That was exactly the case some broadcasters gave against the DAB proposal over 20 years ago.
They spend millions, even billions to buy these stations. Now the rug was pulled, and the game was changed.
Sounds like a lawsuit to me.
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FCC Proposes Increase in HD Signal Power
- Thread starter davideduardo
- Start date
That was exactly the case some broadcasters gave against the DAB proposal over 20 years ago.
They spend millions, even billions to buy these stations. Now the rug was pulled, and the game was changed.
Sounds like a lawsuit to me.
That's a funny question. When it was asked during the TV conversion, the answer was US taxpayers.
BigA beat me to it. Taxpayers.
But in that case, the gum'mint got the money back from the auction of the former TV channel allocations.
In the case of radio "going digital" there is no spectrum to auction and no revenue to be generated to pay for the abandonment of analog radio.
A TV channel... just one... occupies 6 mHz. The whole FM band uses just 20 mHz in total. So just 4 TV channels use more bandwidth than all the FM band from 88 to 108 mHz. And the AM band is just 0.54 mHz to 1.7 mHz less than a quarter of what a single TV channel uses.
See the footnote about reallocation of TV channels at Television Frequencies - The RadioReference Wiki
(I've never asked the question, but did the auctions pay for the totality of the TV reallocation?)
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Which is why its not in the best interest of the FCC to propose this. The radio companies already know the future is digital. That's why they're so focused on streaming and providing digital content. They know this is the future. They also know putting their content on devices the public already owns is preferable to putting it on devices they'll have to buy.
You say that like it is a bad thing. Most everyone I know who has satellite radio is happy with the product itself. The majority of their bad PR comes from their questionable billing practices.
Honestly I don't hear many complaints about HD FM either.
No way. As I recall the estimate was the first round of auctioned spectrum was estimated to bring in something like $80B. The actual came in closer to $8B. After stations were compensated for vacating their channels, technical moves, etc., what remained from the auction wasn't much.
Then of course they do it again with the repack. Similar results.
Car OEMs. They are by far the largest produced of Radios in 2023.
It won't happen. They are confused the HD as it is.
So they got less money at the government level, but did TV stations get full compensation for the change?
🙋♂️
It depends. During the first round, stations who opted to move from VHF to UHF received funds toward their transition channel. It wasn't full funding, but an allotment. Stations who chose to "flash cut" to DTV on their original VHF channel, got bupkis.
Yep, works coast to coast and people like pushing a button and it just working. It’s hard to replicate that with streaming.
I think some of the spectrum should of been set aside for set number unencrypted nationwide channels. But it’s 30 years too late for that.
People either don’t know they are using, those that do use it have to deal with blending problems on HD1 simulcasts that they can’t explain, drops outs on HD2+ with weak signal. Inconsistency between different stations signal strength become more apparent in those cases. It’s use has never been intuitive and badly explained to the public “stations between the stations”.
See this article from a “car doctor”, someone who uses HD Radio wrote in and the “car doctor” still misses the question.
Why do I get a 'no signal' message on my radio when I listen to HD FM radio? | Car Doctor
I drive a 2016 Mazda CX-5. I didn't sign up for SXM satellite or Pandora and I get a “no signal message” on the radio. I only listen to HD FM radio.
www.providencejournal.com
“Q: I drive a 2016 Mazda CX-5. I did not sign up for SXM satellite or Pandora, and I get a “no signal” message on the radio. I have only listened to HD FM radio. I refuse to pay the dealership charges of $230 for diagnostic services. So, if there is a designated automotive shop that can resolve the issue that will not drain my pocket, I’d appreciate it. FYI, the radio does not have an “off and on” option. You can only mute it.
A: If the radio is the stock radio, the volume button is also the on/off button. Push to turn on and off.
From this point, push the audio button and, on the screen, you should see a selection of AM/FM, FM HD, SXM and other input sources. If this does not work, then try a radio reset. Reset your radio by pressing the music, navigation and volume buttons at the same time. Press the three buttons simultaneously for at least 20 seconds. The system should then automatically reboot itself.”
Not to mention Covid killed most of the HD subchannels due to staffing or funding issues.
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What do you estimate, in a "flash cut" situation, the cost of the transmitter, antenna, tower work and related items would cost for both a low and high band VHF to have been?
As I've said before, this idea of going ALL-DIGITAL for radio should have been done back in the early 2000's.
At that time people were hooked on it, TV was doing it, AM & FM radio should have done it at the same time.
Of course, it would have cost stations money but you'd have at least 5 or 10 years to do it and for people to buy the new digital radios that I feel would appear.
But nobody cared then (early 2000's), but that's the past.
I know I am repeating what I said awhile back.
Now that some stations are streaming and everybody can listen on a Smartphone, well who cares about a radio - I still do but that's just me.
Like I said before - if now radio (AM & FM broadcasters) along with the FCC / NAB / etc. were all behind it and have the FCC treat this "kind of like" the analog to digital TV transition back in the early 2000's I think radio would make its mark again by being listened to on a new radio (a digital radio) and not a Smartphone, but then you might also see a radio receiving circuit is a Smartphone too if radio went digital.
