Problems? What Problems!?

[rbrucecarter5]

http://www.cpb.org/grants/radiointerferenceanalysis/

 

[autopaint-1]

Is this the same public broadcast operation who, when I was network pool engineer for a Regan trip to Bogota Columbia in the 80's told their DC newsroom that they were going to feed their piece into our 3 K non eq'ed circuit with dolby B noise reduction on? IBOC is really moving ahead with 2 new 50 K 1A stations in NYC as I write this and at least one more 50 K 1A on the way soon.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

"I am reassured by the unbridled haste with which stations are doing the conversion" - said one lemming to the other on their way over the cliff. As far as NPR and CPB -there are good engineers and bad engineers everywhere. The good ones stay engineers. The bad ones - become managers. Or find a job at Ibiquity. I would hate to make a blanket statement about NPR based on one incident, those guys do a heck of a job on a very limited budget with some of the worse allocations imaginable. The sloppy engineering at Ibiquity is a matter of increasing public and professional attention. It is exceeded only by their arrogance, greed, and attempt to marginalize and belittle any opposition whatsoever to their system.

 

[autopaint-1]

Yes there are good and bad engineers everywhere. I am an engineer for as major network with nearly 30 years of experience. I can only relate my experiences. At least in my part of the country the whole NPR limited budget thing is nonesense. The GM of WNYC earns over 350,000 a year and it is one of but quite a few public stations in this part of the country. Many of these facilities have better equipment than we do at the network level. All I can tell you from personal experience is that there are very few parts of the country with as much RF floating around as we have in NYC and even with two 1A 50 KW stations there is no intereference to any other local facility. There's a 50 KW Iboc station on 660 and 710 as I speak and I can still hear the low power out of market 690 at my house and in the car with no inteference from from either facility. I could never hear any daytime stations on 650, 670, 700 or 720 here. I can still hear the 730 out of Masachusettes. All I can tell you is that I own many analogue (including an Armstrong band wood boxed Philco radio), AM stereo and now the B.A. (forget computers because they are not radios) and my HD rceptor has them all beat considering the size and the selectivity. I am so happy with my B.A. I am considerig replacing my perfectly good car radio with an IBOC unit just so I can listen to the improved audio.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Well, thank you! I enjoyed your last post a lot more than the first. It would seem, however, that IBOC benefits listeners in places like New York a lot more than it does listeners in other parts of the country. Here is an example from our neck of the woods:

AM and FM - The 20 to 30 mile range reported by BA owners would cover only a small portion of the DFW metroplex, which stretches 120 miles east to west and in places 60 miles N-S. So which portion of the metro area do you choose to provide with IBOC, and which do you not? similar problems exist in Houston, and Los Angeles (which has inconvenient mountain ranges in the middle of the city). IBOC will make DX'ers out of many suburban listeners, many of which have deed restriction prohibiting outdoor antennas. Cable and satellite TV got rid of antennas on rooftops - IBOC is going to bring it back if widely adopted. As far as AM - BA better put a much better AM section in their radio, or a much better antenna, and people will have to be trained away from interference generators. Digital cannot recover from high levels of interference, it will drop and leave analog noise in the presence of light dimmers, computers, TVs, automatic night lights, flourescent lights, etc.

AM: When there are precious few stations on the air at all, and IBOC sidebands travel 300 miles on even 5 kW stations daytime - potentially much farther at night, IBOC WILL jam small towns. Before you say that most people live in metro areas - if you assume 80% - that leaves 60 MILLION people in rural areas. That is a population several times the population of New York City, and their needs cannot be ignored. Remember - those sparsely settled Western states with low population still get two Senators each, the same as New York. And when they are cut off from nighttime skywave by high power IBOC stations, they are going to complain to those Senators. This is a conundrum in the making, and the resolution is far from certain. But nothing keeps rural listeners informed like nighttime skywave. Not everybody is connected to broadband internet / has satellite - many of those areas aren't serve by broadband at all, and many of the people cannot afford it.

FM - the ranges above - 20 to 30 miles - won't even begin to penetrate the long distances between towns. On the road - for half an hour to 45 minutes, you can get IBOC. But a full class C goes 130 miles in all directions. That is 3 1/2 to 4 hours you will have them, about half of the time in mono, and half in stereo - IBOC less than an hour. Not very useful - more of a frustration that will make you wish you had satellite that was dependable.

FM - rural listeners - usually spaced 50 to 100 miles from two or more cities. First adjacents are COMMON - and they WILL be jammed. When that is your favorite station, you are going to get ticked off.

My point - somebody did not think the implications of this "service" as it would impact a sizable portion of the population. The principle in American law has always been that your freedom ends where your neighbors nose begins. So I would say - bring on digital - but keep your signal OFF of adjacents - even first! Period! If a system cannot be devised that keeps first adjacents clear, then open a new band for digital. But DON'T jam both bands!

 

[Chuck]

My point - somebody did not think the implications of this "service" as it would impact a sizable portion of the population. The principle in American law has always been that your freedom ends where your neighbors nose begins. So I would say - bring on digital - but keep your signal OFF of adjacents - even first! Period! If a system cannot be devised that keeps first adjacents clear, then open a new band for digital. But DON'T jam both bands!

