James wrote:
"Al Patrick" wrote in message
...
I heard yesterday on shortwave that we can look for DRM radios
shortly
at a Wal-Mart near YOU! :-) I don't think they mentioned a brand.

At the risk of putting my hand into the
hollow of a tree and finding a nest of racoons
residing therin, could someone in here please
explain just what a DRM radio is....?

DRM is a form of digital AM radio. Right now, when you receive AM (MW)
broadcasts, they are broadcast as analogue. Digital radio digitizes the
broadcast and you need a digital receiver to decode it. It improves the
signal greatly. It's like listening to FM, and some say it's better
than FM. There is no static....just pure audio. Europeans have already
been experimenting in the shortwave portion with DRM, and some
receivers, like the TenTec 320D, can receive these test broadcasts at
this time. Now, there are some U.S. MW (AM BCB) stations also
broadcasting in digital. One that comes to mind is WOR out of NYC. But
as far as I know -- it's a different standard than DRM. (And I
certainly could be wrong about that). In other words -- you would need
a different decoder for the U.S. version than the DRM(?). That's really
about the size of that. And just off the top of my head, DRM stands for
-- Digital Radio Mondial. It's just the name of the European consortium
that is formulating all this. Will it go over and digital AM radio
become the standard; or will it become like what happened to AM stereo?
Only time will tell.