Digital Home Thoughts: Splitting Bandwith of HD Radio

"HD Radio's other trick is its ability to carry more than one audio signal at a time. National Public Radio has been working on something called the Tomorrow Radio Project, which would use HD Radio technology to let stations embed a second stream of programming within a single digital signal. You would hear the secondary program by flipping a switch on your radio. The main signal is often referred to as the A channel, and the secondary one, the B channel. When your favorite classical music station switches over to news programming in the afternoon, for example, the music might continue on the B channel. Or the B channel may be a constant stream of traffic and weather."



Frankly this is why scares me the most about HD Radio. Our local ABC TV station multicasts on their HD signal and what we end up with is a crappy looking picture compared CBS or Fox. I'm sure the same thing will happen with these HD Radio stations. Sure an 24/7 traffic or weather station might not take up too much bandwidth, but if you end up with the other station's sound being degraded whats the point (well the point is that Clear Channel and others can make more money off of us).