has a lot more bandwidth than an HD2/HD3). I've usually had good luck on the HD2 stations, but not so much the HD3 (unless I'm listening to talk radio/the news).

And there are times when the dropouts are caused by the station itself experiencing technical difficulties.

When on an HD1, which "drops out", it usually will revert back to the non-HD side, which is usually the same programming as the HD side (unless the station elects not to do so for whatever reason).

I was wondering how the reception would be on a car equipped with HD radio, and was curious if it would be more annoying than "standard radio", because of the drop-out factor.

As an FYI - you can find a list of HD stations here

BertL

Dan, great post. Thanks for the "standalone" example. I know the perspective at least helped me a lot.

Dadikins

Bert,

Glad to provide some assistance, especially after all the useful in-depth posts that I've seen from you & others.

The way I try to compare HD radio to "regular" radio is like comparing digital OTA tv to analog - when you had analog TV, you could sometimes get a station from many miles away (especially at night), which would be slightly "snowy", but still allow you to be able to view it. When digital tv was adopted, if a weak station showed up when scanning one day, chances are very good that you wouldn't watch it, because drop-outs would be more annoying than watching a partly "snowy" screen.

I have not tried any AM stations on HD radio, because they (on the radio that I bought) require that I hook up a separate "loop" antenna (which the radio came with) - but AM reception in office buildings is usually quite poor.

Given how there are a few 50k watt AM stations around here, I would assume that the HD signal would also be transmitted by those stations in 50k watts, and there would be less drop-out if listening to a local station. Does anyone have any experience with this (listing to a 50k watt or greater AM HD radio station in your vehicle)?

(As an aside - they shouldn't have called it HD radio - it is digital radio. Nothing "high definition" about it)