AM Radio vs. HD-AM Radio on Distance

[Savage]

Great Jumpin' Grounding Sticks, Tom! Bite your tongue! You KNOW when the FCC "fines its way to greatness" they'll start with US, not some Tibetan lamp-dimmer manufacturer.

 

[tomservo]

Great Jumpin' Grounding Sticks, Tom! Bite your tongue! You KNOW when the FCC "fines its way to greatness" they'll start with US, not some Tibetan lamp-dimmer manufacturer.

That's too bad. There has to be more money overall in small fines to infinite manufacturers of bad products than a big fine to a relative few broadcasters.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

Question then, would be how to get teeth into the enforcement bureau to effect at least the badly needed filtering in new
equipment. You'd think think they already have the right to find these very noises the responsibility of the manufacturer
of equipment, or the provider of power; then the responsibility of harmonic and spike suppression would become the
responsibilty of one or the other. This did not happen, so we have the present quagmire...I wish the FCC would simply empower themselves to begin fining users and manufacturers of industrial motor drives. I see and hear this as being the biggest problem, from my urban/suburban perspective.
The consumer grade electronics are the next chapter..then cable modems, then vacuum flourescent displays, plasma TVs.
Isn't the FCC missing out somehow on a chance to fine their way to greatness?

You need to remember that the FCC is a creature of Congress, and all their rules aside, has to take their cues from Congress as to what's important. In the current climate, 3/4 of a second of Janet Jackson's bared breast is far more important to Congress than out-of-control interference across the AM band (which, just to keep this post on point, ruins AM-HD reception just as much as it does AM analog reception). Whatever is done now or in the near future to regain some semblance of AM's audio quality is absolutely useless without something being done at the same time about the endless number of noise generators now mucking up AM reception.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

I absolutely and TOTALLY agree that noise generators are muck--- no, *ucking up the AM band! In my opinion, the part 15 rules need a serious overhaul and enforcement.
For intentional radiators, I think the rules should be relaxed some - for example, allow 1 watt input to a 25 meter antenna, not counting the transmission line or ground lead, for AM broadcast, and maybe 10mV/m at 30 meters for FM, for example. However, for unintentional / incidental radiators (the noisemakers), in my opinion, when you measure at the INSIDE surface of the device (for example, the inside of the cover on a computer power supply, or the inside of the insulation on a cable), the maximum field strength should be something like at least 120dB BELOW atmospheric, galactic, or whatever is the lowest level naturally-occurring noise. Or, if 120dB isn't the proper number, whatever would be such a level so that if the "natural noise" was represented by an unmodulated carrier of some sort, and the "noisemaker" was represented by a 125% or more modulated QRSS CW carrier with a bandwidth in single-digit Hz, it should be impossible to detect any trace of the "noisemaker" even with the best equipment, when measured at the inside of the noise source chassis.

In my opinion, just solving the rampant noise ALONE (nevermind IBOC, although that's a huge problem too) would go a LONG way to cleaning up the AM band.

 

[Tom Wells]

There is no need for the FCC to further annoy broadcasters with expensive fines for ridiculous reasons.
The rightful situation would be that money collected from the noisemakers would be paid out to
broadcasters for use in facility improvements.
Wouldn't it be a fine thing if those who were making the most noise financed new ground radial systems for AMs?

All the highly efficient devices which save so much energy with non-linear operation aren't just saving energy,
but saving energy at the expense of RF spectrum viability.

Seems to me the laws are already in place, I just can't figure out why the FCC does nothing in this realm.

Also baffling to me why the NAB or the SBE have not made any formal requests to the FCC to address this.