"Doug Smith W9WI" wrote in message
...
Frank Dresser wrote:
Yes, but if the second station doesn't increase revenues by increasing
audience, the money is wasted. Not that broadcasters haven't wasted
money
like that before, they used to simulcast their AM programming on FM.
But
the FCC didn't like simulcasting, and pretty much stopped it.

True, though then again is that different from IBOC?

That would depend on IBOC's costs. It's possible that Ibiquity is
subsidizing the early adopters.

Chicago's WIND is a curious case. They went to IBOC a couple of months ago.
I'd think a station like WIND would be just about the last station to adopt
IBOC, because it's at the low end of the dial - 560 kHz, and uses a
directional antenna to broadcast from Northwestern Indiana to Chicago.
Getting the necessary 45 kHz bandwidth on a directional antenna at the low
end of the dial seems to be an engineering worst case scenerio. But they're
doing it, and they're doing it before there's any significant number of AM
IBOC receivers. I'm just guessing, but I think they wouldn't bother unless
they were getting some breaks on the deal from Ibiquity.


(admittedly IBOC
is probably cheaper, though again if IBOC is accomplished at the expense
of massive interference, will that really help the bottom line?)



There should be enough seperation between stations in any market to avoid
interference. The interference problem will happen in the fringe areas
where adjacent channels can also be received well. This doesn't seem to
bother the broadcasters. I think the National Association of Broadcasters
is lobbying to get the nighttime ban on IBOC removed.

Luckily for the radio hobbyist, AM IBOC doesn't seem to be gathering
momentum, for whatever reason. That's remarkable, given the number of
networks investing in Ibiquity:

http://www.ibiquity.com/about/invest_radio.htm

Frank Dresser

"Frank Dresser" schreef in bericht
...
Chicago's WIND is a curious case. They went to IBOC a couple of months
ago.
I'd think a station like WIND would be just about the last station to
adopt
IBOC, because it's at the low end of the dial - 560 kHz, and uses a
directional antenna to broadcast from Northwestern Indiana to Chicago.
Getting the necessary 45 kHz bandwidth on a directional antenna at the low
end of the dial seems to be an engineering worst case scenerio.

I understood this has something to do with the Q-factor of the aerial, is
that correct?
You actually need a bad aerial for IBOC :-)

gr, hwh

"hwh" wrote in message
...

"Frank Dresser" schreef in bericht
...
Chicago's WIND is a curious case. They went to IBOC a couple of months
ago.
I'd think a station like WIND would be just about the last station to
adopt
IBOC, because it's at the low end of the dial - 560 kHz, and uses a
directional antenna to broadcast from Northwestern Indiana to Chicago.
Getting the necessary 45 kHz bandwidth on a directional antenna at the
low
end of the dial seems to be an engineering worst case scenerio.

I understood this has something to do with the Q-factor of the aerial, is
that correct?
You actually need a bad aerial for IBOC :-)

gr, hwh



There are ways of broadbanding an AM tower. One way is to add longwire
antennas in parallel to the main tower, stood off by a couple feet or so. I
helped install such a system in Portland, Oregon a few years ago.

Frank Dresser wrote:
That would depend on IBOC's costs. It's possible that Ibiquity is
subsidizing the early adopters.

I certainly wouldn't rule that out. A bit of "seed money" to get some
well-known examples on the air.

That won't bode well for eventual widespread adoption though. The big
stations they're starting with are the same ones with the ability to
raise the capital to pay full price. It's the little stations that will
have trouble paying for IBOC at subsidized prices, let alone full price.

Chicago's WIND is a curious case. They went to IBOC a couple of months ago.
I'd think a station like WIND would be just about the last station to adopt
IBOC, because it's at the low end of the dial - 560 kHz, and uses a
directional antenna to broadcast from Northwestern Indiana to Chicago.
Getting the necessary 45 kHz bandwidth on a directional antenna at the low
end of the dial seems to be an engineering worst case scenerio. But they're
doing it, and they're doing it before there's any significant number of AM
IBOC receivers. I'm just guessing, but I think they wouldn't bother unless
they were getting some breaks on the deal from Ibiquity.

IIRC WIND is an Entravision-owned station. They seem to be an early
supporter. (several of their L.A. stations, for example, are using it)
But you could well be right that Ibiquity has given Entravision some
incentives...

