"Jake Brodsky" wrote in message
...

The beauty of digital broadcasting is that it works
better overall in a wider variety of conditions and the radio doesn't
have to be outrageously large, heavy, expensive, or high maintenance.

Weird claims.

Digital broadcasting does not affect the size, weight, or maintenance of a
radio. It may increase the price. The digital signal is certainly is more
fragile than AM. Analog AM smoothly fades into the interference and noise -
digital quits.

In fact digital may increase the weight of a battery-powered radio because
of the current drain of the digital processing chips - at least in early
versions.

The size of a radio is determined largely by how good you want it to sound.

On 19 Aug 2003 14:21:25 GMT, "R J Carpenter"
wrote:


"Jake Brodsky" wrote in message
...

The beauty of digital broadcasting is that it works
better overall in a wider variety of conditions and the radio doesn't
have to be outrageously large, heavy, expensive, or high maintenance.

Weird claims.

No. Market forces will make this happen.

Digital broadcasting does not affect the size, weight, or maintenance of a
radio. It may increase the price. The digital signal is certainly is more
fragile than AM. Analog AM smoothly fades into the interference and noise -
digital quits.

Initially a digital radio will cost more. I don't disagree with that.
Digital signals may or may not be more fragile than AM.

They can certainly ride much closer to the noise floor than an AM
signal can. They don't suffer from background skip causing the
carrier to flutter. They don't put crap out of the speaker when
selective fading hits --they squelch instead. Most people would see
those features as acceptable tradeoffs.

In fact digital may increase the weight of a battery-powered radio because
of the current drain of the digital processing chips - at least in early
versions.

In early versions, you'd be right. Have you looked at the size and
performance of PCS phones lately? No, they don't sound as good as
analog cellular phones. But they're close enough that nobody cares
about the difference.

The size of a radio is determined largely by how good you want it to sound.

....And the program's desirability will directly determine if anyone
will bother turning this thing on in the first place. If you want a
CD of your brother in law's band, you're not going to hear it on the
radio anyway.

The bottom line: just because a certain degree of performance is
possible doesn't mean it is desirable by the general public. Dare I
say it: Mediocrity rules. If it didn't, do you think Bill Gates
would be a multi-billionare?



Jake Brodsky

"Never mind the Turing Test, what about the Turing Graduates?"

Jake Brodsky wrote:

They don't suffer from background skip causing the
carrier to flutter.

I'd like to see that in actual use.

They don't put crap out of the speaker when
selective fading hits --they squelch instead. Most people would see
those features as acceptable tradeoffs.

I don't for one minute believe that people who wouldn't accept signal
fading will find complete muting an acceptable alternative.

Jake Brodsky wrote:
On 19 Aug 2003 14:21:25 GMT, "R J Carpenter"
wrote:


"Jake Brodsky" wrote in message
...

The beauty of digital broadcasting is that it works
better overall in a wider variety of conditions and the radio
doesn't have to be outrageously large, heavy, expensive, or high
maintenance.

Weird claims.

No. Market forces will make this happen.


No, you mean advertising by the broadcasters will produce expectations in
the minds of the consumers that digital = better, which will lead to the
highly suggestible general public believing these claims whether they're
true or not (certainly untrue if you take the UK's experience), this
advertising creates demand, which allows manufacturing batch sizes to
increase which leads to lower prices, which goes on until the prices are low
and demand carries on going up as the prices fall.

This isn't market forces, this is manipulation of the market by broadcasters
and consumer electronics companies to ship new products to make extra
profit.


In fact digital may increase the weight of a battery-powered radio
because of the current drain of the digital processing chips - at
least in early versions.

In early versions, you'd be right. Have you looked at the size and
performance of PCS phones lately? No, they don't sound as good as
analog cellular phones. But they're close enough that nobody cares
about the difference.


That's mobile phones, not broadcast quality audio. Who gives a **** about
the absolute audio quality of a mobile phone call so long as it is
intelligible? This is very different for broadcast quality audio. And BTW,
I'm not supporting analogue AM because in the UK analogue AM is ****e.


The bottom line: just because a certain degree of performance is
possible doesn't mean it is desirable by the general public.


The bottom line is that the broadcasters are abusing their relationship with
their listeners in that their listeners trust them to provide as good a
service as they think is possible, when in reality in the UK we have sub-FM
audio quality on DAB when there is spare capacity on nearly all DAB
multiplexes left unused and going to waste, but the broadcasters just don't
want to increase the bit rates to improve the audio quality (96% of stereo
radio stations on DAB in the UK use 128kbps MPEG Layer 2, and Layer 2 was
supposed to be used at 192kbps for stereo audio streams).

The bottom line is that CD-quality on the radio is possible, and given the
choice between CD-quality or lower quality then the general public would not
turn down CD-quality.

But again the reality is so far away from CD-quality it is just a bad joke.
On DAB in the UK the audio quality is sub-FM, yet we hear adverts day in day
out saying crap like "superb digital quality sound" and such like. This is
an abuse of trust and the broadcasters should be ashamed of themselves that
they're conning the general public to earn extra profit (for the commercial
radio groups) or to try to hang on to market share and be seen to be more
politically correct (for the BBC).


Dare I say it: Mediocrity rules.


You've just said it.


If it didn't, do you think Bill Gates
would be a multi-billionare?


So basically because companies can get away with mediorcity then that should
be accepted and applauded?

Basically this is all to make a very small number of people a lot richer,
while the masses have to put up with crap audio quality passed off as
entertainment.

