[IRCA] Boston Acoustics Receptor HD

["Stewart, Joseph R" <RandyStewart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

We got in a shipment of these little guys at KSMU yesterday, and I took
one home to try it out a bit last night... I actually spent most of the
evening sitting around Springfield-Branson National Airport waiting for
my wife to get back from a conference in D.C., but I did do an AM
bandscan between 6 and 6:30pm Central time.

As it only has a pair of little spring-clip terminals for an external
mediumwave antenna, and my Quantum QX Pro is strictly SO-239/PL-259, I
ended up just hanging the Boston's little plastic AM loop over the end
of the Quantum's loopstick housing like a Christmas-tree ornament and
going the inductive-coupling route.  Managed to get pretty decent signal
strength that way, but this little radio suffers from beaucoups
internally-generated birdies, not to mention local images (KLFJ-1550
shows up on 650, KGMY-1400 shows up on 1700 etc.).   Of course, without
being able to arrange for a proper external-antenna hookup it's hard to
tell for sure, but I get the feeling no one could ever mistake it for a
sensitive DX machine.  (Also, its tuning is channelized in 10 kHz
steps.)

Tuning around after local sunset, of course, automatically limited my
choices for seeking out IBOC signals--none of my locals AMs are running
IBOC yet--but I did note the "HD" icon on the digital display flashing
on and off on a few frequencies like 890... and KFAB-1110 Omaha was
still running their day pattern and HD signal, and as they're very
strong here I thought it would be a good test to see how well the HD
signal gets out.  Based on everything I've read so far, I didn't expect
much... and the radio didn't deliver much.

>From what I observed, it would take about an S9+60 city-grade signal to
consistently (and continually) activate the digital-audio circuitry!
KFAB was strong enough for the "HD" icon to stay lit pretty much all the
time... and to display the KFAB call letters. But it was never strong
enough for the standard analog to switch over to digital, except for
about 2 seconds' worth.  And it was quite obvious when it did, as the
sound definitely became more "FM-like".  (Actually the analog-AM sound
isn't bad, albeit limited to about 5kHz on the top end.  But the unit's
little port-loaded speakers produce an amazing amount of real bass.)

So--the ID feature is one cool thing that might attract a DXer, but I'm
afraid you need a pretty strong signal for that to activate.  And you
need a stronger signal than THAT to get the digital audio to trigger.  

The adjacent-channel hash produced by IBOC is a totally separate issue,
of course--I was merely trying to determine how well the radio worked
receiving skywave signals.  And the answer is: not particularly well.

FM sensitivity seemed better, at least with the 7-foot-long wire dipole
supplied with the radio.

Randy Stewart
Battlefield MO

  


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