WIND's directtional pattern is relatively "mild", I suspect there are
many arrays out there that will be a LOT harder to make work. WLMV-1480
in Madison, for example; when they were WISM they had bandwidth problems
with *analog*. [0]

There should be enough seperation between stations in any market to avoid
interference. The interference problem will happen in the fringe areas
where adjacent channels can also be received well.

Or from stations in different markets.

You don't have to get very far fringe before you find people whose only
nighttime AM service is secondary. At my location, WSM is the only
primary nighttime service. My educated guess is the number of people
who would receive *no* nighttime AM service is in the hundreds of
thousands. In the state of Tennessee alone.

It's true that "This doesn't seem to bother the broadcasters."
However, these hundreds of thousands of people have Congressmen who
certainly can bother the broadcastersgrin!

I think the National Association of Broadcasters
is lobbying to get the nighttime ban on IBOC removed.

Yes, there's an official proceeding open before the FCC on this subject.
(among others related to IBOC)

Luckily for the radio hobbyist, AM IBOC doesn't seem to be gathering
momentum, for whatever reason. That's remarkable, given the number of
networks investing in Ibiquity:

I do think it will go the way of AM stereo, and for many of the same
reasons.
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

[0] The regular-band side of WTDY-1670, this one was supposed to go away
by now like most of the other X-band movers...

hwh wrote:
IBOC, because it's at the low end of the dial - 560 kHz, and uses a
directional antenna to broadcast from Northwestern Indiana to Chicago.
Getting the necessary 45 kHz bandwidth on a directional antenna at the low
end of the dial seems to be an engineering worst case scenerio.

I understood this has something to do with the Q-factor of the aerial, is
that correct?
You actually need a bad aerial for IBOC :-)

G

though really, I would suggest a broadcasting antenna with a high Q
factor is *not* a good antenna... Either the matching network is poorly
designed, or the height of the antenna is such that the resulting
impedance is difficult to match with a reasonable network..
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

Brenda Ann Dyer wrote:
There are ways of broadbanding an AM tower. One way is to add longwire
antennas in parallel to the main tower, stood off by a couple feet or so. I
helped install such a system in Portland, Oregon a few years ago.

True, though in most cases I would think the narrowband problem is in
the matching network, (especially at highly-directional stations) not
the individual tower(s).
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

"Frank Dresser" wrote
| AM IBOC has been around for a year or two, and it's still something of a
| novelty. It doesn't seem to be taking off as quickly as AM Stereo, and
| there aren't many receivers available, yet.

I've read the "pro and con" editorials in Radio World and some of the
other trade rags, but every single editorialist misses the following point:

Sound quality is not the problem. PROGRAMMING is the problem.
We probably shouldn't rely on anecdotal evidence, but everyone I know
will put up with natural and manmade noise to hear their favorite shows.

Come to think of it, there's no evidence that DRM or IBOC have anything
close to a robust noise - fighting system. I imagine a good thunderstorm
will cause dropped packets and receiver muting.

Another problem is multiple layering of compression and expansion
codec schemes. Has anyone listened to a (usually) decent - quality
AM plant that is transmitting supercompressed talk show audio
at a bandwidth of 5 KHZ with a low, low, low bitrate? Something
along the lines of 8 to 16 KHz bitrate? That fact alone puts the lie
to the digital pushers' rants about "Audio quality."

To an extent, the mediumwave band's physical attributes will play
a role - groundwave and skywave mixing at night, phase shifting,
etc., and FWIW, I don't think the "Crossed-Field Antenna" will
fix a damned thing. I am good friends with a Kansas broadcast
engineer who thought up a crossed field antenna concept in college
back in the Fifties. In his own words, "I discarded the idea as
sophomoric, fantastic, and unworkable." The search for a high -
tech whizbang, bells-and-whistles cure will not yield the hoped-for
results.

So, what should be done with AM? Roll back NRSC. Give us
10 KHz - wide audio (at least), and get rid of the aerobeacons on
longwave, and turn the longwave band over to broadcasting. Just
a thought, anyway...that would certainly ield better coverage area.

The comparison to AM Stereo is, at any rate, right on the mark, and the
NAB is making the same mistake in their enthusiasm for sound quality
that they made in the Eighties, namely, that sound quality is a secondary
or tertiary consideration, and sound quality does take a backseat to
program content every time. Until that issue is addressed, the change
that the digital vendors lust for will never happen.

Speaking of "change," I think that's the primary motivation for the
hype.

