Is the FCC a bunch of Morons?

[Chuck]

[Well put. I have always been leary of bringing up on this board what the NAB already knows. The VAST majority of a station's audience is in the 70 dbu contour OR HIGHER. While I would not recommend it, I could see the 60 dbu limit raised. What I WOULD recommend is adopting it ACROSS THE BOARD, right now on FM. Right now we have 60 dbu, 58 bdu and 54 dbu, all in the same area. Doesn't make much sense to me. But that's because it is an arbitrary standard.

Clouseau

I would be nice to have just one standard. No argument there, but I'm not sure where you should set it. 54 dbu is not much of a problem for just about any car radio, but it is insurmountable for your average clock radio that cost $20.00 at the drug store.

I'm sure that most fixed listening is well inside the 60 dbu contour, but I suspect that many people in their car will hang on until the signal is close to unlistenable, assuming the station is broadcasting something they really want to hear. Our resident statisticians will tell us that most radio listening is done in fixed locations. Maybe so, but I wouldn't discount the folks in cars.

Making the assumption that HD eventually gains a foot-hold, then I suspect you will be seeing a lot more radios similar to the Sony, which can suck a signal out of almost nothing. We know the technology exists. Should they become common, where do you set the protected contour?

I’m sure that the FCC couldn’t care less that some people have really sensitive and selective radios, so they’d probably go for the worst case scenario experienced by a cheesy radio. It might be helpful if the FCC instead dictated some improved quality in consumer products. That will never happen ….

 

[w9wi]

I would be nice to have just one standard. No argument there, but I'm not sure where you should set it. 54 dbu is not much of a problem for just about any car radio, but it is insurmountable for your average clock radio that cost $20.00 at the drug store.

I'm sure that most fixed listening is well inside the 60 dbu contour, but I suspect that many people in their car will hang on until the signal is close to unlistenable, assuming the station is broadcasting something they really want to hear. Our resident statisticians will tell us that most radio listening is done in fixed locations. Maybe so, but I wouldn't discount the folks in cars.

Making the assumption that HD eventually gains a foot-hold, then I suspect you will be seeing a lot more radios similar to the Sony, which can suck a signal out of almost nothing. We know the technology exists. Should they become common, where do you set the protected contour?

I’m sure that the FCC couldn’t care less that some people have really sensitive and selective radios, so they’d probably go for the worst case scenario experienced by a cheesy radio. It might be helpful if the FCC instead dictated some improved quality in consumer products. That will never happen ….

Once you raise the protected contour, you can't put it back -- because that would require deleting stations. Personally I think 60dBu is too high.

I thought I was told that most listening was in cars -- where really, in the absence of interference 50dBu would be a pretty reasonable figure.

Selectivity brings up the other side of the "how cheap do you protect?" question. No car radio I've ever used has ever had trouble slicing stations 400KHz apart, even when right under the tower of one of the stations involved. I've had cheap clock radios that can't separate stations 2MHz apart.....

 

[clouseau]

Ooops. There's a typo in the contours. There are 60, 57 and 54 dbu stations in the same location. To the best of my knowledge there are no 58 dbu stations. Got fumble typing fingers...

Clouseau

 

[tomservo]

There is no reason in this day and age for the FCC to kowtow to the cheapest of electronics. Protections should be based on the best technology at hand, like car stereos. It would be too difficult to lower the protections, I suspect. But there is no good reason to raise them.

In my area there are approximately 22 listenable stations on FM in my unrated small town. But only 9 of them put anything greater than 60 dBu into my neighborhood.

I'd much rather get 22 stations even if some are a little weak and noisy than 9 who put a good signal into my area.

 

[w9wi]

There is no reason in this day and age for the FCC to kowtow to the cheapest of electronics. Protections should be based on the best technology at hand, like car stereos. It would be too difficult to lower the protections, I suspect. But there is no good reason to raise them.

You can take it too far. "best technology at hand" could arguably include a standalone tuner connected to a Yagi at 50 feet but I don't think it's practical to protect that.

But yes, if we were to start over I think certainly 50dBu would be a reasonable figure.

