autopaint-1 said:
That's looking like a reasonably viable solution. It has come to my attention that some PDA's are capable of receiving streaming audio from a wi-fi cell. Of course, most lap tops can do it right now. iPod size streaming receivers are not that far away. I’m fairly soon that we’ll be seeing them in the not to distant future. One of the towns we serve is planning on installing a public wi-fi (or perhaps wi-max) system that will be available to all residents. We may be in the boonies, but this is the way these folks are thinking. The local college campus already has that right now. It's free to anybody with the right wireless card. Even the local airport has free wi-fi. This revolution may happen a lot faster, and a lot more profoundly than IBOC.
My questions regarding HD AM revolve around the possibilities of purchasing defunct or floundering AM stations and upgrading them to once again be useful. That is looking like less and less of a good idea. I think that is too bad. I love the warm glow of vacuum tubes!
The station I currently manage has streamed on the Internet for a little over two years. It has a small but loyal following. It is interesting to see where the emails come from. The world is definitely becoming a smaller place.
The local cable TV company has agreed in principle to put us on one of their "billboard" channels this fall. I don’t know how many people will listen that way, but it can’t hurt. Since we are FM, I'm not too worried about IBOC's immediate effects on our station, but I do plan to keep an eye open. The problems on FM seem to be minimal compared to AM. But I am aware of some FM problems, especially in the crowded non-com reserved band. As far as I can see, the FM system seems to work OK about 90% of the time, and possibly more. I'd sure like it better if it were 99.999%. We expect that kind of reliability out of just about everything else in life, why not radio?