FCC violated 47 CFR Section 73.44(b) in approving HD-AM

[vsa]

The inventor of CAM-D, Leonard Kahn, has filed a comment with the FCC that is critical of the action taken by commissioners regarding last month's approval of iBiquity's HD-AM system.

"...As anyone familiar with the Constitution knows, since the FCC is an agency of the Administration, it can ONLY ADMINISTER Laws passed by the Congress and not vetoed by the President. Thus, the FCC cannot write or change laws, it can only enforce them.

To be specific, under existing Law 47 CFR Section 73.44(b), emissions 20 kHz to 30 kHz from a carrier MUST be at least 35 db below a stations unmodulated carrier. So WCBS in its April filing got that right, but they "inadvertently" forgot the rest of the story as clearly stated in that same section of 47 CFR Section 73.44(a) that measurements of the spectrum must be made with a "peak hold of 10 minutes" whereas WCBS AND ALL of the other iBOC stations use only millisecond long measurements.

The Petitioner recognizes the Commissioners are not skilled engineers and this rule may sound like engineering "Gobbledygook..."

Read the full comments at this link:

http://www.wrathofkahn.org/

What happens when the FCC violates the very laws that it must enforce?

 

[PocketRadio]

"Office of Administrative Law Judges"

http://www.fcc.gov/oalj/

Probably not much, unless one can get judgements outside of the FCC's own court system.

 

[IBOCRocks]

The inventor of CAM-D, Leonard Kahn, has filed a comment with the FCC that is critical of the action taken by commissioners regarding last month's approval of iBiquity's HD-AM system.

"...As anyone familiar with the Constitution knows, since the FCC is an agency of the Administration, it can ONLY ADMINISTER Laws passed by the Congress and not vetoed by the President. Thus, the FCC cannot write or change laws, it can only enforce them.

To be specific, under existing Law 47 CFR Section 73.44(b), emissions 20 kHz to 30 kHz from a carrier MUST be at least 35 db below a stations unmodulated carrier. So WCBS in its April filing got that right, but they "inadvertently" forgot the rest of the story as clearly stated in that same section of 47 CFR Section 73.44(a) that measurements of the spectrum must be made with a "peak hold of 10 minutes" whereas WCBS AND ALL of the other iBOC stations use only millisecond long measurements.

The Petitioner recognizes the Commissioners are not skilled engineers and this rule may sound like engineering "Gobbledygook..."

Read the full comments at this link:

http://www.wrathofkahn.org/

What happens when the FCC violates the very laws that it must enforce?

Funny, Leonard has accused lots of people of lots of things over the years...but makes little progress. He likes to twist the law to fit his agenda.

It's OK, though, because when he loses it just reinforces that his interpretation is incorrect.

 

[vsa]

The inventor of CAM-D, Leonard Kahn, has filed a comment with the FCC that is critical of the action taken by commissioners regarding last month's approval of iBiquity's HD-AM system.

"...As anyone familiar with the Constitution knows, since the FCC is an agency of the Administration, it can ONLY ADMINISTER Laws passed by the Congress and not vetoed by the President. Thus, the FCC cannot write or change laws, it can only enforce them.

To be specific, under existing Law 47 CFR Section 73.44(b), emissions 20 kHz to 30 kHz from a carrier MUST be at least 35 db below a stations unmodulated carrier. So WCBS in its April filing got that right, but they "inadvertently" forgot the rest of the story as clearly stated in that same section of 47 CFR Section 73.44(a) that measurements of the spectrum must be made with a "peak hold of 10 minutes" whereas WCBS AND ALL of the other iBOC stations use only millisecond long measurements.

The Petitioner recognizes the Commissioners are not skilled engineers and this rule may sound like engineering "Gobbledygook..."

Read the full comments at this link:

http://www.wrathofkahn.org/

What happens when the FCC violates the very laws that it must enforce?

Funny, Leonard has accused lots of people of lots of things over the years...but makes little progress. He likes to twist the law to fit his agenda.

It's OK, though, because when he loses it just reinforces that his interpretation is incorrect.

As usual, you don't address the issue at hand. You digress into making a personal attack on someone because you have no leg to stand on. 47 CFR Section 73.44(b) and (a) are very clear.

 

[PocketRadio]

vsa,

Your post had everything to do with this thread - IBOCRocks tries to derail threads, when they have vaild arguments against HD/IBOC; you know, the threads get moved to the "Take It Outside" Board - kind of, "out of site, out of mind".

 

[IBOCRocks]

vsa,

Your post had everything to do with this thread - IBOCRocks tries to derail threads, when they have vaild arguments against HD/IBOC; you know, the threads get moved to the "Take It Outside" Board - kind of, "out of site, out of mind".

