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HD radio skips

Discussion in 'Gen 4 Prius Audio and Electronics' started by nategold, Mar 4, 2016.

  1. nategold

    nategold Member

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    For both me and my wife, on various stations around Boston. I turned it off. Anyone else having this problem?
     
  2. glennonrp

    glennonrp Active Member

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    Is this where the sound seems like it has an echo occasionally or something? I get it happening too. It's because the HD radio signal is weak. So, it switches to regular FM. Then when the signal strengthens, it switches to HD again. And so forth. It's annoying, but I like the sound quality better on the HD so I keep it on.
     
  3. nategold

    nategold Member

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    No it is periodic dropouts. Maybe the same thing. Completely annoying, FM is just fine especially in the car.
     
  4. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    Is this happening just on subchannels 2, 3, etc? Or on #1 also?

    When the signal weakens, Channel #1 will drop back to regular (or purposely degraded) FM, with a very obvious drop in audio quality. But when you are tuned to any of the additional subchannels, there is no regular FM to which to revert, so the whole program goes silent. If this is what you are experiencing, then it is a reception and signal strength issue.
     
    glennonrp likes this.
  5. nategold

    nategold Member

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    I have no idea. HD radio is history for me.
     
  6. vitiligo

    vitiligo Priusdiva

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    I'm having the same issue with my radio.
     
  7. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    See my post #4. If the dropouts to silence are happening only on the subchannels (-2, -3, -4, etc), not on -1, then it is a signal strength problem. HD has a shorter reception range than regular FM.
     
  8. icbibafp

    icbibafp New Member

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    This is, as others have indicated, a signal strength issue, but is also a sync issue with the broadcaster. The only HD station in my area is normally synced perfectly so a drop of the HD signal is just a drop in quality, but I've been to other areas where it will sound like a skip because the stations regular and HD broadcasts aren't in sync.
     
    eric1234 likes this.
  9. ETP

    ETP 2021 Prime(Limit),24 Venza Limit,B52-D,G,F,H

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    Very common problem
    Very common problem but HD I awesome.
     
  10. Lawrence Rosenblum

    Lawrence Rosenblum New Member

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    Aha! I noticed this today for the first time. Just to make sure it's a reception problem, is there something that I can look for on the display when the signal switches into and out of HD?
     
  11. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    Interesting to hear HD better than FM, I thought FM had more fidelity, at least in theory. I have an HD at home but have not used it much. I know you can put a big long (quarter wave?) antenna in the attic or roof to help the signal. Car that would be hard.
     
  12. dpbsmith4

    dpbsmith4 Junior Member

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    Yes, me too. It's not just dropouts: sometimes perhaps as much as a second will actually be repeated be repeated, like that. Shrug. I assume it buffers ahead and gets confused when there are reception problems.

    It's not important to me, I was thinking about forcing my favorite stations to use FM but it's not worth the effort.

    I didn't do any critical listening but I couldn't actually hear any difference between HD and FM.

    My only concern was whether I was a) going nuts, or whether b) the local stations were having an amazing number of technical problems. Once I figured out that it was really happening--and that the stations on which it was happening were all HD stations--I quit worrying.
     
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  13. Frederickdawg

    Frederickdawg Active Member

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    Yep. Noticed the HD radio drops quality way too often . with that I mean it drops sound quality to FM then HD and back and forth. Definitely something wrong. Didn't have issue with other rides.

    LG-H901 ?