I know in the TV transition the FCC wanted some of the TV frequencies for wireless so that contributed to the analog to digital switch for TV, because some made money . . . but radio has been around a longtime. Rather than increasing HD power and running the analog & HD thingy together radio should make the push for and go all digital.
If there are no new frequencies for radio to use, then do a "flash cut" . . . and sell converters for people until they get a new digital radio.
Radio should do this switch so it will be around another 100 years . . . completely over the air.
By the way there is another idea floating around by Sinclair Broadcasting (a TV broadcast group) . . . to lease space on an ATSC 3.0 TV's channel to radio broadcasters and put radio on it, in digital. Sinclair is running test in Seattle . . . per Sinclair the coverage goes out like a good FM signal 50 miles or more.
You can put, 40-50 stations in an area on the TV signal.
I would guess they'd also be available in time a separate receiver (an ATSC 3.0 radio receiver) if one wanted to just listen to the radio stations on the TV signal.
ATSC 3.0 is "slowly" being put out there, its roll out is not moving as fast as TV would like and there are plans to step up the introduction, yes people will need new TV's but the major TV groups involved are, like I said hoping to "increase" the movement on the ATSC 3.0 roll out.
Sinclair also has put ATSC 3.0 in Smartphones (its own test) and it works great they say, so you'd be able to watch ATSC 3.0 TV & listen to radio (via ATSC 3.0) on your Smartphone off the ATSC 3.0 signal.
from recent article,
ONE Media Moves Forward With “Radio Over ATSC 3” - Radio World
Al
At that time people were hooked on it, TV was doing it, AM & FM radio should have done it at the same time.
Of course, it would have cost stations money but you'd have at least 5 or 10 years to do it and for people to buy the new digital radios that I feel would appear.
But nobody cared then (early 2000's), but that's the past.
I know I am repeating what I said awhile back.
Now that some stations are streaming and everybody can listen on a Smartphone, well who cares about a radio - I still do but that's just me.
Like I said before - if now radio (AM & FM broadcasters) along with the FCC / NAB / etc. were all behind it and have the FCC treat this "kind of like" the analog to digital TV transition back in the early 2000's I think radio would make its mark again by being listened to on a new radio (a digital radio) and not a Smartphone, but then you might also see a radio receiving circuit is a Smartphone too if radio went digital.
I know in the TV transition the FCC wanted some of the TV frequencies for wireless so that contributed to the analog to digital switch for TV, because some made money . . . but radio has been around a longtime. Rather than increasing HD power and running the analog & HD thingy together radio should make the push for and go all digital.
If there are no new frequencies for radio to use, then do a "flash cut" . . . and sell converters for people until they get a new digital radio.
Radio should do this switch so it will be around another 100 years . . . completely over the air.
By the way there is another idea floating around by Sinclair Broadcasting (a TV broadcast group) . . . to lease space on an ATSC 3.0 TV's channel to radio broadcasters and put radio on it, in digital. Sinclair is running test in Seattle . . . per Sinclair the coverage goes out like a good FM signal 50 miles or more.
You can put, 40-50 stations in an area on the TV signal.
I would guess they'd also be available in time a separate receiver (an ATSC 3.0 radio receiver) if one wanted to just listen to the radio stations on the TV signal.
ATSC 3.0 is "slowly" being put out there, its roll out is not moving as fast as TV would like and there are plans to step up the introduction, yes people will need new TV's but the major TV groups involved are, like I said hoping to "increase" the movement on the ATSC 3.0 roll out.
Sinclair also has put ATSC 3.0 in Smartphones (its own test) and it works great they say, so you'd be able to watch ATSC 3.0 TV & listen to radio (via ATSC 3.0) on your Smartphone off the ATSC 3.0 signal.
from recent article,
ONE Media Moves Forward With “Radio Over ATSC 3” - Radio World
Al
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The Sinclair test in Seattle was a text link they were broadcasting that pointed to their online radio streams. No audio was broadcast over the air. It was just a link in HTML that was embedded within the ATSC 3.0 signal. I received it on my HDHomeRun.
I think I may be the only person who actually checked into what the hype was about.
Sinclair Readies ATSC 3.0 Simulcast of Seattle Radio Stations
The broadcaster’s rollout of OTA-delivered ATSC 3.0 radio simulcasts advances its automotive strategy
www.tvtechnology.com
This seems to state they were delivering OTA. If that happened, no clue.
I know, I remembering reading about what they said they were doing versus what they actually were doing.
To their credit, the HTML file they were sending out every few seconds was OTA.
They supposedly had a “live” demo at CES of ota delivery as well.
The all-digital radio service line sounds aspirational, not like an actual plan. Without a timetable, letting the marketplace decide means it's not going to happen in the foreseeable future.
The whole paragraph sounds like the author wanted to write a premise to introduce the power increase proposal so it just wouldn't be thrown out there without any sort of justification. Some people like to write flowery thoughts because they think it sounds better.
I think a more honest way to frame it would have been to say the digital range of the HD signal is lousy and it needs more power to cover the intended area properly. Probably in a more flowery manner, though.
An IBOC NPRM Haiku - Anonymous
Sidebands inspired
after the increased HD
coverage of delight.
- Status