"FCC Allows Stealth HD Power Boosts"

"Although the Federal Communications Commission has deferred (for now)
any formal action on its inquiry into whether or not to allow
broadcast radio stations to increase the power of their digital ('HD')
sidebands by a factor of ten, the agency's employing the tried and
true method of 'creating facts on the ground' by allowing individual
stations (or station clusters) to individually apply for special
temporary authority to hike their HD power levels. This is taking
place even though radio's engineering community is deeply divided on
the issue of an HD sideband power increase. Comments filed by the
Prometheus Radio Project and Media Access Project (disclaimer: on
which I informally consulted) succinctly summarize the dispute. The
main question is: is it realistically possible use HD Radio as a tool
to improve the existing medium, or will HD intentionally degrade it so
that the spectrum's repurposement becomes inevitable - or, at the very
least, make its ownership more consolidated?"

http://tinyurl.com/6vlmoo

This action was taken in direct violation of the Congressional mandate
to stand-down:

"Lawmakers order FCC to stand down; put actions on hold"

"Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA)
today called on FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to put the agency's actions
on hold unless they are urgent or required by law. Rockefeller's and
Waxman's committees both have jurisdiction over the FCC... If the FCC
indeed must stand down (an FCC spokesperson said they are reviewing
the order right now), then the WCS-SDARS issue - and even the HD Radio
mandate - would likely be put on hold until the new administration
moves in."

http://tinyurl.com/63b9wz

Terrestrial radio may be the only case in history, where an industry
was so desperate that it had to destroy itself, in order to try and
save itself:

"FCC to Consider Raising FM-HD Power Levels"

"Why would radio stations take the risk of degrading the quality of
their existing analog service in order to pimp a flawed technology
which nobody's listening to? It's almost as if the strategy of the HD
Radio Alliance is to degrade analog radio service in order to force
digital adoption - kind of a variant on the 'we had to destroy the
village to save it' rationale."

http://tinyurl.com/67bgv7

I have to applaud Struble - this is one of the most incredible scams
in all of history! With HD radios not selling, there is no ROI - this
just confirms my beliefs that HD/IBOC is just about jamming the
smaller, competitive adjacents off the dial, nothing else. Lawsuits
will fly, and the smaller stations will go dark, just as planned. BTW
- is there anything good on SW, since DRM is a failure? LOL!