Just an observation from the Tyler-Longview market, which is about 100-125 miles to the east of the DFW area. We don't generally get reliable FM reception from DFW, especially in the eastern most parts of our market area. Still, there are lots of people who do listen to Dallas FM stations when they can. Those stations do have a following. On the other hand, we do get very reliable reception from several DFW AM stations. A few have been known to show up quite reasonably in the Tyler-Longview Arbitron Ratings. It is not anecdotal evidence that a significant amount of people listen to these stations outside of the DFW area.

Of the DFW AM stations that I can get on my factory Chevy car radio (1991 vintage) those that are running IBOC have loud white noise side bands, just as has been reported by many other people on these boards. For instance, KRLD, 1080 also has white noise on 1070 and 1090. The perceived audible level of these sidebands is about the same as the primary voice channel. Even though the sidebands are supposed to be 1% of the power of the primary signal, they are still strong enough to blanket whatever might be on the adjacent channel. So far, this really isn't a problem, but I think it certainly could be at night, especially if IBOC becomes the defacto standard for radio. Of course, the only way we'll know for sure is to light them all up at night and let the lawyers figure it out.

Somehow that solution bothers me.

 

[SUPERCASTER]

The FMeXtra system provides full power digital FM transmission without the adjacent channel jamming:
www.dreinc.com

The adjacent channel iBiquity/HD Radio system should not get final approval without a complete investigation of alternatives.

Well, thank you! I enjoyed your last post a lot more than the first. It would seem, however, that IBOC benefits listeners in places like New York a lot more than it does listeners in other parts of the country. Here is an example from our neck of the woods:

AM and FM - The 20 to 30 mile range reported by BA owners would cover only a small portion of the DFW metroplex, which stretches 120 miles east to west and in places 60 miles N-S. So which portion of the metro area do you choose to provide with IBOC, and which do you not? similar problems exist in Houston, and Los Angeles (which has inconvenient mountain ranges in the middle of the city). IBOC will make DX'ers out of many suburban listeners, many of which have deed restriction prohibiting outdoor antennas. Cable and satellite TV got rid of antennas on rooftops - IBOC is going to bring it back if widely adopted. As far as AM - BA better put a much better AM section in their radio, or a much better antenna, and people will have to be trained away from interference generators. Digital cannot recover from high levels of interference, it will drop and leave analog noise in the presence of light dimmers, computers, TVs, automatic night lights, flourescent lights, etc.

AM: When there are precious few stations on the air at all, and IBOC sidebands travel 300 miles on even 5 kW stations daytime - potentially much farther at night, IBOC WILL jam small towns. Before you say that most people live in metro areas - if you assume 80% - that leaves 60 MILLION people in rural areas. That is a population several times the population of New York City, and their needs cannot be ignored. Remember - those sparsely settled Western states with low population still get two Senators each, the same as New York. And when they are cut off from nighttime skywave by high power IBOC stations, they are going to complain to those Senators. This is a conundrum in the making, and the resolution is far from certain. But nothing keeps rural listeners informed like nighttime skywave. Not everybody is connected to broadband internet / has satellite - many of those areas aren't serve by broadband at all, and many of the people cannot afford it.

FM - the ranges above - 20 to 30 miles - won't even begin to penetrate the long distances between towns. On the road - for half an hour to 45 minutes, you can get IBOC. But a full class C goes 130 miles in all directions. That is 3 1/2 to 4 hours you will have them, about half of the time in mono, and half in stereo - IBOC less than an hour. Not very useful - more of a frustration that will make you wish you had satellite that was dependable.

FM - rural listeners - usually spaced 50 to 100 miles from two or more cities. First adjacents are COMMON - and they WILL be jammed. When that is your favorite station, you are going to get ticked off.

My point - somebody did not think the implications of this "service" as it would impact a sizable portion of the population. The principle in American law has always been that your freedom ends where your neighbors nose begins. So I would say - bring on digital - but keep your signal OFF of adjacents - even first! Period! If a system cannot be devised that keeps first adjacents clear, then open a new band for digital. But DON'T jam both bands!

 

[autopaint-1]

"The adjacent channel iBiquity/HD Radio system should not get final approval without a complete investigation of alternatives"

I keep reading about this as it relates to FM and to be honest even with IBOC running in my market, I haven't lost one station. Every market is different and I wouldn't speak for one I'm not familiar with but in NYC there is a commercial station on every other channel starting at 92.3 (and I can occassionally hear a few 92.1's but they are nowheer near the NY market) going straight through to 107.9. There are NO available channels in the NY region and IBOC hasn't prevented me from hearing any of them. People write about the lack of available IBOC radios (although there are quite a few for the car and at the moment one for home but that will be changing soon as more come on board) but I have to ask, how many radios are available to receive any of the other competitive systems? Tell me where to buy one locally for a reasonable price and I'll check it out. By the way I hear the new JVC is available for well under 220 dollars, if you search around. the prices are starting to fall. The holiday season should bring lots of new toys this year.