The bottom line is that we'll all be dead one day and the only actual
trade-off going on is people's enjoyment against fking profit for a very
small number of people.

But hey, that's capitalism for ya.

Think Enron and Worldcom.

And it seems one of the main purveyors of medicority in the US is getting a
bit of a backlash isn't it? Or are the reports about Clear Channel and a
load of unhappy listeners just bull****?


--
DAB sounds worse than FM, Freeview, Digital Satellite and Cable --
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/

BBC DAB is a national disgrace
Subscribe for free to the Digital Radio Listeners' Group Newsletter

But (and I can't believe this hasn't been argued before....but then I've been gone
for a while)....IBOC is the WRONG way to do this, on AM or FM.

Frankly, given the way the broadcast industry has handled audio processing and
programming, it really won't make a damn bit of difference whether it;s IBOC or in a
new service - it'll still sound like crap. I've said for a long time now that
current owners of any broadcast operation shouldn't be permitted to apply for, let
alone be granted, a new digital license. Of course, it may just be this concern that
U-S broadacasters have opted for IBOC in the first place, since they already "own"
the allocation. Less competition.

AM is dead, FM is dying, and they can have their IBOC in its dying days. In the end
the only broadcasting left will be the satellite-subscription services, and you'll
need to pay for that, just like everything else worth watching or listening to.
--
For direct replies, take out the contents between the hyphens. -Really!-



"Jake Brodsky" wrote in message
...
On 14 Aug 2003 14:20:24 GMT, (WBRW) wrote:

Digital does have its advantages... but not in AM audio quality!

Sigh. There are those who can show better performance using vinyl
records than a CD recording, and there are those who can show really
good performance with a tube amplifier.

--BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT.

Unless you're really close to this broadcast station and your AM
receiver is of unquestionable quality, you'll never know the
difference. The beauty of digital broadcasting is that it works
better overall in a wider variety of conditions and the radio doesn't
have to be outrageously large, heavy, expensive, or high maintenance.

Don't misunderstand me, this station probably is quite an achievement.
Unfortunately its an achievement that will hardly get noticed but for
maybe a handful of listeners. That's the unfortunate fact of life.

The halls of technological progress are littered with high performance
efforts like these...


Jake Brodsky

"Never mind the Turing Test, what about the Turing Graduates?"

On 18 Aug 2003 14:23:26 GMT, "Bob Haberkost"
wrote:

AM is dead, FM is dying, and they can have their IBOC in its dying days. In the end
the only broadcasting left will be the satellite-subscription services, and you'll
need to pay for that, just like everything else worth watching or listening to.

How will the satellite services find the space to serve every
community with the news and local information they need? Virtually
every community has a relatively local station. Whether they actually
provide service is another matter. Rural areas, I doubt, have
repeaters, so localization can't be done that way even if the FCC
allows it.

Then the repeater becomes a radio station (as cookie cutter as you
could ever imagine) at a diffferent frequency.

During the recent blackout I listened to WINS. Once WINS is gone, will
the satellite providers provide an identical service to me? I didn't
go to CNN (though WINS carries CNN among other networks). CNN or the
satellites can tell me what's happening across the country but
couldn't possibly support the cost of all the local news departments
(yes, they're dwindling) for every market. Who is going to tell me
which subway lines are running or where there might be food. Please
don't tell me wireless Internet because the cell site UPSs ran out of
power a couple of hours into the blackout. No cell service. My phone
switched to analog, then the dreaded "no service" message appeared.

Here the outage lasted 29 hours. Does every translator have a
generator capable of that fuel duty cycle and where will the fuel be
stored. Gas stations had fuel but no pumps working. As you can
imagine, New York has extrememly strict rules about fuel storage and
handling. I can't even bring a camp stove propane tank through a
tunnel. It's a felony if you're caught, according to the NYFD. If I'm
renting cell site space to Verizon I don't want a gas tank in the
building. Clearly, the weren't running on natural gas.

I believe all the news services on both satellite services are
pass-throughs.

I found it funny that TV stations stayed on the air with virtually no
operating receivers. They were talking to themselves.

Rich

Rich Wood writes:

Here the outage lasted 29 hours. Does every translator have a
generator capable of that fuel duty cycle and where will the fuel be
stored. Gas stations had fuel but no pumps working. As you can
imagine, New York has extrememly strict rules about fuel storage and
handling. I can't even bring a camp stove propane tank through a
tunnel. It's a felony if you're caught, according to the NYFD. If I'm
renting cell site space to Verizon I don't want a gas tank in the
building. Clearly, the weren't running on natural gas.

I visited a cell site recently where the back-up power was a
stack of gell cell batteries that, according to the AT&T guy, could
power the site for four days.


umar

On 20 Aug 2003 14:38:27 GMT, umarc wrote:

I visited a cell site recently where the back-up power was a
stack of gell cell batteries that, according to the AT&T guy, could
power the site for four days.

Then something went wrong because cell service faded away within a few
hours As soon as the electricity went back on , so did the cell
service.

I spent a lot of time walking through the city that night and my cell
phone had no signal indicator and that handset with the slash through
it. The display said "no service."

When my cell phone tells me I have no service I believe it. The bill
has been paid in full.

Rich

WBRW wrote:

The audio in the MP3 clips was recorded from KEVA's Motorola AM Stereo
Modulation Monitor, so you are hearing KEVA exactly as they sound on
the air -- not from a direct feed from their audio board.

plug If you're looking for the guy who made the recordings, he hangs out
at utahradionews.com /plug