NPR Supports All-Digital on AM, With Caveats

[rbc]

National Public Radio “generally supports” allowing stations to transition, if they wish, to all-digital AM transmission using HD Radio in the United States. But it believes the commission needs to go further on how it would handle interference complaints from neighboring analog stations in the band.

About 80 AM public radio stations are affiliated with NPR or receive operational funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, including WNYC(AM) in New York City.
[...]
https://www.radioworld.com/tech-and-gear/digital-radio/npr-supports-all-digital-on-am-with-caveats

 

[TheBigA]

I'm not sure there's much the FCC can do here. HD Radio is what it is, and the company that owns it now is merely in the licensing business.

 

[Kelly A]

I'm not sure there's much the FCC can do here. HD Radio is what it is, and the company that owns it now is merely in the licensing business.

Except that MA-3 (all digital) is not technically the same as what's known as HD Radio. Eliminating the analog portion of the carrier in MA-3 mode, greatly reduces known adjacent channel interference. I've had dialogs with several people who confuse/conflate the differences.

 

[TheBigA]

Except that MA-3 (all digital) is not technically the same as what's known as HD Radio.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the linked article isn't about that. Here's the first sentence: "National Public Radio “generally supports” allowing stations to transition, if they wish, to all-digital AM transmission using HD Radio in the United States."

The article then goes on to talk about co-channel interference.

The FCC has approved all digital testing, and there's a station in the DC area that's doing that. But this article doesn't reference that.

 

[Kelly A]

Maybe I'm missing something, but the linked article isn't about that.

"NPR goes on to note the “concerns of others in the FCC record” over the potential for interference. Discussion of all-digital on the AM band in the United States has often centered around worries over interference."

"The broadcaster does suggest in its comments several ways the FCC can help mitigate the risk of harmful interference from all-digital deployment. “NPR urges it to collaborate with industry to monitor both the progress of stations that adopt all-digital AM and the effects of such deployment on all-digital stations’ analog neighbors,” it wrote."

 

[TheBigA]

"The broadcaster does suggest in its comments several ways the FCC can help mitigate the risk of harmful interference from all-digital deployment.

Judging on past experience, the FCC isn't interested in helping to mitigate harmful interference from digital. They see that as the job of the licensee.

 

[Kelly A]

Judging on past experience, the FCC isn't interested in helping to mitigate harmful interference from digital. They see that as the job of the licensee.

Guess it depends on who's interpreting there is interference. The Commission only enforces technical rules. If the adjacent channel station maintains their carrier within the (NRSC) approved mask, then there is nothing to enforce. Regardless of whether some ma and pa station hears data spillover within their fringe coverage area 250 miles from the station.