"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote:

Wowzers, a paid shill for the cellphone audio crowd weighs
in on FM in the UK.

Who the hell cares, Steve - 2? The radio market in the UK
is nowhere near as big a business as it is in the US.

Now, why don't you go run along and play radio, Digital Boy?

73,

Steve Lawrence
KAØPMD
Burnsville, Minnesota

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"nsj" wrote :
| Remember that we have 5.5kHz audio bandwidth AM (if that) for domestic
| transmissions -- not the wide bandwidth/stereo services you're used to in
| North America.

No wonder Digitalboy claimed that most radio listeners in the UK
would migrate to FM if given the chance. 5 KHz must sound like
crap.

73,

Steve Lawrence
KAØPMD
Burnsville, Minnesota

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"Frank Dresser" wrote:
| Currently, the FCC limits AM stations to a bandwidth of 20 kHz, or an
audio
| bandwidth of 10 kHz. Thirty years ago, there wasn't an explicit limit,
| stations were required to limit their bandwidth to limit interference.

I thought that the NRSC standard is 7.5 KHz?

At any rate, a practical bandwidth of 10 KHz would be
a nice improvement.

73,

Steve Lawrence
KAØPMD
Burnsville, Minnesota

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"Frank Dresser" wrote:
| Well, they process the sound anyway. They must think people like it. It
| wasn't processed as much years ago, and I think it sounded better, but I
| don't represent the typical listener.
|
| Wonder why the lightly processed stations went by the wayside, years ago?
|
| Frank Dresser

You'd have to have iron eardrums to listen for very
long to any major - market FM. Overprocessed,
louder than hell, and just plain fatiguing to listen to.

What the heck happened to dynamic range and
headroom?

BTW, there are still a few lightly - processed
stations on FM. Cities 97 (KTCZ - 97.1) is
one such station. I can listen for hours - too bad
the music doesn't really suit me.

I do have to agree with you, though, inasmuch
as FM stations tend to sound like crap. I think
the final death - blow to good sound on FM was
the use of MP3 music, served up from a hard drive.

I still think we have a problem with program content,
and I'm not talking about Limey radio here, but specifically
about AM radio. I can listen to Art Bell and Rush Limbaugh
anywhere in the US. I'm surprised there aren't any nationally-
available alternatives.

73,

Steve Lawrence
KAØPMD
Burnsville, Minnesota

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"Ruud Poeze" wrote:
| And that is the whole point.
| At this end of the ocean the DRM consortium people really believe in a
| replacement of analogue AM broadcasting to digital within "a couple of
| years".
| AM to FM took almost 40 years, and AM is still on, the advantages to FM
| over AM are more spectacular than DRM over AM in a world where also FM
| is available and the most popular band.
| Actualy DRM is ruining the AM band and I dont like the idea of one
| broadcasting band with 2 incompatable modulation systems.
| DRM only causes a lot of noise on your receiver and is already
| irritating the audience.
|
| ruud

*very* interesting, Ruud - do you do any listening using
DRM yourself? I wonder how well DRM holds up
when propagation conditions are changing, or perhaps
during severe thunderstorms?

73,

Steve Lawrence
KAØPMD
Burnsville, Minnesota

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As to "DRM" in the US, let me ask, what on earth do the
letters stand for. If they stand for what I THINK they
stand for, there is no chance in HELL of it being widely
used here, except in secret (i.e. on SW).

Doug McDonald

Digital Radio Mondiale.

I believe Mondiale is Italian for World.

Hence, Digital World Radio.

I think.

At any rate, I don't yet own a decoder,
and, judging by the awful racket said digital
signal makes, I can imagine the cochannel
interference problems that might arise from
the use of DRM.

73,

--
Steve Lawrence
KAØPMD
Burnsville, Minnesota

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"Doug McDonald" wrote in message
...
|
| As to "DRM" in the US, let me ask, what on earth do the
| letters stand for. If they stand for what I THINK they
| stand for, there is no chance in HELL of it being widely
| used here, except in secret (i.e. on SW).
|
| Doug McDonald


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In article ,
"Brenda Ann Dyer" wrote:

"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.

What you did in effect with the parallel wires was to increase the
diameter of the tower relative to its length, which will broaden its
response. The towers response curve will have a lower and broader
peak.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

In article .net,
"Stephen M.H. Lawrence" wrote:


"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."

snip

DRM - Deception Radio Mondiale

Another lie is the system is open and contains no proprietary
intellectual property.

It won't be any better under the best of circumstances where you will
trade noise and interference for drop outs.

DRM is a lame scheme.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

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

"Frank Dresser" wrote:
| Currently, the FCC limits AM stations to a bandwidth of 20 kHz, or an
audio
| bandwidth of 10 kHz. Thirty years ago, there wasn't an explicit limit,
| stations were required to limit their bandwidth to limit interference.

I thought that the NRSC standard is 7.5 KHz?

I've got an old Popular Electronics magazine article around here somewhere
which claims the the 20 kHz max AM bandwidth. The author seemed
knowledgeable, but I also have a couple of textbooks which claim a 10 kHz
max AM bandwidth. I don't trust the textbooks, so I searched the FCC
website.

I came up with:

3. Sound Broadcasting

Sound broadcasting, double-sideband..

BINFn/INF=2M, M may vary between 4000 and 10000
depending on the quality desired

This defination was among a group above the FCC's formulas:

BINFn/INF = Necessary bandwidth in hertz

So, if I'm reading this correctly, the necessary bandwidth for standard AM
will be twice the audio bandwidth, which must be between a minimum audio
bandwidth of 4000 Hz and a maximum audio bandwidth of 10,000Hz.

This is from:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cgi?TITLE=47&PART=2&SECTION=202&YEAR=2001&TYPE =TEXT



At any rate, a practical bandwidth of 10 KHz would be
a nice improvement.


Yeah, I think few broadcasters get near the maximum. But, considering the
average AM radio, why bother?



Frank Dresser