full digtial AM test proposed for IBOC

[Ai4i]

This recurring idea that you should put a broadcast radio receiver in cell phones "for emergencies" is completely bogus. - Jonathan

Where is the outcry that phones should be able to receive the seven designated emergency defence channels between 162.4 and 162.55 MHz, weather whether or not the phones have service ???

Is anyone old enough to remember The Last Radio Station?
I heard it on my LW receiver in 1973.

 

[TimeIsTight]

This recurring idea that you should put a broadcast radio receiver in cell phones "for emergencies" is completely bogus. The newer cellular telephone standards already include a feature called "cell broadcast," in which an emergency message can be sent to all phones simultaneously, on a per-cell basis (that is, you send it only to the geographic area that matters).

You're really missing the point of a totally separate "backup system." With the major storms in the mid-Atlantic region this past weekend there were numerous reports of "spotty cell phone service." Local cells went out when the power went down, and there could be circumstances under which the entire cell phone network could be down, or overwhelmed as it was in NYC on 9-11.

On the other hand, one MW or FM frequency station in a metro could get immediate emergency messages to millions of people, who more than anything else would be carrying a cell phone at the time of the emergency. ( millions will never also carry portable radios "just in case")

It's not "bogus" to plan for the worst, and having a fully independent backup system is just prudent planning. In NYC, several major power outages over the years have proved the value of the medium wave AM transmitters with big backup generators. They got the messages out when all else failed. Among the stations said to be very well prepared are WCBS-AM, WINS, and Bloomberg's WBBR, all 50-kw news stations, that have been there in past emergencies and are reported even better prepared now.

The story linked to below from the Hawaii News Daily relates the impact of last weeks mid-Atlantic storms to a massive EMP blast. The story includes this line about what happened last weekend: -During the power outage some people have been without cell phone service because many cell phone towers were inoperable

To be fair, lots of radio stations were wiped out too, but you only need one major station to survive to serve an entire metro and some have planned far better than others for the worst.

In an EMP situation, old backup AM transmitters on diesel generators, and some block studio buildings that have long been protected by Faraday cages might be among the most likely communications services to continue working. If some cell phones survived the EMP and the cell phone system didn't, the cell phones would still be lifesavers if they could get that MW signal from the old AMs.

If One Storm Can Turn D.C. Dark For Several Days, What Would A Massive EMP Burst Do?

http://world.hawaiinewsdaily.com/2012/07/if-one-storm-can-turn-d-c-dark-for-several-days-what-would-a-massive-emp-burst-do/

 

[kenglish]

From the FCC website homepage:

"Consumer Tips: How to Communicate During a Natural Disaster Emergency
FCC/FEMA Tips for Communicating During an Emergency

1. Limit non-emergency phone calls. This will minimize network congestion, free up "space" on the network for emergency communications and conserve battery power if you are using a wireless phone;

2. Keep all phone calls brief. If you need to use a phone, try to use it only to convey vital information to emergency personnel and/or family;

3. For non-emergency calls, try text messaging, also known as short messaging service (SMS) when using your wireless phone. In many cases text messages will go through when your call may not. It will also help free up more "space" for emergency communications on the telephone network;

4. If possible, try a variety of communications services if you are unsuccessful in getting through with one. For example, if you are unsuccessful in getting through on your wireless phone, try a messaging capability like text messaging or email. Alternatively, try a landline phone if one is available. This will help spread the communications demand over multiple networks and should reduce overall congestion;

5. Wait 10 seconds before redialing a call. On many wireless handsets, to re-dial a number, you simply push "send" after you've ended a call to redial the previous number. If you do this too quickly, the data from the handset to the cell sites do not have enough time to clear before you've resent the same data. This contributes to a clogged network;

6. If in your vehicle, try to place calls while your vehicle is stationary;

7. If you have Call Forwarding on your home number, forward your home number to your wireless number, particularly in the event of an evacuation. That way you will get incoming calls from your landline phone;

8. If you do not have electric power in your home, consider using your car to charge cell phones or listen to news alerts on the car radio. But be careful – don’t try to reach your car if it is not safe to do so, and remain vigilant about carbon monoxide emissions from your car if it is a closed space, such as a garage;

9. Tune-in to broadcast and radio news for important news alerts.


Find more information at www.ready.gov, http://www.redcross.org, or www.fema.gov.
Bureaus & Offices: Office of the Chairman"

I'd suggest that they move #9 to the #1 position, and #8 to the #2 slot.