Just like you're doing now?

 

[IBOCRocks]

Anyway, to get back on track...

Again, Leonard has accused many people of many things over the years, and many times has been wrong.

My point is this: Why are so so sure that he's right now? And if he is, why is he the only one filing suit?

 

[vsa]

IBOCCROCKS WROTE: "Just like you're doing now?"

There you go again.

He also scribed: "Anyway, to get back on track...Again, Leonard has accused many people of many things over the years, and many times has been wrong. My point is this:  Why are so so sure that he's right now?  And if he is, why is he the only one filing suit?"

Read 47 CFR Section 73.44(b) and (a). The language is very clear. But you have to actually READ it. There is a huge difference between a peak hold of 10 minutes, versus millisecond long measurements. That's the LAW that the FCC must enforce and the law that iBiquity must follow.

 

[4dude]

What happens when the FCC violates the very laws that it must enforce?

Nothing

 

[PhilJSmith67]

You know that joke "How many Microsoft Employees does it take to change a lightbulb," with the punchline, "Zero -- Bill just declares darkness as the standard?" Well, that is exactly what has happened with the AM and FM broadcast bands. The FCC "owns" their titles and chapters of the Code of Federal Regulations, so they rewrite them at will -- using due process -- a process which they create and maintain themselves. So, modulating a signal on frequencies which would rightly land a 10-watt pirate in the slammer because of interference, is somehow not considered interference when it is splattered on two separate channels with as 5 to 10 times as much power. Of course it's legal. It's all there in the CFR. And, if there is a conflict, they can either erase it, or synthesize a new interpretation. Done.

The whole philosophy of creating allocations to minimize interference between stations has been flipped upside-down, to a new philosophy of creating interference that minimizes allocated coverage for stations.

I know, some of you are saying "What?" to this post... I am typically on this board chatting about maximizing HD Radio reception, analog stations I can still get without IBOC/IBAC hash, and the few I can not. But, for the sake of this thread alone, I have to call a spade a spade. The FCC today condones a level of interference, especially on AM, that they would have never allowed 10 years ago. As for HD Radio on AM, the FCC rolled out the red carpet for iBiquity to run rampant with half-truths about its reliability and sound quality, as well as the supposed negligible harm it causes to existing analog reception on their sample of receivers.

Unfortunately, terrestrial radio is considered "in trouble." So, any supposed solution to that, good or bad, is being touted as a potential salvation. As for making changes at the FCC, we unfortunately don't vote for FCC representatives. We vote for people who appoint them. Of the candidates running for Congress and the Presidency, their ideas about future FCC appointees hardly amounts to a scale on a fish, in the whole school of things going on. And, even if it did matter, the Mass-Media Bureau is just one segment among several within the FCC's concern.

 

[Tom Wells]

Anyway, to get back on track...

Again, Leonard has accused many people of many things over the years, and many times has been wrong.

My point is this: Why are so so sure that he's right now? And if he is, why is he the only one filing suit?

Because he is a patent attorney, as well as an RF engineer. There is no finer engineer to critique or fight such matters.
Patent prosecution is a chess game. It is imperative to cite your opponent's "out of bounds" operations, even though your opponent paid the judges to ignore such infractons.

Losing doesn't make you wrong. In patent prosecution, it often means you must pay for further review.

If you understood the tech, and the USPTO, and disagreed with the opponent, wouldn't YOU if you wanted to, and had all the tools
and skills?

 

[calstymes]

Bravo to Leonard for having the guts to file this action!

More, less publicized actions, will follow. You can bank on it!

Disclaimer: I am neither a party nor associate to any party that is planning any legal remedy or relief against any HD cartel station that has implemented AM IBOC.

Enough is enough! If sanity and public outrage do not prevail here then there is something radically wrong with our system of administrative agency overview by, for and in the public interest. Philip J. Smith and Tom Wells, you continue to speak eloquently about this subject. Please don't quit in the face of the currently overwhelming odds against you, particularly amongst the HD cartel supporters on this message board. This too will change with enough public support.

 

[radioskeptic]

In Reply # 2 on this thread, IBOCRocks wrote:

Funny, Leonard [Kahn] has accused lots of people of lots of things over the years...but makes little progress. He likes to twist the law to fit his agenda.

It's OK, though, because when he loses it just reinforces that his interpretation is incorrect.

Really, IBOCRocks?

Well remember, the Supreme Court ruled against Major Armstrong and in favor of Lee DeForest on the regenerative issue. Does that in any way diminish the stature of the greatest genius in the history of radio engineering in your eyes?

