"Kevin Alfred Strom" wrote in message
...


All of this destruction of the radio listening hobby -- and
destruction of _anyone's_ ability to listen to many of the more
distant or weaker stations he can now receive -- is because the
money-men of the media monopolies saw a new digital band as a threat
to their dominance. So they squelched it -- they hope -- with IBOC.


As far as I know, the FCC has stopped all IBOC testing at night in
order to reduce interference with other stations.


As I've said before, IBOC (In-Band On-Channel) digital -- AM or FM
-- is essentially a turkey, technically. It's inferior in almost
every way to a dedicated digital system in a dedicated digital band.

The main reason IBOC is promoted is because a new dedicated digital
band would level the playing field: the present 250-Watt AM
daytimer, once ensconced in the new band, would have just as clear
and clean a signal as the 50-Kw clear channel or the high-power FM
-- just as good fidelity, the same coverage, and 24-hour operation.
Just like your Web site is as clear and as easily accessible as
NBC's.

Didn't the Canadians establish a new digital band? Is it being heard
much?


A dedicated digital band might also be scalable and allow many more
channels for the listener -- hundreds, thousands perhaps. Probably
enough to allow public access (in which anyone can be a broadcaster
for free or nearly free) on an even greater scale than does cable
television or Internet radio.

And that would mean more competition for the big-money men.

And it would mean that competition would now be purely on the basis
of programming, not the sheer signal superiority which the money-men
have paid for.

They want to preserve the _inferiority_ of their smaller
competitors. IBOC does that. They want to maintain the high economic
hurdle to becoming a broadcaster. IBOC does that.



With all good wishes,



--

Kevin Alfred Strom.


Well, maybe, but I don't see the entire broadcast industry rushing to
IBOC. The night time ban puts a big crimp on IBOC. IBOC reduces the
bandwidth and fidelity of the main channel. Also, putting all that
power into sideband noise reduces the power and signal to noise ratio of
the main channel. People who are annoyed by bad sounding AM radio and
have yet to buy an IBOC radio are more likely to tune out.

People who don't much care about fidelity, and I think that's the
majority of casual listeners, won't much care for IBOC, either.

Frank Dresser