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Old September 5th 10, 05:46 PM posted to rec.radio.shortwave
Kevin Alfred Strom Kevin Alfred Strom is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: May 2009
Posts: 544
Default AM radio should stay analog

dave wrote:
harddisque wrote:
Maybe we will eventually have DRM for AM here in the US.

IBOC on AM is a disaster.



AM radio sounds great if you know what you're doing. The NRSC mask
needs to go away, along with every station (or night-time operation)
authorized since the late '70s.



You're pretty much right on.

Standard AM does have more background noise at low and moderate
signal strengths. And the extreme high end, above, say, 10 kHz, is
hard to get perfectly flat at some (but not all) directional facilities.

But with analogue AM you can transmit high-fidelity audio with no
data compression whatever (and none of its attendant artifacts) in
30 kHz of RF bandwidth. You can't do that with IBOC of either the AM
or FM varieties.

And with standard analogue AM, no de-emphasis need be used on the
receiving end, so high frequencies that are 100 per cent. modulated
come through at full level on the receiving end. You can't do that
with pre-emphasized FM.

When WEAM 1390 in Arlington ran its progressive format in the 1970s,
they used very modest amounts of optical compression and peak
limiting, and subtle equalization -- and they sounded absolutely
stunning on my McKay Dymek AM5 tuner.

With all good wishes,


Kevin, WB4AIO.
--
http://kevinalfredstrom.com/