Leonard Kahn says he has developed a new technology that will restore AM to 15 kHz stereo fidelity by using digital processing.
“The system, Compatible AM Digital (Cam-D), unlike the pending proposal now before the FCC, will not increase adjacent or co-channel interference,” he said in a statement. The “pending proposal” refers to IBOC.
Kahn, familiar to the industry from his advocacy of AM stereo, said Cam-D could operate day or night and “provide improved fading performance over vast distances at night.” The system is backward-compatible with existing receivers as well as new “digitally-enhanced receivers.”
Some midwestern stations, ranging from a 500-watt AM daytimer to 50 kW AMs with directional antennas, have agreed to test the system to prove that stations using the technology would not interfere with their neighbor’s signals, Kahn stated. He would only name the states: Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin.
The system is based on a number of Kahn’s patents. The scientist said the technology would perform with a station’s existing transmitter and antenna.
He has not withdrawn his Petition for Rule Making filed at the FCC asking the agency to stay its order authorizing IBOC in interim operations, (RW, April 23, page 12). Kahn has amended the petition and asked the FCC to evaluate and compare his system to Ibiquity’s.
Engineers queried about the system said the description was vague and lacked technical details. Several commented that, throughout the terrestrial digital radio rule making, the NRSC and FCC solicited system proposals.
