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Old June 28th 04, 05:38 PM
R J Carpenter
 
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The Sunday, June 27, 2004, Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/
carried a 1/4-th page story on IBOC. It is on page F7 of the business
section, written by Rob Pegoraro. You'll have to register to read it
online.

Pegoraro was lent a car by iBiquity with both AM and FM IBOC [Panasonic].
He drove it for three days, both in the extended Washington area listening
to FM-IBOC and to Philadelphia to try the AM since there are no nearer
AM-IBOC stations.

To make this very short, he reported "MP3" quality audio and coverage
problems on both FM and AM.

Regarding FM-IBOC, "In general it functions only where analog broadcasts
already work fine."

Regarding AM-IBOC: "But digital AM's reception was even shakier than digital
FM's. Driving underneath a cluster of electrical wires or a sufficiently
long overpass - or simply going through some intersections in the center of
Philadelphia - routinely cut out the crisp stereo sound and dumped me back
into scratchy old AM." [Note - he was listening to WPEN 950, which has the
equivalent of over 200 kW toward central Phily.]

He also reported that WETA-FM's analog and digital were a few seconds out of
sync, but that is certainly not inherent.

I imagine that iBiquity isn't too happy with the story.

Bob Carpenter