Will Pittsburgh Be The Test Site for All Digital AM?

[secondchoice]

Here is where the folks at iBiquity could make a difference.

#1 I am sure the average HD radio has a scan button, make it a "requirement" that when the HD scan button is pushed the radio show (or stop at) AM HD signals just like FM HD signals.

#2 Then if iBiquity would lower the receiver cost (royalty fee) to something less than a dollar (25 cents a great price) they would sell literally millions a month (# of car radios + personal listening devices) I know AM mostlikely will not work on personal listening devices but the car radios work now. This would give AM's a reason to upgrade. As for the AM band issue the slight difference in audio quality is that much less than a MP3 with the listeners wearing only one earplug walking around in stores instead of both for the full stereo effect.

The FCC could help AM by making a non class A's AMs count as only one half a station in the ownership caps in the sub 20 markets.

 

[Tom Wells]

Then don't call it the AM band. Few people understand megahertz, AM v FM, propagation, etc. anyway.

Call it the New Super High Definition Audio Band. Forget frequencies. Start at the bottom and call it Channel 1000. 10kHz up is Channel 1100. Or forget numbers and have Channel AA, Channel AB, etc. Whatever.

Maybe we could go back to wavelength instead.

Instead of scaling the wave's measurement with something boring like meters, let's measure with something exotic, like furlongs or cubits.

 

[w9wi]

The FCC could help AM by making a non class A's AMs count as only one half a station in the ownership caps in the sub 20 markets.

IMHO... since the fundamental technical problem with AM is the ridiculous number of stations stuffed into the band... any fix that makes it easier for failing stations to survive is actually counter-productive. It would be *good* for the AM service for stations to fail & leave the air permanently -- it leaves more elbow room for the survivors.

 

[hypwr]

Good point. There are at least two stations in the Pgh. area whose property is worth more than the license. So shutting down could be profitable.

 

[Savage]

I would suggest tax credits for anyone who takes an AM daytimer silent and turns in the license. Maybe if they have an FM translator, they could retain and operate that without the accompanying AM. There are a lot of AMs now which exist solely as a primary. In some cases the AM is off the air for days while the translator continues merrily on.

 

[w9wi]

I would suggest tax credits for anyone who takes an AM daytimer silent and turns in the license. Maybe if they have an FM translator, they could retain and operate that without the accompanying AM. There are a lot of AMs now which exist solely as a primary. In some cases the AM is off the air for days while the translator continues merrily on.

I think the problem with using tax credits is that many of the stations causing the most interference are losing money -- they don't owe any taxes to be credited...

If we did go with credits... I would suggest establishing a fixed pool of credits -- say, $10,000,000 to toss out a number -- and hold a "reverse reverse auction".

Each station would be asked to inform the FCC of a price, an amount of credits that station would want if they were to turn in their license. ("there is no amount of money that will get me to sell my station" would be a valid answer)

The Commission would buy the cheapest station first, and then the next cheapest, and so on until they ran out of the pool of credits.

The survivors would be allowed to spread out in the "elbow room" created by the deleted stations.

--

On the translator front... I'd be afraid that simply allowing an AM station to operate translators without keeping the AM operating would result in a stampede for new AM permits. Permits that would be built just long enough to get licensed and justify a few translators -- but would in the meantime preclude actual AM service.

I'd suggest giving first shot in shutting down the AM to the oldest stations. For example, only AM stations licensed for 50 years or more would be allowed to operate their translator(s) without the AM. As each year went by, more stations would be more than 50 years old & would qualify.

 

[secondchoice]

Kill off non viable AM's would be a plus but back on the All digital angle:

I was just thinking you can run 56K over POTS with a bandwidth under 3.5K or 4k (your local phone service may be better, but by tariff you are paying for under 4K). Could an all digital AM be able to support 128Kbps or even 160 Kbps for MP3 "CD quality"? I bet there is some really good mathematical type could figure or there is an existing compression scheme that could squeeze 160 Kbps into 9 k bandwidth.

 

[w9wi]

Kill off non viable AM's would be a plus but back on the All digital angle:

I was just thinking you can run 56K over POTS with a bandwidth under 3.5K or 4k (your local phone service may be better, but by tariff you are paying for under 4K). Could an all digital AM be able to support 128Kbps or even 160 Kbps for MP3 "CD quality"? I bet there is some really good mathematical type could figure or there is an existing compression scheme that could squeeze 160 Kbps into 9 k bandwidth.

The problem is that your POTS is a much quieter & more consistent circuit. You could get more data into the AM channel bandwidth, but you'd lose so many bits to interference, noise, and propagation variations that the receiver wouldn't be able to decode it. Most radio-based digital systems include a fair bit of redundancy, to make sure enough data can actually be recovered to make the thing work...

 

[hypwr]

The real test will be at night with all the sky-wave fading and other stations jumping in and out. The interference-free zone may only be a couple of miles out from the antenna.