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"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 |