If so, you find yourself at odds not only with virtually all contemporary engineering opinion, as well as with the engineering societies in other nations at that time. In the U.S., only the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia pubicly recognized Armstrong's achievements, thanks to pressure from AT&T and its licensees under DeForest's "Audion" patent (which he had sold to AT&T, and on which his bogus regenerative patent of 1916 was built).

DeForest may have invented the "Audion" (triode) tube, but he didn't have the faintest idea of how it worked, and why his early telephone amplifiers would "howl." It took Armstrong to explain both (1) how small amounts of positive feedback could increase amplification and (2) why a critical amount of feedback could excite oscillation, allowing a tube to produce a much more coherent wave for either CW code work or amplitude modualtion with an audio signal -- and laying the groundwork for all of modern telecommuications!

Armstrong's patent on the superheterodyne was never challenged in court, but he had sold civilian rights to that one (which he had developed as an Army Signal Corps captain during WW I) to the fledgling Radio Corporation of America!

Big money has always determined what patents will be litigated, and usually what the result of the litigation will be, although Armstrong's posthumous victory against RCA on FM is a conspicuous exception to that rule.

But in 1945, before Armstrong died, others in the radio establishment -- CBS, ABC (the former NBC Blue, then only recently spun off in an anti-trust action), Philco and others submitted false research to the FCC about the suitability of the pre-war FM band and got FM "kicked upstairs" to its presnt 88-108 band, though they knew FM worked perfectly well in its old band. They wanted that band freed up to restore TV channel 1 (RCA initially supported this but changed sides, probably for public relaations reasons).

Of course, playing fast and loose with "science" isn't limited to the field of radio. Remember Vioxx?

Now I'll be very interested to see how the more vociferous Ibiquity boosters on the board try to respond to this post without using the phrase "tin foil hats"!

 

[R.F. Burns]

Maj Armstrong was a genius, without who radio as we know it would not exist today and to compare the anti HD group with the likes of Armstrong is to defame his name. The Major did nothing to to sooth his own ego as was done with a certain engineer who basically was responsible for killing AM stereo by continuing the fight for a system he developed even after every other competitor of the C-Quam system had backed off. The same thing is happening today with IBOC. You don't hear a peep from the developers of FMXtra or any other the other digital systems developers. It's already been shown that the one complainant, WRKL stated falsehoods and half truths, in an attempt to put up roadblocks in the way of Ibiquities system, which is running well within spec on WCBS AM. Getting back to the major, his genius was stolen by large corporations. No large corporation is attempting to steal anything here. What we have are competing technologies one of which the FCC has declared the standard system for broadcasting in the USA. We must have standards, our power is 110 volts 60 cps, our TV's use NTSC 525 lines, our analog stereo system is the Crosley multiplex system. We can't have the wild west when it comes to standards. That's what we had with AM stereo and we see where that went. When the Major developed FM radio he joined with the Yankee network and nationally created a system of broadcasting where a person could purchase a radio and enjoy the fruits of his labor. What do we have from IBOCs competitors? Two or three stations (and small ones at that) nationally and NO radios for sale. We have to take their word that their system works better than IBOC. It's not as though the competitors have just developed these systems yesterday. Where are the radios for sale? Now are the anti IBOC peoople going to say that manufacturers are against D-Cam and FMXtra too? Where does reality end and paranoia begin?

 

[Tom Wells]

Several things must be addressed. I love it when Lee De Forest is always belittled because he couldn't
"do the math". He DID have some idea of how the grid worked or he never would have put it in there.
He too, was in the genius class.

It is like demanding that an artist state WHY they chose any particular composition or pigment.

No one diminishes Madam Curie with discovering something she could not fully explain.

The Patent office does not discriminate whether discovery and invention are the result of hard work, math and study or dumb luck.
"Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made"
(35 USC 103)

De Forest did discover regeneration. He couldn't make it behave like Armstrong could.
Too bad Armstrong didn't license De Forest's patents, and make all the improvements that De Forest never would have
figured out. Then they both would have made made money and saved all the years of bitterness.
But of course not! Armstrong couldn't bear to acknowledge De Forest's accomplishment, because he felt
that De Forest had just bumbled onto it.

Point I'm making is that sometimes a seat-of-the-pants engineer will figure something out a long time before the math guy.

Major Armstrong fought hard to establish the FM, and was well known for ego.
The existing AMs were horrified at the multi-state coverage of the low FM.
Feeling his method was correct, he fought as hard as he could for it, and I beleive Mr Kahn should as well.
Then, as now, corporations have money invested in certain manufacturers and affiliations.
Better technologies by smaller, more independent inventors have a hard time achieving recognition in the face of these
affiliations.
Mr Kahn had some contracts which met with "bad faith".
It would be insane of any inventor who writes claims to stake the legal boundary of an invention not to defend
not only the invention, but the very usefulness of the medium the invention uses.

