| COMMENTS (10) | | Anonymous - 05/03/2010 | | MW has far better coverage than VHF for the same cost. In mountainous areas, an AM station won't want to move to High-HF (with poor night coverage) or to line-of-sight VHF using 10 booster sites (that all have to be maintained) when these restraints can be overcome by using a legacy 575ft tower and 50 kW AM rig with stereo-HD.
Also, DRM on HF won't serve listeners as well as properly DSP'ed AM Stereo or iBOC because (apparently) the DRM standard for MW and SW is incapable of stereo.
Therefore, high-frequency replacements for AM would not benefit stations or listeners, and the focus of the issue SHOULD be on:
-Electronics manufacturers that sell A. Devices which increasingly emit high RF noise levels, and B. AM receivers having crappy sensitivity, no signal processing, and bad audio quality (it's the Year 2010, not 1930, but most AM receivers are deaf to signal, monaural, and muddy-sounding).
-Power companies that ignore defective powerlines creating electrical noise, and that overlook buzz-saw style pulse noise entering the power grid from switching power supplies (a blatant violation of Pt-15 when the WHOLE AM band is obliterated 1/4 mile around the lines).
Increasing AM transmitter powers may help, but the benefit would be small unless the noise-floor issue was fixed and the FCC did some (terribly-needed) channel reallocations. It would ALSO help if the FCC required the more USELESS talk-syndicators that simply parrot satellite feeds that can be heard on multiple AM channels across the daytime band at any given locale to either A. Provide original programming, or B. Leave the AM dial altogether and give other stations more bandwidth. If AM program content were more diverse, original, and enjoyable (i.e. music and real information) instead of snake-oil ads, sports-talk and right-wing propaganda, far more attention would be paid to AM reception, receiver quality, and interference resolution. In some respect, AM stations have themselves to blame in th |
| | James Johnson - 04/29/2010 | | If the power companies would comply with Part 15 rules then the noisy power lines would not cause so much trouble. I have considered the idea of using 26.96 to 27.41 MHz for night transmissions of "AM" stations but I think that a VHF Digital band with DRM would be better. Less Power, More Coverage. VHF Digital. |
| | Anonymous - 04/28/2010 | | Good idea. Let's just allow station groups of seven(7) or fewer AM stations to implement this on their seven(7), or fewer stations. It's about time that the FCC do something beneficial to the public that listens to AM. |
| | Mike Vanhooser - 04/28/2010 | | Let the well established legacy stations increase power, and let the lower powered, local stations move to a new band at 26MHz (or thereabouts) DRM. Then begin integration of new chips into all new radio receivers which can decode DRM and on a date certain in the future all current stations on the AM band switch to DRM, as happened with TV. That is a transition which makes sense, will work flawlessly but unfortunately doesn't feed the pockets of Ibiquity and their parasites. This is the only workable way to bring digital to the MW band. Otherwise, we might as well as abandon the band, as AM must be transitioned to digital to deal with all the noise. |
| | Anonymous - 04/28/2010 | | What???? "Let us not forget, as the FCC Commissioner reminded us at the NAB, "All these radio licenses belong to the government"; they are on loan for us to use." Let us not forget we citizens put the government in place and therefor we the citizens (should) own the Government and therefore the licenses - lest you forget. |
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