Post IBOC plans?

[rbrucecarter5]

I think those of us interested in a quality listening experience on the AM band need to map out a strategy for the future - once AM IBOC goes down the tubes or an FCC cease and desist order is issued. Here are some action items to think about:

(1) I don't think a return to C-Quam stereo can be managed, IBOC effectively killed it if listener apathy hadn't. However, reminding station owners and engineers that the HD radios sold are able to decode it to some degree might sell some on the idea.

(2) The biggest goal should be to end the 5 kHz lowpass and get quality wideband mono back. CC didn't do us any favors when they pushed that self-serving goal of a bandwidth reduction (thinly veiled attempt to make all stations sound as bad as IBOC converts). I think the reality of masses of cheaply produced AM radios with IF's broad as a barn door might be enough to persuade engineers and owners to throw away the brick wall lowpass filter. As a DX'er, I have mixed emotions about this because a 5 kHz limitation is great for DX'ing. But the reality of the situation is that decent sound locally is probably more marketable to stations than their skywave audience.

(3) The reality of marketing on radio stations is that it is increasingly national chains of stores, national chains of restaurants, national services like insurance, etc. We should encourage this trend - because it makes the skywave coverage of AM stations a marketable commodity, especially in the Western 2/3 of the country. While a NYC station might not care about skywave listeners because they wouldn't account for much of a percentage of their audience - the situation is dramatically different for Western stations like KTWO, KRVN, KTNN etc. While they have a local audience, their skywave coverage is an important part of their audience. We should encourage owners of stations like that to think nationally in their marketing strategy.

(4) We should lobby the FCC to reverse the tide of new allocations on formerly clear frequencies, and lobby them to vigorously persue illegal broadcasts from over our borders (stations not powering down at night). The eventual goal should be a band with intelligent allocations at night that allow people more than a few miles from AM stations to hear one, and only one station on most frequencies. Whether this is accomplished by shutting down marginal operations through market pressure, buy outs, or re-allocation - the present glut of new stations has done nothing but make an already bad situation worse.

(5) We should push for filtered LED lighting as an alternative to CFL's. Not only will this serve to reduce interference on the band, but it will also save energy and help the environment.

(6) We should encourage an end to potentially unsafe and noisy cheap electrical contrivances light "light dimmers". I measured the heat from one of those dimmers at over 400 degrees - close to the flash point of paper! I've also noticed that those automatic night lights get extremely hot when the bulb burns out. Both are interference generators and safety issues - lets save some lives AND get rid of interference at the same time.

(7) We should press the FCC for tighter standards on computers, wireless internet devices, cable boxes, and other sources of RF interference. The present standards are lax, and basically sentence the AM band to massive jamming. Broadcasters allowed this to happen - it is time to reverse the trend. There are simple fixes to the problems that would barely increase the price of these devices, and should be implemented.

I am sure we can think of a lot of other things that will benefit not only the AM band, but the public in general.

 

[davideduardo]

I think those of us interested in a quality listening experience on the AM band need to map out a strategy for the future - once AM IBOC goes down the tubes or an FCC cease and desist order is issued.

HD AM will die with AM itself. The FCC is not going to stop any move to digital, as all the commissioners, whichever side of the aisle they represent, are for a full digital media.

I don't think a return to C-Quam stereo can be managed,

Any analog system is going to get zero manufacturer interes.

The biggest goal should be to end the 5 kHz lowpass and get quality wideband mono back.

HD can run with 6 kHz and 7 kHz bandwidth. Bob Orban was on the NRSC comittee about optimum AM bandwidth, and he has publised several papers himself. The optimum for AM, given today's radios, is around 6 kHz.

The reality of marketing on radio stations is that it is increasingly national chains of stores, national chains of restaurants, national services like insurance, etc.

But radio advertising is sold on a market by market basis. Even when a client buys a network, they are buying a collection of markets, not national coverage.

We should encourage this trend - because it makes the skywave coverage of AM stations a marketable commodity, especially in the Western 2/3 of the country.

First, very little AM listening (or radio listening) is at night. Night levels are 25% of 6 AM to 7 PM levels for AM.

Second, agencies who buy nationally do not buy radio after 7 PM as a general rule. There is no revenue there.

Third, there are no numbers supporting buying stations outside their groundwave coverage. One or two stations may occasionally pop into the rating of some market outside their groundwave coverage, but out of all the AMs that produced distant and useful skywave, essentially none show up outside their local market area.

We should lobby the FCC to reverse the tide of new allocations on formerly clear frequencies, and lobby them to vigorously persue illegal broadcasts from over our borders (stations not powering down at night).

Mexico legally considers 7 PM sunset, 365 days of the year. The US has accepted this for decades. Most interference, though, is from Cuba and Latin America, where we have no influence at all unless we decide to bomb our neighbors.

We should push for filtered LED lighting as an alternative to CFL's. Not only will this serve to reduce interference on the band, but it will also save energy and help the environment.

In the current recession, do you think anyone is gong to care about AM, which about 70% of the population never uses and which is, generally, only used by over-55's?

We should press the FCC for tighter standards on computers, wireless internet devices, cable boxes, and other sources of RF interference. The present standards are lax, and basically sentence the AM band to massive jamming. Broadcasters allowed this to happen - it is time to reverse the trend. There are simple fixes to the problems that would barely increase the price of these devices, and should be implemented.

Again, won't happen. People are worried about their incomes, the cost of fuel, their retirement assets, job cutbacks. Nobody gives a dog dollop about AM radio because most people either don't know it exists or think it is dying with the senior generation.

 

[nd2023]

40 years ago, AM was king. The great Top 40 stations used to get listeners in many markets at night. AM radio was the source for free music then, now the Internet is the source of free music now. The only thing that might save AM is 100% digital, since the digital signal at the same power of the analog will be stronger and will sound good.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

I'd like to see a requirement that all iBiquity radios also be able to pick up DRM signals. Since they are DSP radios anyway, I wouldn't thing it would be too hard to do. After the iBiquity experiment totally fails we can start the switch over to DRM when stations give up on analog.