FWIW, according to http://www.v-soft.com/ZipSignal/zip_answer.asp, 17 FM stations deliver a 60dBu or better signal to my ZIP. An additional 12 deliver between 50 and 60dBu.

Seven of those twelve carry formats that are not represented among the 17 protected stations.

 

[tomservo]

But yes, if we were to start over I think certainly 50dBu would be a reasonable figure.

FWIW, according to http://www.v-soft.com/ZipSignal/zip_answer.asp, 17 FM stations deliver a 60dBu or better signal to my ZIP. An additional 12 deliver between 50 and 60dBu.

Seven of those twelve carry formats that are not represented among the 17 protected stations.

I'd forgotten about that tool. By it's list, I get 10 above 60 and 10 more above 50 on FM, but only 3 "new" formats, 4 if you break out all the different religious groups separately.

 

[clouseau]

You can take it too far. "best technology at hand" could arguably include a standalone tuner connected to a Yagi at 50 feet but I don't think it's practical to protect that.

But yes, if we were to start over I think certainly 50dBu would be a reasonable figure.

FWIW, according to http://www.v-soft.com/ZipSignal/zip_answer.asp, 17 FM stations deliver a 60dBu or better signal to my ZIP. An additional 12 deliver between 50 and 60dBu.

Seven of those twelve carry formats that are not represented among the 17 protected stations.

Good solid Numbers... I love it.

However, How many of those 12 would you consider to be listenable for the general public in your living room?

I have a laundry list of stuff with no ratings here in our zip.

Clouaseau

 

[w9wi]

However, How many of those 12 would you consider to be listenable for the general public in your living room?

I have a laundry list of stuff with no ratings here in our zip.

What kind of radio?

On a car radio parked in my driveway, all but one are dead solid full quieting. (that one is a translator of one of the protected-contour signals)

On my - admittedly better than average - Radio Shack clock radio, scratch the translator and one other station.

 

[tomservo]

Good solid Numbers... I love it.

However, How many of those 12 would you consider to be listenable for the general public in your living room?

I have a laundry list of stuff with no ratings here in our zip.

Clouaseau

Can I answer this too?

Only three of the twenty total are listenable in my living room - 1 translator relaying static most of the time, country that I never listen to and commercials with classic hits intersperced. Interference from electronics seems to wipe out the rest.

Which is why on the extremely rare occasion anyone listens to music on the home theatre setup, it's XM via DirecTV.

 

[clouseau]

THis is developing into a really good thread. However it seems to me that the "Format" discussion is irrelevant. Technical standards shouldn't be determined by "What's on the air".

As an example, If we determine we will not authorize a station within 10MHz of any other station, but the protected station is my favorite of all time on 98.1 and I never listen to anything else... It's STILL bad policy. What if my fovorite station starts playing polkas??

Even if I like it. Format is irrelevant. It's all about number of choices. At least for this discussion as I see it.

Clouseau

 

[Play Freebird]

THis is developing into a really good thread. However it seems to me that the "Format" discussion is irrelevant. Technical standards shouldn't be determined by "What's on the air".

As an example, If we determine we will not authorize a station within 10MHz of any other station, but the protected station is my favorite of all time on 98.1 and I never listen to anything else... It's STILL bad policy. What if my fovorite station starts playing polkas??

Even if I like it. Format is irrelevant. It's all about number of choices. At least for this discussion as I see it.

Music format doesn't necessarily matter, but according to early interpretations of Section 307(b) of the Communication Act, the local relevance of program content does matter.

In fact, the FM allocation plan adopted in the early '60s took this policy into account by allowing second and third-adjacent local stations to cause limited interference within normally-protected contours of more distant stations. The Commission's rationale was that a local station would provide a "replacement service" better suited to meet the needs of nearby listeners than the distant signal.

In my opinion, the FCC's current position on nighttime first-adjacent AM IBOC interference is in direct contradiction with this policy because it allows large market Class A stations to degrade coverage of their smaller-market first-adjacent "neighbors" without providing a more locally-relevant replacement service.