Hi, everyone.

The ongoing discussion regarding D Star, and audio quality reminded me of 
something I recently experienced, and meant to bring up to the list.

As many of you may recall, the XYL and I recently purchased a new vehicle 
that has an HD radio in it.

Well, thanks to the help of some on the list regarding how best to 
understand and use the new HD capabilities while traveling, I believe I have 
mastered the main functions of the radio pretty thoroughly now.

However, I have to say that digital A M leaves a tremendous amount to be 
desired, in my opinion.

For example, while traveling through the Chicago metro area from Michigan on 
our way to and from the St. Louis area several weeks ago, I tried listening 
to WBBM  AM 780 with the new digital radio, and the experience was actually 
quite anoying.  I'd say that as we got 30 miles or so on either side of 
Chicago, the digital AM signal kept switching on and off, to be replaced by 
a much degraded analog signal.  Perhaps there is a way to turn the digital 
AM reception mode off in this particular radio, but I have not found it yet.

We are going to be traveling through quite a few metropolitan areas on our 
upcoming family visitation trip, so I'll have time to play with it a bit 
more, but I really am wondering now about the usefulness of digital AM 
radio.

Tom Behler: KB8TYJ