Is the Signal Fading for HD Radio?

[rbrucecarter5]

The only "buzzing" I've ever heard on mediumwave is the increasing amount of loud wideband electrical/electronic noise that's polluting the band. Which, in fact, is doing far more harm to the band than a few Ibiquity signals here and there. The neighbours in an adjacent unit recently acquired a gigantic 56" plasma display, a wall-hanger type. I can always tell when they have it on because the entire mediumwave band sounds like they're splitting atoms in the front room.

You sure got that right. My wife's new washing machine sounds like a alien attack on the AM band. But this just highlights the need for a more robust system for AM, because all this noise would be doom for AM HD lock.

 

[Chuck]

[I know, but you were saying that no one complained about analog radio dropping out or causing interference and that's not true, at least here.

If you will check, I was not the person who said that. I just brought up the fact that many of the problems inherent to the VHF band will not go away by switching to HD. In fact, they may become more annoying. When analog FM is working properly, very few people will complain about the frequency response or signal to noise ratio.

 

[MRFLASHPORT]

Would not have VuCast/FMExtra been a better option for FM to go digital IBOC? No sideband hash, no power budget trade-offs, and no impact on analog signal quality. Who paid off who to get Ibiquity to the front of the IBOC line (which wasn't very long anyway?)

The noise floor on both radio bands is getting worse everyday. So much cheap plastic electric crap from China is turning radio spectrum into the equivalent of a pile of rotting, roach infested, stinking garbage.

I've found a culprit in my own home which turned out to be a power supply for a digital camera putting out nasty spurs up and down both the AM and FM bands, even making my VHF two way buzz. Opened it up and found no filter caps on the little PCB- piece o' crap went into the trash. Makes me wonder how many radio listeners are lost because of this, they try to tune a station, get noisy and hash on their radio, and give up and go back to Pandora, Spotify or whatever.

I hate to sound like a quasi-greenie, but who is looking out for the "clutter" of the RF spectrum if you will? Certainly not the FCC, they're only interest is short selling every sliver of spectrum to the telecom giants regardless of the real needs of the public.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Would not have VuCast/FMExtra been a better option for FM to go digital IBOC? No sideband hash, no power budget trade-offs, and no impact on analog signal quality. Who paid off who to get Ibiquity to the front of the IBOC line (which wasn't very long anyway?)

I hate to sound like a quasi-greenie, but who is looking out for the "clutter" of the RF spectrum if you will? Certainly not the FCC, they're only interest is short selling every sliver of spectrum to the telecom giants regardless of the real needs of the public.

Careful - I got thoroughly disrespected and called insane when I suggested the FCC took a pay off from iBiquity over on the Houston board.

 

[KB1OKL]

Would not have VuCast/FMExtra been a better option for FM to go digital IBOC? No sideband hash, no power budget trade-offs, and no impact on analog signal quality. Who paid off who to get Ibiquity to the front of the IBOC line (which wasn't very long anyway?)

I hate to sound like a quasi-greenie, but who is looking out for the "clutter" of the RF spectrum if you will? Certainly not the FCC, they're only interest is short selling every sliver of spectrum to the telecom giants regardless of the real needs of the public.

Careful - I got thoroughly disrespected and called insane when I suggested the FCC took a pay off from iBiquity over on the Houston board.

I don't think they paid off the FCC I think the FCC is inept and only interested in cell phones and couldn't care less about radio.

 

[landtuna]

Paging The Old Gringo. Please see irate HD customer in the service lane immediately.

 

[Chuck]

I suspect that there were many reasons for the FCC passing on FMeXtra, including the story that Ibiquity made a financial arrangement with the FMeXtra folks to stand down.

Looking at it from the FCC's point of view, FME did not have a plan for a transition to an all digital format. It would forever be hosted on an analog signal. The IBOC system can be changed to all digital which fulfilled your government's fascination with an all digital world. In fact, HD may work fairly well in an all digital mode. The problems with it currently are due to being a compromise to allow both analog and digital transmission.

