As a youngster, I was absolutely fascinated by all things radio -
being able to hear stations from all over the US, on a simple pocket
transistor radio, falling asleep to programs from WLS, WBBM, KOA,
etc., was magical to me as an 8 year old. My neighbor introduced me to
shortwave on one of these;

http://www.universal-radio.com/catal...xvr/sx130.html

His wife gave the rig to me when he passed away; I still have it,
although it isn't working now. I heard HCJB for my first shortwave
station (who didn't?), and I was hooked.

Over the years, I have owned dozens of radios - scanners, portables,
desktops, you name it. I still have quite a few of them, and I still
get a great deal of enjoyment from the magic of radio. My E1 XM even
got me into satellite radio, and I can't believe it took me so long to
finally try it! I'm hooked on that now, too. As for IBOC, I even
picked up a well-built Sony XDR-S3HD on closeout, just to try it out.
AM is marginal; the HD rarely stays locked for more than a minute...
the FM works well, for the most part, but only because I have an
amplified antenna connected up - otherwise, many stations refuse to
lock on to the HD signal.

I think the main reason that there are any people upset, or
indifferent, to HD radio, is that instead of it being an open,
unencumbered, free, and easily implemented transparent standard, it is
tightly controlled, proprietary, restricted, and prohibitively
expensive, benefiting only one greedy corporation; Ibiquity. If the
transition were more like the one for Digital TV, where converter
boxes were inexpensive, and the government supplied people with $40
vouchers towards the purchase of them, I think the perception would be
drastically different. Instead, Ibiquity came up with a solution to a
problem that didn't exist for most people, and charged up the wazoo
for it... kind of like Microsoft... Windows Vista for Radio!

http://gravitymedium.com/2008/03/17/...ling-hd-radio/

(Sorry, everyone - I shouldn't be taking over Pocket Radio's job! The
article was too good to pass up, though.)

If Ibiquity wasn't so blatantly greedy, and so manipulative with the
press, things might have gone better for them. But I doubt it. At
least the Ibiquity shills will still have plenty of work to do... ;-)