 

[nd2023]

After all, most of us now carry cell phones most of the time. Is it better to have millions of Americans wandering around without a clue, or for pennies each to allow them to stay informed using digital radio, whether VHF or MW, when the cell network goes down? Like it did in the DC area a few days ago.

Most cell phones already have FM capability - it just isn't turned on. If there needs to be an added chip, it will probably be analog radio, not digital. Sony and SiLabs have the best chips on the market, but it would almost have to be Silabs because it doesn't need inconvenient things like tuning capacitors and RF / IF coils, everything is inside. One chip, hookup up serial communication, audio, antenna - done. Whatever chip goes in there - it needs to be pennies. Anything HD has a huge license fee tacked on - so that millstone around its neck would doom its inclusion in radios. That is probably why the rumored iPhone FM function has never been enable. Apple wanted iTunes tagging, that takes HD, HD requires hefty fees and doesn't work worth a darn anyway, so Apple's business decision was to leave FM off and not pay the fee, fearing that iTunes purchases wouldn't pay for the HD fee in the long run. Smart move. Even smarter would be to enable it in analog mode only, and forego the iTunes tagging in favor of garnering good will with users who want a radio.

The sad fact is that radio listening is declining alarmingly - the smart phones have music players embedded, if you really want radio you can buy an SRF-59 for as low as $12. Or the digital display one for about twice that - SRF-83 I think. Best inexpensive receivers on the market, great for pulling in weak stations - something an cell phone radio wouldn't do anyway. It's a pain to carry a radio, and also carry a phone. But the sad fact is - radio gives what the corporate owners say people want, not what people want. So people revolted long ago for MP3 and iPod. They stream what they don't podcast on smart phones. So if the internet and cell towers go down, they are basically screwed for information.

All digital HD might be marginally better for reception, but I doubt it. Radio was, and still is inherently analog and so many reception scenarios exist that it is impossible to design a robust enough digital system. iBiquity tried and failed. All digital has some potential, but is it enough for AM in light of wi-fi, power lines, light dimmers, poorly designed consumer gear, etc. The ship has sailed for AM, the FCC could have regulated interference problems as they came up. But they did not and now it is too late to clean up the band from all the stuff attacking it.

You would think HD Radio would love to get on the iPhone natively, so they would reduce or even waive the fee for Apple, and perhaps get a few pennies from each song a user buys with the iTunes tagging function. It would even be possible to sync the HD subchannels with the webstream to reduce the dropout problem. Then they could claim that HD Radio is accessible to 200 million people, and HD Radio would survive. Instead, they claim to only have a million or two HD radios out there, and I'm sure most of those are not in active daily use like the 200 million iPhones. 3 of my HD radios are broken, 1 is lying unused because its quality is bad, 1 is getting moderate use, and 1 is only used for DXing. I'd have to say that DXers own a lot of the HD radios out there simply because they have great analog reception (the Sony XDRF1HD was purchased almost exclusively by DXers).

 

[rbrucecarter5]

(the Sony XDRF1HD was purchased almost exclusively by DXers).

First there was the chicken and egg dilemma. And now - which came first - the DX'er or the HD'er? Put another way - was the Sony a great DX tuner because it had to be in order to receive the shaky HD system? Or because Sony has been producing great AM / FM chips and chipsets for years?

 

[tomservo]

So people revolted long ago for MP3 and iPod. They stream what they don't podcast on smart phones. So if the internet and cell towers go down, they are basically screwed for information.

I would argue that they are screwed for information anyway if that is all they listen to. Podcasts and streams are rarely geographically targeted as tightly as local radio.

The thing that makes mandating chips in phones silly is that there are hundreds of millions of radios out there and the average person is not far from one should disaster strike and the cell network goes down. Everyone's got a battery powered radio somewhere, even if it's the one in their car.