Personally, I would have been quite happy if FMeXtra had been adopted. It worked well, was simple enough for even me to understand, was reasonably priced and had no ongoing licensing fees. If the FCC really wanted to transition to digital radio, the simple solution was to open up a new band and let stations migrate there. 76-88 MHz would have been a reasonable choice. So was Eureka 147, but many broadcasters didn't want to do that, since it had the potential of making smaller stations have parity signals with larger stations. To a large extent, Broadcasters share some of the credit (or blame) for what we have. So far, the public doesn’t seem to care…..

 

[calstymes]

MRFLASHPORT requested an answer to the following question:

Who paid off who to get Ibiquity to the front of the IBOC line (which wasn't very long anyway?)

Now THAT is an excellent question and at the heart of everything that has occured with this thing called IBOC in the last 15 years. Once the public can answer that with some degree of accuracy and authority it will explain why awful lot of things happened the way they did.

Remember to keep following the money and then all your questions will be answered.

 

[DaveBayArea]

Looking at it from the FCC's point of view, FME did not have a plan for a transition to an all digital format. It would forever be hosted on an analog signal. The IBOC system can be changed to all digital which fulfilled your government's fascination with an all digital world. In fact, HD may work fairly well in an all digital mode. The problems with it currently are due to being a compromise to allow both analog and digital transmission.

From what I can tell that's not true. If you take a look at page 7 of the spec:

http://www.nrscstandards.org/SG/NRSC-5-B/1026sE.pdf

The specification for an all-digital FM service occupies twice the bandwidth of the analog signal. Interestingly enough, it has a 20-db dip in the center, where the analog signal used to be. So the FM channel spacing would have to double. I can't see this being implemented en-masse without a total re-allocation like what happened to the AM band with NARBA in 1941. Like that's going to happen.

Dave B.

 

[Chuck]

From what I can tell that's not true. If you take a look at page 7 of the spec:

http://www.nrscstandards.org/SG/NRSC-5-B/1026sE.pdf

The specification for an all-digital FM service occupies twice the bandwidth of the analog signal. Interestingly enough, it has a 20-db dip in the center, where the analog signal used to be. So the FM channel spacing would have to double. I can't see this being implemented en-masse without a total re-allocation like what happened to the AM band with NARBA in 1941. Like that's going to happen.

Dave B.

I haven't been able to get the link to work nor have I been able to access it after logging in from NRSC web site. Maybe they don't like me.

I'm supposing from your post that you are taking issue with my statement that "It might work fairly well in an all digital mode." Well, I still think it might, but notice the use of the word “might.” It's is something we aren't likely to know for a very long time, if ever. It would presuppose that everyone was running digital. Like you, I have my reservations about channel spacing.

When all the hype for IBOC came out, one of it's features was the ability to convert to an all digital format. I think the FCC liked that. FMeXtra had no path to an all digital world which helped take them out of contention. That was my point. The FCC and most of Congress seem to be enamored with the "if it's digital, it must be good" mantra. You may have also noticed that basic mathematical skills seem to be lacking in Washington....

I still think Cal Stymes recent post of “follow the money,” has a lot of validity. I wish we knew the whole story.

 

[MarioMania]

Turn all HD off for AM, it's not working

Bring back Stereo on AM, But I don't think that will ever happen

 

[radioskeptic]

In Reply #29, Chuck said, "I still think Cal Stymes recent post of “'follow the money,' has a lot of validity. I wish we knew the whole story."

Well, here's the most important single fact: Derek Kumar, the inventor of FM Extra, said:

Early on, we saw that IBOC was going nowhere as long as there were multiple proponents, and even in the best estimates, it would be many years before there would be any return oninvestment.

So we decided to license our patent portfolio for use in IBOC to USA Digital Radio, which eventually merged with Lucent’s IBOC group to form Ibiquity. We are an Ibiquity shareholder.

The "we" in that last sentence meant Digital Radio Express (DRE), now renamed VuCast.

The source of that quote? http://www.bext.com/RW/RWFMeXtraDec05.pdf (on page 2)

If you read the whole four-page PDF -- and you're not hopelessly naïve -- you can figure out the "whole story" for yourself.

