Now Tom Ray is doubting HD Radio?!

Now Tom Ray is doubting HD Radio?!

The Buckley Broadcasting VP/Director of Engineering, who oversees 50-kW WOR-AM NY, posted an opinion piece in a trade pub this month that holds some real doubts about AM HD Radio’s viability. Now this might not be a big deal to some, but Tom is, and has always been, one of HD Radio’s biggest supporters. The article mentions his attempts to buy a Ford Escape at a local NY State dealership that hopefully included a factory HD Radio. Ford was supposed to be offering it as an option for 2010 models, from what he understood.
No one at the dealership knew anything about HD Radio and all there said he was the first and only person who has ever asked about it.
Ray tells RBR-TVBR: “On the dealer side, it doesn’t surprise me, because if they’re not fed the information from the corporate home in Detroit, they’re not going to know what it is. They are told, ‘Here is your Sirius display,’ which quite frankly, there’s a huge Sirius display right there in the showroom. They’re told, ‘Here’s Sirius radio—push it.’
He adds, “What was very dismaying was the fact that when I talked to people at Ford, there wasn’t one person over there who could help me and most of them also told me I was the very first call they’ve ever had on HD Radio. So at least they knew what it was, but nobody could direct me.”
Tom ended up buying the car anyway and went through hell and high water to buy and install aftermarket HD Radio gear and other devices like XM Satellite Radio to make it work with the car’s Sync system. He finally got it all working, but it wasn’t easy and the car is certainly now a target for petty theft.