Wait - how did we get here in the first place?

As a late baby boomer, I was weaned on radio.  My pre-teen years were spent glued to WIBG and WFIL AM in Philadelphia.  I can still remember the singular smell of a "Made In Japan" transistor radio when you first took it out of the box, and that radio helped me mow the lawn, girl watch on the beach, and follow the Phillies.  Philadelphia was arguably the most impotant city in the country to pop radio throughout the 60's, and my friends and I took great radio for granted.  For an idea of what we had back then, visit Classic Philadelphia Radio...

My teen years hit at the same time as FM radio, at least as far as I was concerned, and just as the AM radio landscape in Philadelphia was changing for the (much) worse.  What an eye opener FM radio was!  Who knew that there was so much more to music than just the Beatles white album?  Again, I was fortunate to live in an area that featured fantastic FM radio stations.  Guys like Ed Sciaky at WMMR influenced the carreers of artists like Billy Joel, Yes, Bruce (you don't really need a last name, do you?) along with the lives of millions of young adults and the music industry at large.

Alas, popular music did what it's always done - moved on.  And so did I.  I'm far from my rock-n-roots in Philadelphia, and have spent many years traveling through radio hell.  My current little corner of that arid land is Southwest Florida, on the gulf coast, a glorious place to live and a terrible place to listen to radio.  So like many of my compatriots (20 million at last count), I made the move to satellite radio (an aftermarket tuner for my car).  Originally this was great - I was able to feed my classic rock jones wherever I was.  In fact, I added a tuner to my other car, then one for my home, then one for my office, and pretty soon I was into them for $40 a month.  They know what they're doing up there in space.  At first, it was "Hey, 5 bucks a month, what's that?".  But then it's another $5, then they bump up the price, and once you're hooked your hooked.  Same business model that's worked so effectively for tobacco companies and crack dealers.

Like the early days of Cable TV, satellite radio sold itself on the quality of the signal and "commercial-free listening".  Generally, I've found signal quality to be satellite radio's biggest strength.  My first satellite receiver was a Sony model about the size of a Whopper sandwich, with about the same level of sophistication.  The accompanying antennae was sized and shaped like a shark's fin.  Since then receiver and antennae size have shrunk dramatically, while signal performance has improved.  This, I would say, is a natural progression in any new technology.

The commercial-free concept has gone by the wayside for the most part.  With the exception of a few (less that 10% of the total) music genre channels, satellite radio let's you hear not just the originator's commercials but the satellite provider's commercials as well.  It's probably their idea of giving us more bang for our buck.

Enter HD Radio. HD Radio is a way for traditional radio to take back the market through digital broadcasting with improved audio quality, extended programming choices, and additional content delivery.

This site is my contribution to that effort.