someone tried to tell me AM radio is to be done away with in canada and great britain in the future. any truth to this? I doubt it would happen anytime soon in the USA---- but ---- I can see many small AM stations in the USA going silent/dark/out of business. especially AM daytimers---which are no longer profitable!
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AM radio
- Thread starter Clayton Douglas
- Start date
Clayton Douglas said:
There are no formal plans to phase out AM radio in Canada at this time. However, it does seem to be happening piecemeal! Over half of Canadian AM stations have moved to FM in the last few years.
I've heard tell Britain is considering phasing out analog radio altogether. (FM too) Don't really have any details.
British digital radio uses a band around 216 MHZ (just above Channel 13 in the US), and seems to be successful for that reason, unlike the Canadian digital experiments up in microwave territory. Hence Offcom (UK broadcast regulator) is proposing to eliminate analog radio.
European (and British) AM died in the 90's--somewhat a hangover of the Soviet era jamming, and, of course, the FM explosion, which came later in Europe than here. Many of the national services shut down their medium wave transmitters in favor of low-power FM networks. Though recently there's been renewed interest in AM by the private broadcasters on the continent (probably because they can't get new FM channels). FM --private and government--thrives.
I suspect analog radio will continue to survive, despite Offcom's plans, because of the number of Britons who drive on vacation on the other side of the channel Most big European cities, and major resort areas, have some English services, while the expressways have networks of low-power traffic/emergency FM stations (which are presumably multi-lingual at least part of the time) Not to mention that the UK is not that big an auto market to justify the expense of shipping radios without analog tuners; especially in basic models.
European (and British) AM died in the 90's--somewhat a hangover of the Soviet era jamming, and, of course, the FM explosion, which came later in Europe than here. Many of the national services shut down their medium wave transmitters in favor of low-power FM networks. Though recently there's been renewed interest in AM by the private broadcasters on the continent (probably because they can't get new FM channels). FM --private and government--thrives.
I suspect analog radio will continue to survive, despite Offcom's plans, because of the number of Britons who drive on vacation on the other side of the channel Most big European cities, and major resort areas, have some English services, while the expressways have networks of low-power traffic/emergency FM stations (which are presumably multi-lingual at least part of the time) Not to mention that the UK is not that big an auto market to justify the expense of shipping radios without analog tuners; especially in basic models.
For Canada, my understanding was that eventually AM and FM both would be turned in for other uses. The concept was that existing AM and FM broadcasters had the opportunity to have a "spigot" on the Eureka band, with the relative power output based on the power of the AM or FM, and that they would at some point in the future give up their AM or FM frequency.
This was perhaps a dozen years ago, and now Canadians are applying for new FM frequencies and opening up to IBOC.
Does anyone know what has changed?
This was perhaps a dozen years ago, and now Canadians are applying for new FM frequencies and opening up to IBOC.
Does anyone know what has changed?
I think the reason that AM survives at all is due to fact that those frequencies have little perceived value to emerging technologies (cell phone, WiFi, etc.). I wonder if anyone else feels like I do that analog AM should be phased out in favor of an all digital system.
Also why does IBOC stand for In Band On Channel?
It should be In Band Out of Channel. The AM band with the greater signal penetration than VHF, UHF and Microwave would seem to me to be the logical place for distribution of digital content especially to mobile receivers. It kind of sucks for analog due to increased general interference and now they have added "HD" Radio to the mix. If and when Internet over power lines becomes a reality you can kiss analog AM broadcasting goodbye.
Also why does IBOC stand for In Band On Channel?
It should be In Band Out of Channel. The AM band with the greater signal penetration than VHF, UHF and Microwave would seem to me to be the logical place for distribution of digital content especially to mobile receivers. It kind of sucks for analog due to increased general interference and now they have added "HD" Radio to the mix. If and when Internet over power lines becomes a reality you can kiss analog AM broadcasting goodbye.
nmoore6676 said:
And that would be a shame. AM radio and amateur radio could be the only communication links which survive an area wide disaster and provide communication capability to the general public. Even if the AM stations in the disaster area go dark, an out of area station could be used to disseminate information.
