Mission Statement: Herculodge: The Essential Guide to Saving Your Manhood in an Era of Shriveling Masculinity.
I can be e-mailed at herculodge@frontier.com
A decent quartz Seiko costing $100 will last several lifetimes with nothing more than a $3 battery every 5 years. Mechanicals haven't a single monetary or functional advantage over a decent quartz watch. To believe otherwise is fooling yourself.
With a 45mm bezel, solar power, sapphire crystal and elegant silver dial (which I don't have in my collection), this Citizen Eco-Drive AT0831-59A goes to the wish list. It's hard to believe it's selling for $200 on a few websites. I don't see it on Amazon. There's also a 59H version, which I think is dark dial but a silver dial shows up on Google images sometimes under 59H, so I'm not sure, but I think I want the 59A silver dial version.
Answering the question if HD radio signals sound bad on non-HD mode, Doug T writes:
The answer is yes -- HD radio causes interference, and it is noticeable for AM. This is not a subjective question, it is a simple issue of electrical engineering. The FCC, in approving HD radio, apparently felt the trade-off was worth it.
At the time HD radio was approved, I was quite skeptical of both its business case and engineering case. I am very sorry that my skepticism has proved to be well-founded. HD radio has worsened the radio experience for the average listener. HD Radio has proved such a flop that the vast majority of non-car radios offering "HD" have been withdrawn. (Because of the way HD radio works, I think it is an especially awful engineering choice for car radios, but I am not sure what the actual market impact has been.)
Addressing my complaint that my local KFI 640AM tends to be noisy on my digital radios, Gary writes:
Some of the problem might be due to KFI being an HD Radio (IBOC) station. I find their signal to be quite noisy unless it's tuned exactly. Inexpensive digital radios generally tune in rather course 1 kHz (or 10 kHz) steps, so it's often not possible to fine tune for the least noise. At my location, KFI often sounds less noisy on an analog radio that is carefully tuned than it does on a digital radio.
I don't have this problem with powerful non-IBOC stations like KRLA. I wish HD Radio on AM would go away.
Here in Torrance, powerhouse 640AM may be too powerful. I'm getting the same surges of slop background noise on my CC Radio Plus, my CCRadio-SW, my Sangean LB-100, and my Grundig S350. It appears to be a location problem. Rotating the radios sometimes helps; sometimes it doesn't. Today I was able to get rid of the horrible background noise (a distant police whistle or boat horn) by rotating the Grundig S350.
Two radios that don't seem to have the problem: Sangean WR-2 and Sangean WR-5.
My English 1A students are writing an argumentative essay that defends or refutes the Paleo Diet, but it turns out that the Paleo Diet, as it is marketed today, does not exist, has no archeological basis, and is in fact a gross fraud. So now the whole idea of the argumentative paper, pitting two powerful opposing sides against each other, is gone from my students' assignment. The "Paleo Diet" at a serious disadvantage. We've got a one-sided argument on our hands. Looks like the last time I use this assignment.
I own both the 820HD and the 720 radios. They both sound the same. Not many stations are available in HD as it just hasn't seemed to catch. Also digital does not seem to be as easily received as the analoque signal. There is one station in my area that broadcast in HD and the signal seems to be very week. However at times when it does kick in, the sound is more like CD quality. No hiss or other noise can be heard.
I already had the 820HD plus several Cambridge offerings and when I saw that the 720 was available at such a good price I jumped on it.
These radios make great amp speaker systems for other things such as satellite receiver or CD players. They sound really good when hooked up to a tv. I own a Sony Dash and I hooked it up to the 720 and what a sound it did make. Although this radio and the 820HD do not have a sub woofer, the bass is amazing. The radio emits clear and undistorted sound. A great bargain...
One added feature on the 720 is the stations and clock do not get lost when you unplug the radio. One the 820HD it did loose the information. The radio does not have a battery backup either. It just remembers the time and stations without a battery. Ron B
If the SR3 is garbage, I can still get listenable reception on a 500-watt station on 1290 from 195 miles away in the daytime: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEHpddXU3Gk
then I'd expect the great SR1 or SR2 to blow the SR3 out of the solar system. For example, the station causing the het on 1180 kHz inhttp://youtu.be/1Awwywr_xDc?t=14s (1k het generated by LO in other radio - 729+450=1179; 1180-1179=1) is KERN Wasco-Greenacres, CA. Splatter is from local 1170 KCBQ, whose 50kW transmitter blasts me with 112kW ERP from 9.3 miles away and is the strongest station on the dial here in the daytime.
For comparison, here are a couple recordings of Tecsun PL-606 reception on 1180 KERN one day when KCBQ was off the air for several minutes... barefoot: http://www.mediafire.com/?ao92526zxj2ty6g with Select-A-Tenna: http://www.mediafire.com/?6k0lm6z97zvy23c Would the SR1 and SR2 get better barefoot reception from 1180 KERN, with 1170 KCBQ on, than the PL-606 got from KERN with the SAT when KCBQ was off the air? Or better yet, could the SR1/2's reception of KERN compete with this video -http://youtu.be/cq6KSavcVMI?t=32s - of 1242 JOLF? :)
Addressing my complaint that my local KFI 640AM tends to be noisy on my digital radios, Gary writes:
Some of the problem might be due to KFI being an HD Radio (IBOC) station. I find their signal to be quite noisy unless it's tuned exactly. Inexpensive digital radios generally tune in rather course 1 kHz (or 10 kHz) steps, so it's often not possible to fine tune for the least noise. At my location, KFI often sounds less noisy on an analog radio that is carefully tuned than it does on a digital radio.
I don't have this problem with powerful non-IBOC stations like KRLA. I wish HD Radio on AM would go away.