Of course that implies that radio will be there with live and local information. I've never heard a weather bulletin on any of my local stations here in the Mobile-Pensacola markets, except one small class A that doesn't actually cover either city. Previously, I lived in small town Mississippi where the three local stations would all go off the air simultaneously anytime a storm came through because of poor quality power service to their transmitter sites. No backup, but no one live in studio anyway during most dayparts, so why would it matter?

Strange as it sounds, but the only "breaking news" I've heard here on the coast via radio was from WWL, a station that's 150+ miles away, which means most of its content is irrelevant to me.

 

[Ai4i]

Mandate NOAA reception...that is a dedicated emergency information distribution network put in place for that reason.

 

[TimeIsTight]

The thing that makes mandating chips in phones silly is that there are hundreds of millions of radios out there and the average person is not far from one should disaster strike and the cell network goes down. Everyone's got a battery-powered radio somewhere, even if it's the one in their car.

While those are valid points if you're home or near your car, but consider the folks in urban centers who are travelling around on foot, or commute on public transit with just whatever they can carry in their pockets, which is usually just a cell phone.

During both 9-11 and the Northeast power outages, millions found themselves stranded on Manhattan Island, a couple of times in the dark, and needing to find reliable information about which transit services were running off the island, (mostly the ferries) or just what is actually going on. While many people try to be helpful, rumors spread, and there is a lot of misinformation around. It is just very helpful, and can avoid panic, to be able to get information from trusted and reliable "official" sources and radio can provide that. The cellphone systems get overloaded, or lose power and become useless if the phones can't get broadcast radio. Even if you are out in the suburbs or in rural areas, if something happens suddenly the car or house radio may be too far away, but the cell phone with a radio is in your pocket. It's all about being as prepared as possible for any eventuality, and for a few cents a cell phone it is silly not to have that extra, just-in-case, protection built in.
----
You mention WWL, in New Orleans. I recall listening to them all night live by skywave from the New York area during one of the big New Orleans hurricanes (not Katrina). What a terrific job they did, in keeping both the locals and the country informed on what was actually going on during the storm in the Big Easy. That was the kind of coverage that showed how valuable radio can be in emergency situations. And the Katrina disaster provided the example of how devastated an area can suddenly become, and, radio still came through.

 

[audioguy]

Of course, you wouldn't be able to listen to WWL or very many of the other 50 kW powerhouses via skywave anymore, due to the horrendous interference created by the introduction of IBOC.

So I guess for the latest storm information, you'd need to tune into your local time-brokered AM station with the weekend "bored" op on duty-- the one with no clue about what is happening! <g>

 

[rbrucecarter5]

You mention WWL, in New Orleans. I recall listening to them all night live by skywave from the New York area during one of the big New Orleans hurricanes (not Katrina). What a terrific job they did, in keeping both the locals and the country informed on what was actually going on during the storm in the Big Easy. That was the kind of coverage that showed how valuable radio can be in emergency situations. And the Katrina disaster provided the example of how devastated an area can suddenly become, and, radio still came through.

Thousands and thousands of Katrina refugees all over the the area because DX'ers - listening intently at night for any news from home.

 

[jhardis]

This recurring idea that you should put a broadcast radio receiver in cell phones "for emergencies" is completely bogus.

You're really missing the point of a totally separate "backup system."

Hardly!

I live in the Washington, DC area and been through two blackouts over the last 4 days. I also had two independent systems:

1) My cell phone. It received text alerts from my city (to which I subscribe), and I listened to live streaming from WTOP on it -- they have an easy-to-find web page made specifically for streaming to smart phones. My suggestion was that cell broadcast -- a "one to many" emergency notification system -- would be an appropriate technical enhancement for almost all emergencies. And yes, I have personal knowledge of some difficulty with certain cell sites, but by regulation the operators are supposed to have backup power in good repair. This is a performance issue.

2) My portable radio. I have a radio, and spare batteries for it, that I keep specifically for emergencies. It got good use on Saturday morning as I was trying to get a sense of how extensive the troubles were. It's much harder to find spare batteries for my smart phone, to stock for emergencies.

- Jonathan

 

[TimeIsTight]

And yes, I have personal knowledge of some difficulty with certain cell sites, but by regulation the operators are supposed to have backup power in good repair. This is a performance issue.

I agree with you about the "one to many" text broadcasts. It should be done. And I am signed up for several services like that too.

