TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Article About AM Radio

Re: Article About AM Radio

John McHarry (jmcharry@comcast.net)
Sun, 05 Mar 2006 04:05:14 GMT

On Thu, 02 Mar 2006 18:57:32 -0600, Mike Sandman wrote:

> Hi Pat.

> I thought you might be interested in this:

> http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114125971438087021-whLN_IXLyiPsenX9v7Nti_dn3Fo_20070302.html?mod=blogs

That whole IBOC thing is a mess at present. Most of the rest of the
world went with Eureka DAB, but the Band III and L Band frequencies
have other uses in the US.

IBOC is claimed to make AM sound like FM, but 36kb coded 15kHz audio
is full of artifacts to a discerning ear. Mine isn't, but I worked
with MP3 (a different coding scheme) with someone who is. We had to
get that up to 128kb before he couldn't hear "flanging".

The real push behind this is the transmission equipment manufacturers, and
Ibiquity, who see a gold mine in the wholesale replacement of existing
transmitters, and much upstream studio equipment.

The other pusher is large networks of FM stations, including Clear
Channel, but perhaps more so, NPR. FM IBOC can be subdivided into
multiple channels, allowing a single station licensee to serve two or
three market segments. This is being tested on air as we "speak". The
scuttlebutt is that it works acceptably, although my golden eared
friend would probably yodel his lunch. My guess is that if, and it is
a big if, IBOC catches on, there will not be an increase in audio
quality, but in quantity. And that is a reaction to the competition
from satellite radio.

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