TV Channels 5 & 6 For Digital FM

[Carmine5]

This is just to confirm something that has been suspected among television broadcasters.

According to Hossein Hashemzadeh, head of the FCC's Video Division, all pending TV station applications for channels 5 & 6 have been put on hold until the matter of reassigning that portion of the VHF band to FM has been resolved.

A portion of an email he sent a broadcaster:

"...we received a few petitions to not accept any applications for channels 5 and 6, because there is a petition for rule making pending before the Commission to reassign these channels for FM use.
I am holding these applications until (the) Commission makes a decision on the petition."

While it seems unlikely to me that the BMC proposal of turning this into an all digital radio band would be adopted I can certainly see LP-100's and marginal signal AM stations being assigned channels here. It might even lead to opening an LP-10 window. Both Prometheus and EMF petitioned the FCC last month (July 8) to allow FM broadcasting on 87.9, 87.7 and 87.5. A window for comments could soon open.

So now we need to consider whether giving this portion of the VHF band over to FM is a good idea or not and whether the BMC's proposal for an all digital radio band makes sense. c5

 

[K6JHU]

Since we are starting from scratch on the band, a wholly digital approach makes sense.

If it goes through, we will have a market for those old TV tuners

 

[Carmine5]

I forgot about these blasted emoticons. Prometheus and EMF petitioned the FCC on July 8th to make 87.9, 87.7 and 87.5 immediately available for radio broadcasting.

 

[tomservo]

100 kW on 79.3 MHz. It has a nice ring to it.

 

[K6JHU]

Digital doesn't need 100kw. Don't need more than 10kw (and probably significantly less) to blanket a metropolitan area.

 

[Ai4i]

I would like to see lots of lower powered stations by lots of independent broadcasters springing up

 

[kenglish]

I would like to see lots of lower powered stations by lots of independent broadcasters springing up

Who is going to support them? There are plenty of commercial stations that can't make it right now. Once you buy a license to broadcast, buy rights to program any music, buy equipment, buy licenses to broadcast HD Radio and whatever,.....well, you get the idea of what I'm talking about.

 

[Ai4i]

Community stations and some current pirate stations. New Zealand has a system known as licensed by use. In other words, limit the power and let the stations work out interferrence issues amongst themselves. They can finance any way they want to...municipal governments, commercials, contributions, subscriptions, hopefully not too many church groups.

 

[Ai4i]

Oops, this PDA double posted.

 

[BRNout]

Gotta love how EMF is one of the first to petition for new frequencies. Typical. As if they haven't filled up enough of the existing spectrum with their zombie bird-fed FM's and translators.

IF more spectrum is allotted for broadcasting (a huge if), the last thing it should be used for is another 1,000 repeaters of K-Love and Air One!

 

[audioguy]

I think it should be used exclusively for digital broadcasting. Existing stations, both AM and FM, should be given a channel and a 5-year window to move to the new band or lose it. After 5 years, they would have to sign off their digital hash generator in the legacy band, which would remain for exclusively analog broadcasting on both AM and FM. If the new band didn't take off after 10 years, then all digital transmission would cease and it would become available for reassignment to reduce interference, but no new stations until all existing ones were accommodated.

 

[W2JUV_AL]

According to Hossein Hashemzadeh, head of the FCC's Video Division, all pending TV station applications for channels 5 & 6 have been put on hold until the matter of reassigning that portion of the VHF band to FM has been resolved.
[/quote

Can't be very many applications for TV on chs 5 & 6. Maybe a few low power analogs. In the northeast, I know of two full power DTV's on Ch.6 and both have encountered technical issues with transmitting 8VSB on Ch. 6. Also, most FM rcvrs can tune 87.5,-.7,and -.9 but they don't tune from 76-82mhz (Ch5). So what broadcaster is going to put a digital radio signal on 79.3Mhz if rcvrs in cars can't tune in?

 

[K6JHU]

According to Wikipedia Eureka 147 can have about 100 signals per 200 Khz (if I read that correctly). Channel 5 and 6 would be about 12 MHz. Looks like more than enough room to accomodate everybody. That is why it will never happen

 

[Carmine5]

Can't be very many applications for TV on chs 5 & 6. Maybe a few low power analogs. In the northeast, I know of two full power DTV's on Ch.6 and both have encountered technical issues with transmitting 8VSB on Ch. 6. Also, most FM rcvrs can tune 87.5,-.7,and -.9 but they don't tune from 76-82mhz (Ch5). So what broadcaster is going to put a digital radio signal on 79.3Mhz if rcvrs in cars can't tune in?

