"Doug Smith W9WI" wrote in message
...
Frank Dresser wrote:
Yes, but if the second station doesn't increase revenues by increasing
audience, the money is wasted. Not that broadcasters haven't wasted
money
like that before, they used to simulcast their AM programming on FM.
But
the FCC didn't like simulcasting, and pretty much stopped it.

True, though then again is that different from IBOC?

That would depend on IBOC's costs. It's possible that Ibiquity is
subsidizing the early adopters.

Chicago's WIND is a curious case. They went to IBOC a couple of months ago.
I'd think a station like WIND would be just about the last station to adopt
IBOC, because it's at the low end of the dial - 560 kHz, and uses a
directional antenna to broadcast from Northwestern Indiana to Chicago.
Getting the necessary 45 kHz bandwidth on a directional antenna at the low
end of the dial seems to be an engineering worst case scenerio. But they're
doing it, and they're doing it before there's any significant number of AM
IBOC receivers. I'm just guessing, but I think they wouldn't bother unless
they were getting some breaks on the deal from Ibiquity.


(admittedly IBOC
is probably cheaper, though again if IBOC is accomplished at the expense
of massive interference, will that really help the bottom line?)



There should be enough seperation between stations in any market to avoid
interference. The interference problem will happen in the fringe areas
where adjacent channels can also be received well. This doesn't seem to
bother the broadcasters. I think the National Association of Broadcasters
is lobbying to get the nighttime ban on IBOC removed.

Luckily for the radio hobbyist, AM IBOC doesn't seem to be gathering
momentum, for whatever reason. That's remarkable, given the number of
networks investing in Ibiquity:

http://www.ibiquity.com/about/invest_radio.htm

Frank Dresser