"R J Carpenter" wrote in message
...
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


The "NAB" is really pushing IBOC ever since the satellite radio providers
started up with weather and local traffic.
I say ******* THEM** and the lame horse they rode in on. IBOC will not hold
a candle to XM or Siruis. I have listened to Siruis, I own several XM
receivers and they both sound better than the AM IBOC and equal to (and
better) than the FM version. Coverage on both systems beats the socks out of
the test stations running IBOC.
Lets see what people have to say at the next "CES" show in Las Vegas.