But, the storms that took the power down hit DC on a weekend, and not at rush hour on a weekday with lots of mass transit commuters on the streets. And, apparently, the local cell phone system worked for you when you needed it, and you were at home with your radio.

But, if all those stranded rush hour pedestrians had been hit with a sudden earthquake on a weekday and had all started calling for information, using their web access, trying to find out where their kids were etc. etc. The cell system gets overloaded. It only has so much capacity. It becomes useless to many just when they need it the most. Besides power issues, communications between towers can be disrupted. In an EMP situation the whole high tech cell system may be toast. I have no doubt regulators require a good system, but it isn't a perfect system as long as it can be overloaded by users should the emergency happen suddenly and at certain times. And as long as it isn't a perfect system it makes sense to have an independent information backup built right into the phones especially if it can be done for pennies a unit. You have to plan for the worst and hope for the best. Things can quickly get far worse than just the cell phone system going down like happened on 9-11 in NYC, and its only common sense to plan for those worst case scenarios.

 

[Darth_vader]

"One would hope that the FCC would also test the open source Digital Radio Mondiale system which is being adopted by countries in other parts of the world.In addition to being "fee free" when manufacturers gear up to make receivers, the economies of scale favour a world standard."

You've just answered your own question as to why it will never become reality here. Look at the bits I've bolded. Follow the money.

 

[mmnassour]

I tell you what.....how about a full-bandwidth analog test. I bet on some older radios, it would sound great!

Probably wouldn't screw up any other stations, etiher. :

 

[pianoplayer88key]

I tell you what.....how about a full-bandwidth analog test. I bet on some older radios, it would sound great!

Probably wouldn't screw up any other stations, etiher. :

I'd like to hear what analog would sound like if they were as wide as an IBOC station. (For the segment 10-15 kHz removed from the carrier, I'm thinking having the RMS / average (or whatever term) of the analog be the same as that of the IBOC.)

 

[nd2023]

I've heard Radio Disney on a wideband AM stereo receiver, and couldn't tell the difference between that and FM.

 

[pianoplayer88key]

I have too, and somewhere I have some recordings of KDIS (from a SRF-42) when they were running C-Quam.

 

[Ai4i]

I've heard Radio Disney on a wideband AM stereo receiver, and couldn't tell the difference between that and FM.

I've heard Radio Disney on a modern iBOC radio and they sounded better than FM

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I've heard Radio Disney on a wideband AM stereo receiver, and couldn't tell the difference between that and FM.

I've heard Radio Disney on a modern iBOC radio and they sounded better than FM

I have heard them in HD and I am sorry - it still sounded like a mid to wide band stream. Very fatiguing to listen to. I remember them in C-Quam on KMKI - their stereo signal was solid as a rock for 300 miles to the West, pretty well in other directions, too, except South where they protect adjacent stations in Houston and San Antonio. I would estimate their HD range at 30 to 35 miles, maximum. In other words, stereo HD range is 1/10 what C-quam stereo range was. Far worse for KMKI was a dramatic decrease in groundwave coverage during the day. They were much less receivable in areas that they used to cover. They did at least two public appearances in Abilene, TX, almost 200 miles away because there was a sufficiently large audience it was worth their time. No doubt the Abilene listeners evaporated after the HD switch due to lower signal levels.

All of this scales. I am not saying KMKI should have kept C-Quam for the cows on the 6666 Ranch near Guthrie or something. What I am saying is that 300 mile range translates to good reception on Bratz doll radios in Ft. Worth, a handed down Dollar store radio in a Dallas kid's bedroom, a shower radio in Denton, etc. Crummy radios with 1/10 the capability of good equipment are probably the mainstay of kids listening to Radio Disney. Although I met some pretty savvy 12 year old budding DX'ers at a pool in Lubbock, they had Radio Disney down to a science - listening to outlets in Dallas, Denver, and San Antonio depending on time of day. For the most part, though, Radio Disney needs groundwave for the other 99.99% of the kids who have junk radios in Dallas Ft. Worth and other cities. They cannot afford HD, because of the signal strength reduction on cheap radios.

 

[Ai4i]

Their stereo range would have been even better with Kahn-Hazletine stereo, with no negative side anomalies, but sadly, that is or was never an option.