Frank Dresser wrote:
That would depend on IBOC's costs. It's possible that Ibiquity is
subsidizing the early adopters.
I certainly wouldn't rule that out. A bit of "seed money" to get some
well-known examples on the air.
That won't bode well for eventual widespread adoption though. The big
stations they're starting with are the same ones with the ability to
raise the capital to pay full price. It's the little stations that will
have trouble paying for IBOC at subsidized prices, let alone full price.
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.
IIRC WIND is an Entravision-owned station. They seem to be an early
supporter. (several of their L.A. stations, for example, are using it)
But you could well be right that Ibiquity has given Entravision some
incentives...
WIND's directtional pattern is relatively "mild", I suspect there are
many arrays out there that will be a LOT harder to make work. WLMV-1480
in Madison, for example; when they were WISM they had bandwidth problems
with *analog*. [0]
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.
Or from stations in different markets.
You don't have to get very far fringe before you find people whose only
nighttime AM service is secondary. At my location, WSM is the only
primary nighttime service. My educated guess is the number of people
who would receive *no* nighttime AM service is in the hundreds of
thousands. In the state of Tennessee alone.
It's true that "This doesn't seem to bother the broadcasters."
However, these hundreds of thousands of people have Congressmen who
certainly can bother the broadcastersgrin!
I think the National Association of Broadcasters
is lobbying to get the nighttime ban on IBOC removed.
Yes, there's an official proceeding open before the FCC on this subject.
(among others related to IBOC)
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:
I do think it will go the way of AM stereo, and for many of the same
reasons.
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com
[0] The regular-band side of WTDY-1670, this one was supposed to go away
by now like most of the other X-band movers...