Steven Stone wrote:

I am 60 miles northwest of New York City.
I don't expect to receive analog AM broadcast bands signals from NYC
with any level of quality with an indoor antenna, especially with a
home littered with modern electronics that throw noise all over the AM
band. Sure the local 2kw stations come in like gang busters, but who
wants to listen to Radio Disney all day ? To pick up NYC stations I
threw up a 30 foot wire in the attic attached to a free piece of RG-59,
and attached the outer braid to air conditioning air handler in the
attic. Now I get all the NYC AM broadcasters with very little effort
The article cited said they had problems receiving WCBS AM 880 in IBOC.
Depending on his test dates 880 AM IBOC was off the air for at least a
month doing some level of repair or upgrade work on their IBOC exciter.

You can't hear what is not transmitted.

Summary:
IBOC on AM and FM is neat, but is analog or digital radio of any sort
going to be used today in the age of IPODS ?

Were you referring to day or night reception of the NYC stations? You
should be able to receive all the NYC 50-kw stations in analog during
the daytime, using most any radio w/wo an external antenna, unless you
have a severe noise problem in the home. You should also receive the NYC
stations on your car radio in the day. 60-miles is within the regional
coverage area for daytime reception by groundwave propagation of the
full power NYC AM-stations. You may be within the skip zone for night
reception of those stations. This can cause a cancellation of the
groundwave and skywave signal, resulting in severe fading which can make
a station almost inaudible at times.
I'm about 200-miles from NYC and I can receive all of the 50-kw stations
during the day on an R8B with a 60-ft inverted-L antenna. The signal
strengths are typically S-7 with no fading of course. I can also hear
those stations weakly on the car radio in the day if I'm located in a
quiet area with the engine off.