Actually, when the rural LDTV (low power digital) window opened last year there was a flood of applications (I received two CPs from it). Several were for channels 5 and 6 for the simple reason that many full power and Class A stations originally on those channels had abandoned them for better propagating UHF while retaining their virtual channels (which in a couple of cases has lead to an interesting fight between low power CP holders and the incumbent stations). A few apps for 5 & 6 have been granted CPs. True, these channels are very difficult for DTV (and nearly useless for Mobile DTV).

But when Commissioner Clyburn expressed interest in the idea of giving 5 and 6 over to radio, the FCC put an immediate freeze on processing any more applications on those channels.

Given that the iPod Nano's FM radio can tune down to 76 MHz it seems to me that there should be little problem getting these HD Radio receivers to tune that low with a ROM update.

The question is: is it a good idea to give channels 5 and 6 over to FM? Will it strengthen radio broadcasting or weaken it with possibly more unsustainable stations? At this point, I'm not entirely sure. c5

 

[MoldaMania182]

I can't imagine this going down without a fight as there are still some big players actually broadcasting on Channel 6 for DTV...ABC (WPVI, Philly) CBS (WRGB Albany) right off the top I know of...After watching the debacle of what would happen with WNYZ-LP/Pulse 87/87.7/Ch 6 in NYC over the last 2 years or so it seems this won't get cleared up any time soon. There are even more LPTVs in this range nationwide...and they still don't have a date mandate to drop analog AFAIK, let alone what will happen to the space. (though many are going digital voluntarily anyway). I think it's going to take a compelling reason to get space changed for type of service, especially when it's still being used...not to mention, no US radio covers covers channel 5 and many don't go below 87.9. (ipod and zune go to 76 under Japan settings but certainly not the default and barely a fraction of FM radios) So the question becomes...why? What's really in it for anyone? Requiring new equipment? ...HD radio has been a hard enough sell as it is and that's taken years.

 

[audioguy]

It could be accomplished on a transitional basis. Many areas have nothing on Channels 5 and 6. That shouldn't preclude the rest of the country from making use of that spectrum. There are a lot of disadvantaged AM's that I think would be very interested in a VHF channel.

Also, the Commission has been floating the idea of making broadcasters pay for their spectrum. Considering that many of these low power operations are marginal anyway, that might convince them to turn in their licenses. Some of these stations only go 5 or 10 miles. How many viewers do they get, especially if they are still broadcasting NTSC and people have to fiddle around with bypassing converter boxes to receive them?

Concerning the receivers-- as has previously been noted, many current FM radios already are capable of tuning down to 76 MHz. Furthermore, FM radios nowadays are more than likely to be a function built into another device such as a music player or cell phone. Consumers buy new versions of those devices very often-- in some cases, every 6 months or so. I don't think it would take long to phase in receivers for the new band once it was opened. The real problem is AM. Most of these devices can't receive the AM band due to wavelength issues and probably never will. I think we should stop sticking our heads in the sand and realize that consumers will only be interested in radio if it works as well as other multimedia services that they can receive.

 

[tomservo]

I just want everyone to step back and think about this from a long term standpoint. We seem to be so interested in what can be done right now that we forget that a proposal like this is a long term project.

It took years of selling radios with the AM expanded band before stations started migrating there. It would need to be years of selling expanded band FM before stations would be able to me. Plenty of time for existing LPTV and LDTV allocations to be shuffled around.

If we are to agree that the expanded band is all digital then that negates the use of iPods {and other mp3 players like my iRiver} with Japan-capable radios because they will be analog only. Maybe we should consider letting the expanded band remain analog with IBOC side channels? Being a new band, the FCC could easily keep the side channels from being an interference concern by altering the rules to accommodate the technology. This would at least make the radios cheaper to manufacture and enable the few Japan-spec radios in use in this country to function immediately.

 

[semoochie]

I believe that current HD Radios receive full digital signals.

 

[audioguy]

The need to think about broadcasting over the long term is precisely the reason why we need to get this spectrum now. Once it is gone, it's probably gone forever. We need this spectrum because the future of radio does not lie between 530 and 1700 kilocycles. I suppose it might be a good idea to allow hybrid digital operation in the new band for a limited period of time. But not indefinitely!

 

[Ai4i]

Let us not forget that in Australia, the FM band was carved out of a chunk of spectrum which had included two or three TV channels. All those TV stations found new homes.