Holy crap, look at those spurs +/- 15kc!

Oh, yeah, IBAC (In Band Adjacent Channel) is
going to save AM!

73,

Steve Lawrence
Burnsville, MN

"David" wrote in message
...
| Thanks to Bob Gonsett
|
| http://earthsignals.com/add_CGC/KMXE.PDF


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Canada uses Eureka 147 DAB. It is slowly gaining an audience.

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 22:38:00 GMT, "Frank Dresser"
wrote:


"Kevin Alfred Strom" wrote in message
...


All of this destruction of the radio listening hobby -- and
destruction of _anyone's_ ability to listen to many of the more
distant or weaker stations he can now receive -- is because the
money-men of the media monopolies saw a new digital band as a threat
to their dominance. So they squelched it -- they hope -- with IBOC.


As far as I know, the FCC has stopped all IBOC testing at night in
order to reduce interference with other stations.


As I've said before, IBOC (In-Band On-Channel) digital -- AM or FM
-- is essentially a turkey, technically. It's inferior in almost
every way to a dedicated digital system in a dedicated digital band.

The main reason IBOC is promoted is because a new dedicated digital
band would level the playing field: the present 250-Watt AM
daytimer, once ensconced in the new band, would have just as clear
and clean a signal as the 50-Kw clear channel or the high-power FM
-- just as good fidelity, the same coverage, and 24-hour operation.
Just like your Web site is as clear and as easily accessible as
NBC's.

Didn't the Canadians establish a new digital band? Is it being heard
much?


A dedicated digital band might also be scalable and allow many more
channels for the listener -- hundreds, thousands perhaps. Probably
enough to allow public access (in which anyone can be a broadcaster
for free or nearly free) on an even greater scale than does cable
television or Internet radio.

And that would mean more competition for the big-money men.

And it would mean that competition would now be purely on the basis
of programming, not the sheer signal superiority which the money-men
have paid for.

They want to preserve the _inferiority_ of their smaller
competitors. IBOC does that. They want to maintain the high economic
hurdle to becoming a broadcaster. IBOC does that.



With all good wishes,



--

Kevin Alfred Strom.


Well, maybe, but I don't see the entire broadcast industry rushing to
IBOC. The night time ban puts a big crimp on IBOC. IBOC reduces the
bandwidth and fidelity of the main channel. Also, putting all that
power into sideband noise reduces the power and signal to noise ratio of
the main channel. People who are annoyed by bad sounding AM radio and
have yet to buy an IBOC radio are more likely to tune out.

People who don't much care about fidelity, and I think that's the
majority of casual listeners, won't much care for IBOC, either.

Frank Dresser

"David" wrote in message
...
Canada uses Eureka 147 DAB. It is slowly gaining an audience.


I thought so. A seperate band makes sense. If some entrepeneur thinks
the public really wants the presumed advantages of digital broadcasting,
let him be a pioneer on a new band.

Frank Dresser

Frank Dresser wrote:
[...]

Well, maybe, but I don't see the entire broadcast industry rushing to
IBOC. The night time ban puts a big crimp on IBOC. IBOC reduces the
bandwidth and fidelity of the main channel. Also, putting all that
power into sideband noise reduces the power and signal to noise ratio of
the main channel. People who are annoyed by bad sounding AM radio and
have yet to buy an IBOC radio are more likely to tune out.

People who don't much care about fidelity, and I think that's the
majority of casual listeners, won't much care for IBOC, either.

Frank Dresser



All very true. But the owners of the media monopolies don't care a
great deal about the success of IBOC or even its widespread
implementation. Their main concern is to _prevent_ the creation of a
new digital band wherein all existing broadcasters would have an
even playing field. IBOC does that -- at least so far.


With every good wish,


Kevin.
--

Kevin Alfred Strom.

News: http://www.nationalvanguard.org/
The Works of R. P. Oliver: http://www.revilo-oliver.com
Personal site: http://www.kevin-strom.com

"Kevin Alfred Strom" wrote in message
...



All very true. But the owners of the media monopolies don't care a
great deal about the success of IBOC or even its widespread
implementation. Their main concern is to _prevent_ the creation of a
new digital band wherein all existing broadcasters would have an
even playing field. IBOC does that -- at least so far.


With every good wish,


Kevin.

We don't have a seperate band for digital radio, but the time brokered
domestic shortwave stations are allowing much of the programming the
networks don't. Although there isn't any local content. Anyway, the
radio establishment doesn't seem much bothered by independant
broadcasting.

I think the bigger reason there wasn't a seperate digital band
established is the government plans to auction off spectrum, and setting
aside a band in a prime VHF/UHF region puts a crimp in their budget
estimates.

Frank Dresser

Kevin Alfred Strom wrote:
Frank Dresser wrote:
[...]

