Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Denon 3310 and HD Radio?

After months of waiting for my Denon 3310 HDMI to get fixed, I finally got it fixed. Then it took a few months for me to finally re-install it in the AV rack.

I spent the evening moving my Harmony settings from my old Pio 45TX to the 3310 and started playing w/ the radio features. I used the included HD Radio antenna and didn't pull any stations, granted I didn't really try to position the antenna. Then, for kicks, I connected my HD OTA antenna from my HD Tivo to the 3310 and was able to pull in quite a few stations. Has anyone played enough w/ HD radio to know if my OTA is any worse than a specific HD radio antenna? It'd make my life easier if I could just put a splitter there.

This doesn't solve my AM problem though.

I also played w/ some of the streaming radio features, including radiodenon.com. Wow, there's a lot of options there, a bit overwhelming.

I don't have any antenna advice other than to say that HD Radio uses the standard band, so an OTA TV antenna is tuned wrong. A good quality FM antenna should be enough.

Do note that HD Radio originally was intended to mean Hybrid Digital, not High Definition (now it officially means nothing, just like DVD). You should only expect to get MP3 quality audio, which may or may not be better than standard FM. It isn't high definition by any means.

Thanks Chris.

I haven't bothered to look at all the specs for HD Radio so I don't know what the antennas are tuned for. Agreed, HD Radio doesn't mean high def but it's WAY better than some of the streaming radio at 32Kbps.

Depending on your OTA antenna design it might be close. I've built several simple loop antennas over the years for picking up FM and they work quite well. The best solution I've come up with used ~1/4" copper tubing with the matching transformer wires screwed into the ends of the tubing. Loop antenna gain is all about encircled area and having a perimeter that is a fraction of the median target wavelength.

Loop antennas are a bit directional though. They have a gain pattern that looks like an 8 when looking down on them. They have a lot of gain normal to the loop and very little gain parallel to the loop.