Re: "HD Radio on the Offense"

Telamon wrote:
In article <4KjLh.97710$as2.81228@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
D Peter Maus <DPeterMaus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Telamon wrote:
In article <Lt1Lh.8233$yW.6415@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"David Eduardo" <amdavid@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"AM-HDisDead" <AnotherBogusAccount@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1174169168.146677.44710@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Receivers are now being found at under $100, and with the newest chipset,
will likely go under $50.
<Good luck, with reception in portable and in-dash HD Radio, without AM-
l<<oop and external FM dipole antennas ! Portable DAB receivers, priced
<at $100 - $300, average 8 to 15 hours on batteries - good luck ! ;-)

The battery life comparison is not against portable radios but against portable music players. The chip can also be incorporated into music storage devices, allowing digital radio and digital music on an MP3 player.
< Snip >

Which means we will have to pay more for lithium batteries that will have a shorter playtime. Gee that's great.

The way things are going, lately, we'll be buying lithium or lithium ion batteries whether we wish to or not. NiCads are on the endangered species list, as are NiMH.

And so far, operations like PrimeCell, which rebuild NiMH batteries, even proprietary designs (Often with greater capacity at amazing reduced cost, won't attempt a rebuild of a Lithium or Lithium ion device.

The portable radios I have now do not need advanced battery technology. Alkaline batteries work just fine.

Re-building lithium batteries would be a very unsafe practice.



Given the way things are going in that area, yeah, I'd have to say so. Then again, as with most developing technologies, there may come a day....

You're lucky you're radios are low drain enough that Li or Li+ technology isn't required. As with digital cameras, many devices today are high drain and alkalines can't keep up with the demand. They have huge life capacity, but not with high drain. The internal resistance spikes shutting down the device, even though there may be as much as 80% capacity left in the alkaline cells.

So, NiCads, or NiMH, with far lower capacity, but much lower internal resistance, actually last longer than alkalines in those devices.

With the sophistication of radios to come, and with the plan for digital radio to eventually supplant analogue...higher cost power cells may be the only option open to us.

Today radios work on alkalines. That won't last.



On the radio content side of the thread: this weekend I bit the bullet and dropped some lithium cells into my HF-150. With quite satisfying results. Costly, but I got more listening out of it than I could stand in one day. And it's playing again, today.

This would be worth taking, along with the MTA, to the north woods for some quiet DXing.

p



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