FCC sets mandatory HD conversion date

[spunker88]

Medium wave and HD radio do not do well together. Lightning discharge from lightning has been shown to knock out AM-HD signals well within their service area. Good luck getting severe weather warnings from an HD only AM station. Skywave can bring interference from distant stations. Strong skywave brings WBBM's HD sidebands with enough noise to interfere with my local 790 WTNY. The sideband method is inefficient and has made the whole AM band one noisy mess.

The fact that AM stations are switching to analog FM shows that AM has become a mess because of HD and less people are listening to it. Also the fact that HD isn't working because many of these HD AM stations have had an FM-HD simulcast for years yet feel the need to get their own analog FM signal. When scanning the AM band I've caught an ad from WCBS telling people to listen to 101.1 FM-3 to get WCBS 880 in HD. There was no mention of 880 having its own HD signal. Basically nobody listens to HD on AM.

 

[JohnnyElectron]

Here, CC, put an AM on two of their FM-HD2's, so there's some value there if they ran -10dBc, but not the puky low levels they do run; but their FM neighbors are happy that they don't.

 

[MarioMania]

This will never happen..to many people have Analog AM/FM Radios,

Don't do this to me

 

[pianoplayer88key]

So what would it take to have an HD system.....
that if your equipment doesn't have an HD decoder (or it's not being used), you couldn't detect any trace of the HD signal (even to the point of not registering on a FIM in a screen room deep in Carlsbad Caverns) even if you're tuned to the same frequency and the transmitter output is jacked directly into your antenna input with no attenuation,
that still has 100% copy 24/7 in HD mode even through heavy co-channel QRM (graveyards for example) and QRN (close enough to lightning so the thunder and lightning are perceived simultaneously) at locations where, while the carrier may be detectable, it's still too weak to ID via QRSS CW (slow enough so it takes an entire solar cycle to send the letter "E") or PSK31, even with best-possible skywave conditions and no interference,
with audio quality so an audiophile couldn't tell the difference between it and the studio master recording (for music), using narrow enough RF bandwidth so that weak DX on first-adjacents would be no problem for an unfiltered crystal set with an HD decoder (if it's possible for something like that to exist)?

Or, is there a better spectrum to dedicate to HD channels so that stations with earth-bound antennas (with efficiencies up to and exceeding 510 mV/m @ 1 km @ 1 kW) can enjoy reliable 24/7 near-thousand-mile coverage radii?

 

[badjef]

Please repeat that , in English this time?

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[badjef]

This will never happen..to many people have Analog AM/FM Radios,

Don't do this to me

It happened to TV.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[KTN Corp]

Nope. By July 1, 2015 AM radio stations across the United States will stop broadcasting and FM will be the exclusive method of radio broadcasting. The FCC is doing it now by not renewing AM licenses.

Time to sunset this inferior early-20th century technology!

 

[spunker88]

Nope.  By July 1, 2015 AM radio stations across the United States will stop broadcasting and FM will be the exclusive method of radio broadcasting.  The FCC is doing it now by not renewing AM licenses.

Time to sunset this inferior early-20th century technology!

Won't happen until somebody finds a better use for the medium wave band. Until then it makes no sense to simply abandon frequencies that are already well established. So far digital broadcasting seems to work better on UHF frequencies so there really isn't any demand for medium wave. Theres a lot better chance of VHF low becoming FM channels than AM simply going dark. Even if the big broadcasters move away from AM, small town stations and religious stations would take over.

 

[w9wi]

Nope. By July 1, 2015 AM radio stations across the United States will stop broadcasting and FM will be the exclusive method of radio broadcasting. The FCC is doing it now by not renewing AM licenses.

Time to sunset this inferior early-20th century technology!

Won't happen until somebody finds a better use for the medium wave band. Until then it makes no sense to simply abandon frequencies that are already well established. So far digital broadcasting seems to work better on UHF frequencies so there really isn't any demand for medium wave. Theres a lot better chance of VHF low becoming FM channels than AM simply going dark. Even if the big broadcasters move away from AM, small town stations and religious stations would take over.

IMHO the AM band will indeed eventually go dark, but it won't be forced by the government. (and it'll take far longer than three years) With ever-increasing noise levels, a band that's difficult to use today will only become less useful. And the existing financially-unsuccessful stations will disappear far too slowly to allow useful power increases at the currently-successful stations. As more and more music listening moves to other-than-radio devices, it'll become easier to move spoken-word formats to FM (not that it's difficult now!) and there will be less and less demand for AM channels.

I should note, in response to KTN's comment, that there is no coordinated move on the FCC's part to delete AM stations. They *have* deleted quite a few recently, including two yesterday. The vast majority, including both yesterday, were voluntarily closed at the request of the licensees. They didn't see any future in the AM operations. Others have involved stations with LONG histories of violations, stations that would have been revoked years ago under previous Commissions. (one station deleted last week had operated from the wrong site since at least 1995 (?!) and had allowed its license to expire three times...)

There does seem to be a coordinated move to eliminate Class A TV stations, but that's a move that's completely unrelated to anything going on on AM.

 

[gosmith123]

Nope. By July 1, 2015 AM radio stations across the United States will stop broadcasting and FM will be the exclusive method of radio broadcasting. The FCC is doing it now by not renewing AM licenses.

Time to sunset this inferior early-20th century technology!