Oh, well, at least the B.S. marketing type$ (aka "Liars") will have
something to shill for.

73,

Steve Lawrence
KAØPMD
Burnsville, Minnesota

(NOTE: My email address has only one "dot."
You'll have to edit out the one between the "7"
and the "3" in my email address if you wish to
reply via email)


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Stephen M.H. Lawrence wrote:

Sound quality is not the problem. PROGRAMMING is the problem.

snip

Another problem is multiple layering of compression and expansion
codec schemes. Has anyone listened to a (usually) decent - quality
AM plant that is transmitting supercompressed talk show audio
at a bandwidth of 5 KHZ with a low, low, low bitrate? Something
along the lines of 8 to 16 KHz bitrate? That fact alone puts the lie
to the digital pushers' rants about "Audio quality."


So sound quality is not the problem, but audio quality is a problem?
Right.

BTW, kilohertz is kHz, not KHz or KHZ. 'K' means 1024, 'k' means 1000,
and cycles per second are always Hz.

Also, bit rate is not measured in Hz, it's measured in bits per second,
bps or bits/s or bit/s, so thousands of will be kbps, kbits/s or kbit/s.

But I agree that low bit rates sound ****.


--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

DAB sounds worse than FM, Freeview, digital satellite, cable and
broadband internet radio

"Stephen M.H. Lawrence" wrote in message
link.net...



[snip]


So, what should be done with AM? Roll back NRSC. Give us
10 KHz - wide audio (at least), and get rid of the aerobeacons on
longwave, and turn the longwave band over to broadcasting. Just
a thought, anyway...that would certainly ield better coverage area.


I say -- allow wideband audio, and let the stations who can't compete go
dark. There's too many radio stations, anyway.



The comparison to AM Stereo is, at any rate, right on the mark, and the
NAB is making the same mistake in their enthusiasm for sound quality
that they made in the Eighties, namely, that sound quality is a secondary
or tertiary consideration, and sound quality does take a backseat to
program content every time. Until that issue is addressed, the change
that the digital vendors lust for will never happen.


There's a cycle to the "better audio will save radio" arguement. FM would
replace AM in the fifties. It didn't. FM stereo would save FM in the
sixties. It didn't. AM stereo would save AM in the eighties. AM stereo is
almost gone, now. I don't know if this is a generational amnesia thing, or
it's simply means nobody promotes this stuff after the patents run out.


Speaking of "change," I think that's the primary motivation for the
hype.

Ibiquity's website is amusing. Their view of the future is quite clear.
Soon, although the exact dates are undisclosed, we will all be listening to
perfect "High Defination" radio. It will be everywhere!! No doubt I'll be
listening to IBOC radio as I drive my turbine car or as I fly my jet pack or
while I'm relaxing on my next Pan Am flight to the moon.



Oh, well, at least the B.S. marketing type$ (aka "Liars") will have
something to shill for.


Life ain't fair. Howcum the shills get all the job security?

Frank Dresser

Frank Dresser wrote:

There's a cycle to the "better audio will save radio" arguement. FM
would replace AM in the fifties.


If all the AM stations could get on FM, AM would die in the UK.


It didn't. FM stereo would save FM
in the sixties.


The vast majority of people in the UK listen via FM, the only ones that
listen to AM stations are, as I said above, those that listen to AM
stations that can't get on FM.


It didn't. AM stereo would save AM in the eighties.
AM stereo is almost gone, now.


Who needs AM stereo when you've got high quality FM?


I don't know if this is a
generational amnesia thing,


Nah, I'd say you're just summarising things incorrectly.


or it's simply means nobody promotes this
stuff after the patents run out.


Err, nah.


Speaking of "change," I think that's the primary motivation for the
hype.

Ibiquity's website is amusing. Their view of the future is quite
clear. Soon, although the exact dates are undisclosed, we will all be
listening to perfect "High Defination" radio. It will be
everywhere!! No doubt I'll be listening to IBOC radio as I drive my
turbine car or as I fly my jet pack or while I'm relaxing on my next
Pan Am flight to the moon.


You've got a jet pack and you're flying to the moon? I'm impressed. But
why do you want a turbine car when you could use an electric car?


Oh, well, at least the B.S. marketing type$ (aka "Liars") will have
something to shill for.


Life ain't fair. Howcum the shills get all the job security?


cum?


--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

DAB sounds worse than FM, Freeview, digital satellite, cable and
broadband internet radio