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Tell me what my station will get from HD radio.

Mike Walker said:
I was actually going by a freind of mine, Paul Whitney, who has provided engineering talent to the FCC, especially on AM matters. I could just as easily have said (I suppose) that "the FCC has access to many engineers who are total idiots".

Probably true of any large organization or agency...a few geniuses, a few idiots (perhaps in equal measure) ;)
Click to expand...

It's not that they're idiots...on the contrary, going to work as an FCC engineer requires some real smarts and lots of prior experience. However, the engineers at the FCC are being overrun and overruled by political agendas, and HD Radio is one of them. Any RF-savvy engineer could have told anyone at the FCC that HD Radio, especially on the AM band, was going to cause interference. Yet another indication of the "done deal." You have to wonder if, for once, the full Commission is listening to their engineers, who very well may have predicted that nighttime HD Radio will render the AM band completely useless.
 
Honestly you need to RUN from doing HD for AM. It'll ruin your analog audio quality, it's range totally stinks and would be so small you'd wonder why you bothered if you're only 500 watts, and will cost you a pile of money. You might even have to do some stuff at your ATU just to make the crap emit from your tower. As others have suggested here, improve your webstreaming. Mulitcast solutions like www.streamerp2p.com may make higher quality broadcasting on the net more affordable too. When WIFI-WIMAX becomes available all over the place, streaming will be your best friend, espeically in a smaller market. How about this idea. Put up a WIFI system that allows decent coverage around town with no net access tied to it, just your streaming audio. Stream the station in multiple bitrates on your wifi network and annouce people can buy one of the several streaming portable tuners that are out there to listen to your station on these new devices... Just a thought.
 
OKCRadioGuy said:
Honestly you need to RUN from doing HD for AM. It'll ruin your analog audio quality, it's range totally stinks and would be so small you'd wonder why you bothered if you're only 500 watts, and will cost you a pile of money. You might even have to do some stuff at your ATU just to make the crap emit from your tower. As others have suggested here, improve your webstreaming. Mulitcast solutions like www.streamerp2p.com may make higher quality broadcasting on the net more affordable too. When WIFI-WIMAX becomes available all over the place, streaming will be your best friend, espeically in a smaller market. How about this idea. Put up a WIFI system that allows decent coverage around town with no net access tied to it, just your streaming audio. Stream the station in multiple bitrates on your wifi network and annouce people can buy one of the several streaming portable tuners that are out there to listen to your station on these new devices... Just a thought.
Click to expand...
Great strategy and wisdom all HD stations should follow.
 
So to recap here is what an AM station owner is facing with IBOC:

1. 50 to 100K to convert to HD Radio
2. Lack of signal coverage/building penetration for low power stations
3. No HD2 or 3 channels possible while hybrid broadcasting
4. Severe degradation of analog signal to accommodate hybrid broadcasting
5. No AM stereo
6. An extra data stream is possible but requires an ongoing license fee to iBiquity
7. A yearly fee to iBiquity for software upgrades
8. Few people have HD radios to hear the benefits of digital broadcasting
9. No nighttime broadcasting of IBOC

Did miss anything? If I were an AM station owner, the decision would be a no brainer. PASS!

db
 
No dbdigital, I think that about sums it up. So, I take it you highly recommend that all AMs convert? ;)
 
Mike Walker said:
No dbdigital, I think that about sums it up. So, I take it you highly recommend that all AMs convert? ;)
Click to expand...

Absolutely! :)

I suppose as a 10th point you could say that there is no way for an AM broadcaster to recoup his/her investment in IBOC based soley on its supposed benefits, especially if hardly anyone is hearing the signal digitally. You can't sell that to an advertiser.

db
 
dumber than a box of hair said:
dbdigital said:
Did miss anything?
Click to expand...

Yep.

10. Causing interference to other stations on 1st-, 2nd- and 3d-adjacent channels...very likely within their IF contours.
Click to expand...

Ah, that's our 10th point.

So, there you have it, Bill. The 10 top reasons NOT to upgrade to AM-HD.

db
 
One more consideration. Your existing stick and ATU combination may be too high an overall Q-factor to allow the 50 Khz passband
necessary for this to work well. You may need to have a different ATU made or need a new antenna.
It is recommended to do an impedance sweep from the common point +/- 15 khz for initial VSWR assessment.
You may have ability to check this, but every step represents $, and this is one of the first that need be taken.
 
Tom Wells said:
One more consideration. Your existing stick and ATU combination may be too high an overall Q-factor to allow the 50 Khz passband
necessary for this to work well. You may need to have a different ATU made or need a new antenna.
It is recommended to do an impedance sweep from the common point +/- 15 khz for initial VSWR assessment.
You may have ability to check this, but every step represents $, and this is one of the first that need be taken.
Click to expand...

...And if the listeners are happy with what they're hearing now, we come back to the basic question: Why go through this whole costly Rube Goldberg exercise at all?


-- Jason
 
Black_Shire questioned:

...And if the listeners are happy with what they're hearing now, we come back to the basic question: Why go through this whole costly Rube Goldberg exercise at all?
Click to expand...

Boggles the mind, doesn't it?
 
OK. Thanks everyone for your input. I had pretty well made up my mind not to put HD on the air, but I learned a long time ago that I don't know all the answers. I try to get information and opinions from many people. I am going to stick to my broadcasting of AM STEREO, and I am going to continue to promote it heavily. There are many car radios out there that can play it and it sounds very good. Now that we know the new HD radios pick up and decode AM Stereo, maybe some of my fellow AM broadcasters will convert or turn it "on" again at stations which have turned it off.
 
One of the main reasons that I got into HD radio for my automobile, was to hear a 10,000 watt AM station, that actually plays good music to listen to, broadcast in FM quality !

And, one of my hopes for the future, is that more relatively powerful AM stations can be acquired by other independent broadcasters, that will indeed play music that is worth listening to. In other words, stations that suceed because their Primary Focus is good music, instead of the typical corporate focus, which does not have playing a good mix of music for mucis lovers. Instead, it's the promotions, and the give-a-ways and the obnoxious chatty DJ's that are in the front seat of those kind of cookie-cutter operations.....

So, maybe the FCC will reign in the '96 De-regualtions, so that all of the AM stations that could do something good musically with HD broadcasts, aren't gobbled up by the Big Media Cookie-Cutter Machinery.
 
TheRover said:
maybe the FCC will reign in the '96 De-regualtions, so that all of the AM stations that could do something good musically with HD broadcasts, aren't gobbled up by the Big Media Cookie-Cutter Machinery.
Click to expand...

Don't hold your breath on that one. Despite the ratcheting regulations (AM stations changing transmitter locations and/or changes in facilities must incorporate measures to reduce interference), it will take decades for this to occur, and meanwhile if HD Radio is lit up at night on the AM band, the entire band will be essentially unusable.

Besides, you don't tell broadcasters in one breath (11 years ago) that they can own more stations, and then tell them today that they can't. That court case wouldn't even be halfway done when our grandchildren are old and gray.
 
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