DavidEduardo said:
JohnnyElectron said:
I'm wondering why they didn't test Kahn's CAM-D down there, unless Leonard didn't want to get bitten by mosquitos setting-up the hardware as they 'supposedly' did test DRM and DAB+ (so they say).
Disease bearing mosquitos and malaria have been erradicated there, and have been for a loooooooong time. Panama City is as modern as San Diego or Phoenix!
And the broadcasters there don't adopt things instantly... they wait and watch, which shows why so few in LAtin America adopted C Quam. But Brazil has hundreds of HD staitons on the air now!
You can still get quite a case of Dengue (or stabbed) in Colon, however.
David is right about the networking, most of Costa Rica's big FMs transmit in synchronized fashion from 3 or 4 different sites (with full power) in order to cover most of that mountainous country on a single frequency. And, those systems generally work flawlessly.
Still, the HD thing makes absolutely no sense to me down there. Where's the upside for the average listener? Most electronics are more expensive in Latin American countries than they are here. The ugly, power sucking cubes that are hard to get here would be impossible to get down there.
And, where's the clamor for more variety? Without craploads of religious and other ego-case stations (hello Pacifica?) cluttering the dial, I've found much more variety on the radio in a place like San Jose or Caracas than you get in New York! Where's the need for HD-2 and HD-3 signals? As for AM, no one listens to it down there. Most of those stations already sound so bad and over-modulated that throwing on the jammer will probably hash up half the dial.
And, again, who do they think is going to be spending the money on this? David's comment on pverty is relative. Yes, coutries like Panama or Costa Rica or Chile aren't in poverty, nor are they the proverbial 'banana republics'...but the vast majority in such countries still live on something like 1/4 of the income that we take for granted here. If people here are loth to plop down the money for an HD radio (the penetration is something like 0.3% here), how many will buy them in these places? How many in Panama will pay for those ugly, poorly performing, power sucking cubes that fit nowhere?
For example, mine is a piece of crap that has to be unplugged to keep from turning itself on at 3 am (and freaking out my wife!) and it cost $100 at Best Buy. Biggest POS I've ever purchased. And it takes something like 6 minutes to decode HD on a 4/5 FM signal - it won't decode anything on AM. The same piece of crap will go for $180 in Panama - given the taxes and transport charges. Who is going to pay that? Hmmmm? Who?
No one I've ever met in Latin America, that's for sure - and most of my friends are in the upper classes. The "average" Panamanian would never think of it. But they will suffer the new hash on their radios.
Is it worth mucking up the band to sell what will amount to 17 overpriced radios? I think not. The whole thing COULD end up being, errrr, revolutionary!
P.S.: IBOC is crap technology. You want digital? Put it elsewhere in the spectrum.