It is unwise to try to patent something which you aren't sure will pass muster.
It's not worth the time or money. You have to be SURE of what you've got, with airtight claims before you make your
"pitch" to the USPTO. Even when a patent is granted, the market is free to ignore the invention.
However, if another invention can be then seen to infringe on one of the claims in your invention, the law
provides specific "offensive rights" to seek redress.

If you can prove your opponents patented invention is inoperable, or can show that the
disclosure of the patent was incomplete, you can sue to have your opponent's patent invalidated.

I wish Leonard the very best.

My own experience with the USPTO shocked me, in that my examiner did not have the background in electronics necessary to understand the technology. I suspect the FCC is well-stocked with similarly non-RF people in places where such experience is needed.

It is the very center of the issue to use a bandwidth measurement intended to gauge transient occurances, misconstruing it to
design a system that uses the total allotment continuously.

This is the sort of delineation in claims a patent lives and dies by.

 

[awj223]

It is the very center of the issue to use a bandwidth measurement intended to gauge transient occurances, misconstruing it to
design a system that uses the total allotment continuously.

Well said. The mask was designed to constrain the peaks in spectral energy with the understanding that the average power in the analog signal is always far below the peak power, especially above 5-10 kHz, unless the station is broadcasting almost continuous white noise (which would get them in trouble with the FCC for reasons other than causing excessive splatter). In a digital system, where the average power and the peak power are nearly the same, the sidebands should be no stronger than the average analog power would have been. In a way, this would be better than the sideband splatter we have today because it would be much more predictable and wouldn't change with the type of programming on the adjacent. Put the sidebands down to what the average analog power would have been and I'll support all night operation. If a station wants greater IBOC coverage than that, it needs to convert to full digital mode.

 

[R.F. Burns]

It is the very center of the issue to use a bandwidth measurement intended to gauge transient occurances, misconstruing it to
design a system that uses the total allotment continuously.

Well said. The mask was designed to constrain the peaks in spectral energy with the understanding that the average power in the analog signal is always far below the peak power, especially above 5-10 kHz, unless the station is broadcasting almost continuous white noise (which would get them in trouble with the FCC for reasons other than causing excessive splatter). In a digital system, where the average power and the peak power are nearly the same, the sidebands should be no stronger than the average analog power would have been. In a way, this would be better than the sideband splatter we have today because it would be much more predictable and wouldn't change with the type of programming on the adjacent. Put the sidebands down to what the average analog power would have been and I'll support all night operation. If a station wants greater IBOC coverage than that, it needs to convert to full digital mode.

That's not the law. Are we making things up to suit our dreams? WCBS is 72 DB down on 910 KHZ. They only need be down 35 DB to meet current rules and they even meet the specs for NRSC-5 which is not yet mandated. All of these opinions mean nothing. WCBS is operating as a 1A (which must be protected not the other way around) legally. It's a 50 KW non directional station. The WRKL filling was filled with half truths and poor research. Facts are what matters and the facts remain that WCBS is operating within the law. If what WRKL states in their petition is true they are operating outside of the law. They do not cover much of NYC with a .5 Mv signal much as they wished they did.

 

[awj223]

That's not the law. Are we making things up to suit our dreams? WCBS is 72 DB down on 910 KHZ. They only need be down 35 DB to meet current rules and they even meet the specs for NRSC-5 which is not yet mandated. All of these opinions mean nothing. WCBS is operating as a 1A (which must be protected not the other way around) legally. It's a 50 KW non directional station. The WRKL filling was filled with half truths and poor research. Facts are what matters and the facts remain that WCBS is operating within the law. If what WRKL states in their petition is true they are operating outside of the law. They do not cover much of NYC with a .5 Mv signal much as they wished they did.

From what I hear I don't think WRKL has a case. If it's the radios causing the problem, then the listeners need to get new radios. (by the way, what does WRKL have to do with anything? that's the other thread. I never mentioned WRKL)

However, I do think that the amount of power AM HD allows OUTSIDE the main channel (especially from 10-15 kHz in either direction from the carrier) is problematic. NRSC-5 might allow it, but FCC regulations also state that I should be able to hear a station in its primary (and for some stations, secondary) service contours.