 

[K6JHU]

And what would be the purpose of having stereo on AM nowadays

 

[audioguy]

And what would be the purpose of having stereo on AM nowadays

Well for one thing, because it sounds great, doesn't take up any additional bandwidth, and doesn't hinder the range of the station.

But also because stereo is the expected presentation format for audio programming of any type. Multi-channel formats are valid for some situations such as home theatres, but stereo is what most people expect.

To be competitive, programming on AM needs to be broadcast in stereo. Even if it's talk programming with just the commercials in stereo-- and they can really "pop" when they are.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

And what would be the purpose of having stereo on AM nowadays

Well for one thing, because it sounds great, doesn't take up any additional bandwidth, and doesn't hinder the range of the station.

But also because stereo is the expected presentation format for audio programming of any type. Multi-channel formats are valid for some situations such as home theatres, but stereo is what most people expect.

To be competitive, programming on AM needs to be broadcast in stereo. Even if it's talk programming with just the commercials in stereo-- and they can really "pop" when they are.

AM has far worse problems than the end-result of a debate over whether or not stereo is of any benefit. (And just for the record, there's no shred of evidence anywhere that commercials in stereo sell more product for the advertiser than commercials in mono. This is a business and there's no business justification for producing commercials in stereo. What matters is the sponsor's message, and no matter how you spin it that's in mono.)

At this point in time, AM is a victim of the band-cramming socially-engineered politically-driven policies of the FCC, as well as non-existent enforcement of Part 15. Once they decided that they were going to cram in as many stations as they could and stop enforcing noise and interference standards, the ball game was over. HD (a blatant example of the FCC ignoring its own rules) is one of the final nails in the coffin, except for those brave owners who either refused to install it in the first place, or who tried it, decided it created more problems than it solved, noticed the zero ROI on their balance sheets and turned it off. One might be forgiven for thinking the FCC really wants AM gone, because they're doing everything in their power to make that "wish" come true.

 

[tomservo]

There may be no proof that stereo sells commercials, but if you've ever heard a station whose talk content is mono but commercials in stereo, it really does stand out. WYDE and WERC in Birmingham both do this and the effect really catches my ears. WYDE is stereo on analog and HD, WERC is mono on analog but stereo with stereo commercials in HD.

I understand WGN is the same way but I've never gotten a successful stereo decode of them at night.

 

[audioguy]

"This is a business and there's no business justification for producing commercials in stereo. What matters is the sponsor's message, and no matter how you spin it that's in mono."

What would make you think that it costs any more to produce commercials in stereo than mono? Most of the time, stereo has to be mixed down to mono.

Commercials that are in stereo can be particularly effective when there are multiple voices, not to mention sound effects, music beds, and so on.

Concerning WGN: they haven't had their stereo generator on in a long time. When they used to run it, their station sounded simply amazing. I made some recordings of them, that I've unfortunately given away to people who were guests on various shows, but it sounded awesome. I used to love listening to that station.

 

[Savage]

From the trenches: the reality is, even when agency commercials are "produced in stereo" and the 2-channel mp3 files are sent or downloaded to the stations, at least 50 percent of the time - when you compare the left and right channels - they're identical.

In other words, the spots are "stereo" in name only. Actually, they're mono.

There's a practical reason for this. It's an echo of the days of the 1960s when local station cart equipment varied widely in quality, so agency spots arrived on ETs or reel tapes with the notation, "please do not dub to tape cartridge." Then as now, agencies spend stacks of money having commercials produced just the way they want them and they want them to air properly. If the spots are sent in mono they don't have to worry about stations transferring only one channel to their automation systems or combining the channels out of phase, etc., etc.

 

[KB1OKL]

If the spots are sent in mono they don't have to worry about stations transferring only one channel to their automation systems or combining the channels out of phase, etc., etc.

Speaking of only one channel of a stereo recording, why do so many oldie stations do that? I've heard 60's stereo recordings broadcast that way many times on FM stations and it really sticks out when you don't hear the drums or background vocals on for example a Beatles recording when (I would think) most people can tell the difference.