Well, maybe, but I don't see the entire broadcast industry rushing to
IBOC. The night time ban puts a big crimp on IBOC. IBOC reduces the
bandwidth and fidelity of the main channel. Also, putting all that
power into sideband noise reduces the power and signal to noise ratio of
the main channel. People who are annoyed by bad sounding AM radio and
have yet to buy an IBOC radio are more likely to tune out.

People who don't much care about fidelity, and I think that's the
majority of casual listeners, won't much care for IBOC, either.

Frank Dresser




All very true. But the owners of the media monopolies don't care a
great deal about the success of IBOC or even its widespread
implementation. Their main concern is to _prevent_ the creation of a
new digital band wherein all existing broadcasters would have an
even playing field. IBOC does that -- at least so far.


With every good wish,


Kevin.




It's actually more insidious than that.

A little background.

Meetings I attended when I worked at CBS discussed the future of
radio, and for that matter, TV broadcasting revenues, and it was
clear that advertising revenue streams were not the future.
Technological innovations, at that time limited to VCR's with black
sensing self editing capability which allowed automatic deletion of
commercials, and later the first generation of TiVo which openly
promoted commercial free TV viewing, made it clear that advertising
revenues were under extreme fire. Though Radio lagged behind TV in
this capability, it was only a matter of time before radio caught
up, and radio advertising revenues, too, were threatened.

Karmazin said at one staff breakfast that I atteneded, that the
only way to insure the long term viability of broadcast media was
through the generation of multiple revenue streams for each freqency
allocation. He described several ways that advertising could be
sold, and incorporated into the programming so that additional
non-traditional revenue could be harvested outside of spot sales.
Other products could be tied to each broadcast facility generating
further non-traditional revenue. This is where the ubiquitous
"Dateline" your favorite radio station promotes. That software was
invented by three guys at Northwestern in Evanston. We turned into
the Dateline at US99, and my GM created the company, DMI, which was
later spun off into Spark International, which installs, maintains
and operates the datelines worldwide.

But non traditional revenue sources all require some form of
advertising to work.

Karmazin was looking for more direct revenue streams, not based
in advertising. And when he got to digital broadcasting, he outlined
several future scenarios...all of which involve stealing small
amounts of bandwidth from the digital stream, which would be
converted to alternative programming, or informational streams. He
actually said the words....that we will not be broadcasting full
bandwidth digital programming beyond the resolution we currently
enjoy in analog, in fact, maybe even a little less, so that
alternative revenue producing streams can be incorporated onto each
frequency. Not unlike SAP channels do now for television. These
would also be subscription based, further generating addtional revenue.

This would be necessary because of the erosion of advertising
revenue caused by both technological innovation, and the public's
growing distaste for the spot load.

He then cited cable tv and it's subscription based business model
as an example of how the future of broadcasting may be shaped.
Noting the pervasive nature of cable, and the spread of subscription
based dish networks, he said there is clearly no major objection to
subscription based broadcasting among the population. And as the XM
and Sirius models clearly demonstrate, subscription based reception
for radio is a viable business model.

Karmazin said that the real benefit of digital broadcasting,
whether DAB, or IBOC, because of the interactive potential of
digital distribution, as currently demonstrated with digital cable,
will be the capture of the holy grail of broadcasting since the
media were first blown into the air--absolutely accurate counts of
who's listening, and when.

It will also mean the ultimate in usage sensitive pricing....

Subscription radio.

When asked if this was his goal, he said not at first. But
eventually, yes.

There followed a lot of mumbling in the room.

Now, whether IBOC, especially on AM, proves itself as a
practicality before something else comes along to obsolete it will
be determined in the next few years. XM growth, and expansion of
accessibility, demonstrates it to be a viable contender on the
horizon. And the availability of internet radio through cell phones
and PDA's is proving to be a surprise, although certainly not a
current threat. In the meantime, the larger broadcasters retain
their investment, their profitability, and their competitive
advantages of both scale and strategy over smaller operators. While
preparing to take full advantage of all the media at their disposal.

Something that smaller operators will have to struggle to achieve.

But the ultimate losers with IBOC will not be the smaller
operators.

The ultimate loss will be on our side of the grille cloth.

"Peter Maus" wrote in message
...





[snip]

Karmazin said that the real benefit of digital broadcasting,
whether DAB, or IBOC, because of the interactive potential of
digital distribution, as currently demonstrated with digital cable,
will be the capture of the holy grail of broadcasting since the
media were first blown into the air--absolutely accurate counts of
who's listening, and when.



I can imagine how they might get a sense of which radios are tuned to
which program. But how can they know who, if anyone, is listening?




It will also mean the ultimate in usage sensitive pricing....

Subscription radio.

When asked if this was his goal, he said not at first. But
eventually, yes.

There followed a lot of mumbling in the room.