You're SUPPOSED to be able to hear WCBS in Indiana and Ohio, and WLS in Pennsylvania at night. Both are 50 kW nondirectionals and both must be protected. We'll see what happens with night IBOC but from what I heard of the WLW/WOR testing I don't think it will work. There are also problems where you have class B station adjacent to and inside the 50/50 skywave contour of a class A station, like KIRN 670 Simi Valley, only 300 miles from KNBR 680 San Francisco. The law says KNBR must be protected in southern california, just as WCBS must be protected in Indiana.

The true winners are probably going to be the lawyers.

 

[R.F. Burns]

That's not the law. Are we making things up to suit our dreams? WCBS is 72 DB down on 910 KHZ. They only need be down 35 DB to meet current rules and they even meet the specs for NRSC-5 which is not yet mandated. All of these opinions mean nothing. WCBS is operating as a 1A (which must be protected not the other way around) legally. It's a 50 KW non directional station. The WRKL filling was filled with half truths and poor research. Facts are what matters and the facts remain that WCBS is operating within the law. If what WRKL states in their petition is true they are operating outside of the law. They do not cover much of NYC with a .5 Mv signal much as they wished they did.

From what I hear I don't think WRKL has a case. If it's the radios causing the problem, then the listeners need to get new radios. (by the way, what does WRKL have to do with anything? that's the other thread. I never mentioned WRKL)

However, I do think that the amount of power AM HD allows OUTSIDE the main channel (especially from 10-15 kHz in either direction from the carrier) is problematic. NRSC-5 might allow it, but FCC regulations also state that I should be able to hear a station in its primary (and for some stations, secondary) service contours.

You're SUPPOSED to be able to hear WCBS in Indiana and Ohio, and WLS in Pennsylvania at night. Both are 50 kW nondirectionals and both must be protected. We'll see what happens with night IBOC but from what I heard of the WLW/WOR testing I don't think it will work. There are also problems where you have class B station adjacent to and inside the 50/50 skywave contour of a class A station, like KIRN 670 Simi Valley, only 300 miles from KNBR 680 San Francisco. The law says KNBR must be protected in southern california, just as WCBS must be protected in Indiana.

The true winners are probably going to be the lawyers.

The truth is you can hear WCBS in Indiana but since deregulation and the basic end of clear channels listening to distant stations is no longer guaranteed by the FCC. In the 1970's prior to deregulation I could hear WOAI most nights on 1200 Khz. Today the only way to hear WOAI or KOA or KSL is via the internet. What's the difference if a stations is blocked by the qrm of lower power stations sharing a frequency or the sound of digita IBOC. Noise is noise. I've ben told that tests were done prior to IBOCs arrival on the scene and they found only12 to 15 stations nationally where a problem might occur. With my IBOS radios and DSP I can listen to first adjacents while a IBOC station is operating on an adjacent channel. A properly operating IBOC station operates far below the -35 DB allowed today by the FCC to a third adjacent. Some stations are so deperate that they blame every bit of noise they recieve on IBOC even though IBOC has nothing to do with their poor coverage. It's time for some sanity from an engineering perspective. IBOC operates within the law as it is written. Facts are facts.

 

[awj223]

What's the difference if a stations is blocked by the qrm of lower power stations sharing a frequency or the sound of digita IBOC. Noise is noise. I've ben told that tests were done prior to IBOCs arrival on the scene and they found only12 to 15 stations nationally where a problem might occur. With my IBOS radios and DSP I can listen to first adjacents while a IBOC station is operating on an adjacent channel.

The difference is that lower power stations do NOT share frequencies with clear channels, at least not inside the 50/50 skywave contour. Allocations outside that contour use directional antennas so that they don't spew co-channel into the protected skywave service area. However, lower power stations or even other 50kW clear channel stations do sit inside the 50/50 contours of clear stations on adjacent channels. IB(A)C intentionally puts constant hash into those adjacent channels especially within +/- 5 kHz of the adjacent station's carrier (+/- 10-15 kHz offset from the IBOC station's carrier). How are you able to hear stations adjacent to a local IBOC? The "close" sideband of the desired signal gets stepped on by the analog or by the secondary digital subcarriers, and the "far" sideband, usually the clean one, gets the primary IBOC subcarrier noise. Are you saying that if a station running IBOC has a strength of, say, 30-50 mV/m at my location, and I am trying to pick up a 1.2 mV/m skywave signal that I will still be able to hear it if I tune to the right sideband?

Just curious, what were those 12 to 15 problem stations?

IBOC operates within the law as it is written. Facts are facts.

Within the letter of the law, yes. Within the spirit of the law, no. Those who wrote the law never expected the mask to be used as a hash mask, only as a splatter mask. In my experience hash is much worse than splatter. Sadly, the spirit of the law means nothing. IBOC does fit inside a mask that was never intended to be used for digital and is legal.