If you check the recent post-NAB edition of RW you'll learn there's big trouble brewing in HD-land, with pubcasters and Alliance pro-HD zealots increasingly at odds over the proposed digital power increase for FM-HD.
A thoughtful, well-crafted and technically unimpeachable field study by NPR has landed with a thud, revealing that almost any digital increase over the current -20 dBc in most populous areas of the country will result in massive tuneout among the vast majority of still-analog listening due to adjacent-channel IBOC interference, particularly in the car. (NPR Engineering Chief Mike Starling dryly notes that most radio listeners do not sit immobile in their living rooms tending to meticulously maintained and installed audiophile receiving systems with sophisticated external antennae, a truism apparently lost on HD-pushers.)
So there it is: NPR won't go for -10 dBc because of the interference debacle which will inevitably result. NPR won't even go for -14 dBc, the current "compromise" being batted around without enthusiasm by ANY of the parties. iBiquity meanwhile attempts the equivalent of lifting oneself by one's own shoelaces, struggling to defuse the disastrous NPR findings without undermining pubradio's critical support for HD which they desperately need. At the NAB there were reports of acrimony between pubcasters and pro-HD Alliance nuts who are evidently bitterly lumping NPR with, one supposes, Bob Savage, in the hated "HD Naysayers Club." (Starling, perhaps anticipating a looming typical HD Radio attack on his professional bona fides, has invited third party critique of NPR's findings by any reputable organization, which would certainly leave out iBiquity, CBS, Greater Media or other self-interested HD liars.)
Check the NPR "HD Interference Calculator." For just about any callsign from the Northeast region you enter you get the same result: -20 dBc is the max. Very occasionally you'll encounter a -18 dBc or a -16 dBc, whoopdee doo, in terms of enhanced digital coverage.
Can a public attack on Starling or NPR by "Guy Wire" be far behind??
Of course, the kicker is: -10 dBc won't improve anything much, even if it were attempted. Ask any sentient broadcast engineer. And virtually nobody's going to indulge in six-figure rebuilds of transmitter sites and double their utility costs just to implement an HD digital power hike.
Footnote: manufacture of HD-AM capable receivers has just about ceased. All the new HD products, like the portables, are FM only.
It's over.
NEXT!
A thoughtful, well-crafted and technically unimpeachable field study by NPR has landed with a thud, revealing that almost any digital increase over the current -20 dBc in most populous areas of the country will result in massive tuneout among the vast majority of still-analog listening due to adjacent-channel IBOC interference, particularly in the car. (NPR Engineering Chief Mike Starling dryly notes that most radio listeners do not sit immobile in their living rooms tending to meticulously maintained and installed audiophile receiving systems with sophisticated external antennae, a truism apparently lost on HD-pushers.)
So there it is: NPR won't go for -10 dBc because of the interference debacle which will inevitably result. NPR won't even go for -14 dBc, the current "compromise" being batted around without enthusiasm by ANY of the parties. iBiquity meanwhile attempts the equivalent of lifting oneself by one's own shoelaces, struggling to defuse the disastrous NPR findings without undermining pubradio's critical support for HD which they desperately need. At the NAB there were reports of acrimony between pubcasters and pro-HD Alliance nuts who are evidently bitterly lumping NPR with, one supposes, Bob Savage, in the hated "HD Naysayers Club." (Starling, perhaps anticipating a looming typical HD Radio attack on his professional bona fides, has invited third party critique of NPR's findings by any reputable organization, which would certainly leave out iBiquity, CBS, Greater Media or other self-interested HD liars.)
Check the NPR "HD Interference Calculator." For just about any callsign from the Northeast region you enter you get the same result: -20 dBc is the max. Very occasionally you'll encounter a -18 dBc or a -16 dBc, whoopdee doo, in terms of enhanced digital coverage.
Can a public attack on Starling or NPR by "Guy Wire" be far behind??
Of course, the kicker is: -10 dBc won't improve anything much, even if it were attempted. Ask any sentient broadcast engineer. And virtually nobody's going to indulge in six-figure rebuilds of transmitter sites and double their utility costs just to implement an HD digital power hike.
Footnote: manufacture of HD-AM capable receivers has just about ceased. All the new HD products, like the portables, are FM only.
It's over.
NEXT!