Now, whether IBOC, especially on AM, proves itself as a
practicality before something else comes along to obsolete it will
be determined in the next few years. XM growth, and expansion of
accessibility, demonstrates it to be a viable contender on the
horizon. And the availability of internet radio through cell phones
and PDA's is proving to be a surprise, although certainly not a
current threat. In the meantime, the larger broadcasters retain
their investment, their profitability, and their competitive
advantages of both scale and strategy over smaller operators. While
preparing to take full advantage of all the media at their disposal.


Of course, free radio has a competitive advantage over pay radio. It
would be up to the networks to somehow come up with programming people
will pay for. Anyway, pay programming now seems to be low cost. No
multimilllion talk show hosts and such.



Something that smaller operators will have to struggle to achieve.

But the ultimate losers with IBOC will not be the smaller
operators.

The ultimate loss will be on our side of the grille cloth.


It might, but the loss would depend on the number of people willing to
pay for radio. There's a hard core who won't pay for cable, and I'd
guess the hard core who won't pay for radio is even larger.

Frank Dresser

= = = Ron Hardin
= = = wrote in message ...
Frank Dresser wrote:
It's just a noise rush, but not white exactly. The giveaway is that
it's on
only one sideband of the station you're trying to hear. If you hear
it on the
LSB, the offending IBOC station is 10 kHz higher (not lower as you'd
expect);
and if on USB, then 10 kHz lower.

I'm not sure I understand. The spectrum plot shows two symmetrical
peaks off the carrier frequency. The noise I observed was consistant
with that.

It's not symmetric around the adjacent channel station being interfered with.

If IBOC is on 700 and you're listening to 710, the the IBOC noise is at 713,
which is the upper sideband of 710. If you listen to 710 LSB, the noise
disappears.

..

RH,

I thought that basic AM and SSB technology were different from IBOC
Digital Technology.

A 13kHz IBOC (@713kHz) off-set from 700kHz is NOT a 3kHz SSB
(@713kHz) off-set from 710kHz.

IBOC and SSB are not produced in the same manner and do not decipher
in the same manner.

Please Correct Me - If I Am Wrong ?


~ RHF

..

"RHF" wrote in message
om...

If IBOC is on 700 and you're listening to 710, the the IBOC noise is
at 713,
which is the upper sideband of 710. If you listen to 710 LSB, the
noise
disappears.

.

RH,

I thought that basic AM and SSB technology were different from IBOC
Digital Technology.

A 13kHz IBOC (@713kHz) off-set from 700kHz is NOT a 3kHz SSB
(@713kHz) off-set from 710kHz.

IBOC and SSB are not produced in the same manner and do not decipher
in the same manner.

Please Correct Me - If I Am Wrong ?


~ RHF

.

I don't think Ron's is using SSB in the sense of a modulation method,
but rather as a reception method. There's a couple of troughs in the
spectrum plot in the splits between the main analog channel and the
digital sidebands. One sideband of each adjacent channel will be in
those troughs.

http://earthsignals.com/add_CGC/KMXE.PDF

Listening SSB mode will limit the interference. Unfortunately, the
sideband with the least amount of interference will be the sideband
closest to the carrier of the unwanted station. Normally, it would be
preferable to listen to the sideband farthest away from the carrier of
the unwanted station.

I was able to tune in an actual IBOC transmission on WSAI 1530 kHz,
yesterday evening. WSAI is strong here, but I've never tuned them in
before they turned off their IBOC noisemaker. I was also able to tune
in KXEL 1540kHz inbetween WSAI's main channel and their upper IBOC
noiseband. There was splatter from the main channel and noise from the
digital channel, but it was readable. I don't have the selectivity to
listen in true sideband mode, but I think even that wouldn't totally
eliminate the interference. If the IBOC station is local, I think there
would still enough noise and splatter to overwhelm an otherwise
listenable near adjacent channel.

The current split digital/analog system is intended to be temporary.
The IBOC standard is designed to go full digital.

Frank Dresser

That makes no sense. Xm and Sirius each have 100 channels on 12.5 MHz
of spectrum. The current FM and AM bands have 21.4 mHz of spectrum.
They could migrate everyone to a new band then auction off the old FM
channels for a billion dollars.

On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 19:49:19 GMT, "Frank Dresser"
wrote:


"Kevin Alfred Strom" wrote in message
...



All very true. But the owners of the media monopolies don't care a
great deal about the success of IBOC or even its widespread
implementation. Their main concern is to _prevent_ the creation of a
new digital band wherein all existing broadcasters would have an
even playing field. IBOC does that -- at least so far.


With every good wish,


Kevin.

We don't have a seperate band for digital radio, but the time brokered
domestic shortwave stations are allowing much of the programming the
networks don't. Although there isn't any local content. Anyway, the
radio establishment doesn't seem much bothered by independant
broadcasting.

I think the bigger reason there wasn't a seperate digital band
established is the government plans to auction off spectrum, and setting
aside a band in a prime VHF/UHF region puts a crimp in their budget
estimates.

Frank Dresser