That wouldn't surpise me. Hasn't Caroline Beasley been confidentually meeting with the FCC over the fate of the AM band? I believe the only reason to run AM-HD was to prove that IBLOCK doesn't work due to too many smaller stations, and to force the smaller AM broadcasters, along with the LPFM stations, onto the expanded FM band. Then, the AM clear-channel stations could go all-digital. Of course, this would be the death-knell for the smaller stations, just as iBiquity wants. With the LPFM stations moved, FM-HD stations could eventually go all-digital.

iBiquity has just also bagged Dodge/Chrysler with the Ram. That completes the automakers for iBiquity. Dealerships will continue to ignore problems with HD, telling customers to just disable HD. As more automakes install HD, prices for the HD chipsets will continue to fall. As far as the lack of HD radios sold, iBiquity will just force/dupe cell phone manufactures to install HD, since no one buys radios anymore. iBiquity's business-model complete.

 

[Savage]

Good grief. Precisely how will "cell phone manufactures" be forced or duped into installing HD??

 

[gosmith123]

The NAB's eventual goal is to get HD mandated into cell phones through an Act of Congress. iBiquity is pulling some sort of shenanigans with the automakers, now they have bagged all of them, at some level. Chrysler/Buick just caved to iBiquity. I'm guessing the iBiquity is fudging demos, with such stuff as Artist Experience. No doubt, iBiquity has a world-class sales team. I am starting to believe that iBiquity will legislate their way to success. Does iBiquity really care that virtually no one is buying HD radios?

 

[davideduardo]

Does iBiquity really care that virtually no one is buying HD radios?

Nobody is buying any kind of radio, unless it is contained in a multifunction device, like a smartphone dock or the phone itself.

 

[nd2023]

iBiquity must have a sales team that could sell more useful things, like ice to the Eskimos or sell "rare" $2 bills for $5.

 

[badjef]

Does iBiquity really care that virtually no one is buying HD radios?

Nobody is buying any kind of radio, unless it is contained in a multifunction device, like a smartphone dock or the phone itself.

Just us geeks.
I put a bid on eBay for another Jump. It was for the home kit which would come with the remote for the car I need. There were no bids until mine moments before the auction ended. My $55 offer was out bid.

On the other side, yesterday's Rays game on WDAE was about 10 seconds delayed on the HD side from the analog. And it was constantly switching back and forth. Almost impossible to follow a baseball game that way.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[mmnassour]

On the other side, yesterday's Rays game on WDAE was about 10 seconds delayed on the HD side from the analog. And it was constantly switching back and forth. Almost impossible to follow a baseball game that way.

Or a song.....or a sentence.....or just about anything.

Faulty technology getting the burial it deserves.

 

[badjef]

On the other side, yesterday's Rays game on WDAE was about 10 seconds delayed on the HD side from the analog. And it was constantly switching back and forth. Almost impossible to follow a baseball game that way.

Or a song.....or a sentence.....or just about anything.

Faulty technology getting the burial it deserves.

WFAN on WLLD HD-3 is running about an hour and ten minutes behind.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[cd637299]

On the other side, yesterday's Rays game on WDAE was about 10 seconds delayed on the HD side from the analog. And it was constantly switching back and forth. Almost impossible to follow a baseball game that way.

Or a song.....or a sentence.....or just about anything.

Faulty technology getting the burial it deserves.

WFAN on WLLD HD-3 is running about an hour and ten minutes behind.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

Are you sure it's not a repeat of a sports roundup *during* a Mets game which 660 must carry? I learned the hard way last year that even though the HD's of WFAN are "radio stations," they actually just function as Web feeds blacked out during live sports events.

cd

 

[diymedia]

The NAB's eventual goal is to get HD mandated into cell phones through an Act of Congress....I am starting to believe that iBiquity will legislate their way to success. Does iBiquity really care that virtually no one is buying HD radios?

Small chance in hell this will happen. Does the NAB have the chops to take on the consumer electronics industry? When the idea of implementing an FM chip into cell phones was tied into performance royalty negotiations, and then floated as a potential legislative issue, consumer electronics companies (and CEA) went ballistic, and as a result things went nowhere.

Hey, I'm admittedly not a fan of HD, but some of this talk about iBiquity's nefariousness is just crazy.

 

[gosmith123]

The NAB's eventual goal is to get HD mandated into cell phones through an Act of Congress....I am starting to believe that iBiquity will legislate their way to success. Does iBiquity really care that virtually no one is buying HD radios?

Small chance in hell this will happen. Does the NAB have the chops to take on the consumer electronics industry? When the idea of implementing an FM chip into cell phones was tied into performance royalty negotiations, and then floated as a potential legislative issue, consumer electronics companies (and CEA) went ballistic, and as a result things went nowhere.

Hey, I'm admittedly not a fan of HD, but some of this talk about iBiquity's nefariousness is just crazy.

Hi John,

I believe that we all have under-estimated iBiquity. I remember thinking about five years ago that iBiquity would never get HD Radio standard with the automakers. Boy, was I wrong. Even though HD Radio doesn't work as claimed, iBiquity has now bagged all of the automakers, in some form. The automakers know the problems with HD Radio, yet continue to install it. Beasley has met secretly with the FCC to put and end to AM radio. This is all stacked in favor of iBiquity. I admit that iBiquity is nothing but a bunch of crooks, but they have their business-plan, with support from th FCC.