I predict that in an area wide disaster, cell phones and internet will be the first to go due to overload if not physical damage.
The good old battery operated AM radio is still available cheap and provides many tens on hours of operation on a set of batteries.
Just some thoughts.
Here in New Zealand there are still many AM stations operating - or dualcasting on AM and FM.
Some stations choose to operate on AM as the licencing isn't so competitive or expensive and in other cases they
do it simply because it's the only frequency they can get in the vicinity.
In some of our cities the FM band is so full that there simply are no spare frequencies available.
Wellington, our capital city is a good example of that.
It's only been in the last few years that the top end of the FM band has been opened up for FM broadcast. Prior to this it
was used for AM land mobile services.
This has eased the crowding a little but some parts of the band are reserved for special uses, low power FM etc.
AM here tends to now be used by community and non-profit organisations, ethnic and religious radio outfits.
It does not have the same popularity as FM does, which is why our FM band is so crowded.
Some stations choose to operate on AM as the licencing isn't so competitive or expensive and in other cases they
do it simply because it's the only frequency they can get in the vicinity.
In some of our cities the FM band is so full that there simply are no spare frequencies available.
Wellington, our capital city is a good example of that.
It's only been in the last few years that the top end of the FM band has been opened up for FM broadcast. Prior to this it
was used for AM land mobile services.
This has eased the crowding a little but some parts of the band are reserved for special uses, low power FM etc.
AM here tends to now be used by community and non-profit organisations, ethnic and religious radio outfits.
It does not have the same popularity as FM does, which is why our FM band is so crowded.
C
CW
Guest
nmoore6676 said:
Actually its is more IBAC (In Band Adjacent Channel).....a lot of folks call it IBUZ for the noise it makes
.....Actually, the entire IBOC mask is inside the normal AM sideband mask....but with the digital sidebands and higher power density they have, the receivers cannot handle it......if you want to see what a IBOC signal should be, here is a web site that shows it:http://topazdesigns.com/iboc/AM-IBOC-Parameters.html
AM does NOT have building penetration like V/UHF does......it DOES have better groundwave; ok for rural areas like the US had back in the infacy of radio...but in metro areas, that doesnt help much unless you are in a car! As fror BPL, it is a dead horse....too many problems and too much interference....which BTW it does NOT interfer with AM BC band....most carriers in the BPL range are in the 2 or 3 to 30 MHz range....so much for shortwave and ham radio.....(and CB to less of an extent)...BPL requires a LOT of repeaters and the lines must be static free for best operation...one utility in the US already determined it would cost them MORE to fix their lines first than what BPL would cost to install....thus more than doubling the overall cost and making it unprofitable; they scrapped their plans....I am still waiting for the FCC to step in and make them clean up their static from loose hardware, etc. (Ironic isnt it?)
IBOC... In Band Off Channel...
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No radio penetrates steel framed buildings well, unless you're near a window of have a clear shot to one. The farther inside you go with walls and all the less signal. But I intended to imply signal coverage outdoors primarily (like car or portable radios. In metro areas with tall building or mountains like here in Los Angeles, vhf signals are subject to multipath fading due to multiple reflections off buildings and the mountains and hills. AM is absorbed by tunnels and massive walls but has less distortion because the wavelength is too large to be reflected off most structures. Absorbed but not reflected, that was what I meant to convey.
I did read somewhere in the last year that a test of Internet over power lines was slated for somewhere in Texas. It is my understanding that it would create interference for all radio systems using AM. I base this on my having placed an AM radio near computer network elements like routers or hubs. The levels needed to convey this information over utility lines would be much greater than that used in the ethernet wiring in a building. But when you have multiple lines running in the walls and ceilings you get considerable hash which obscures all but strong local signals indoors.
I hope that your contention about the death of this process is correct. I always felt that it would be impractical at best. I seem to recall many years ago attempts to carry telephone calls over rural power lines by the REA or some such entity. I never heard anymore about it so I assumed that it didn't work.
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