KDYL Running Cam-D

KDYL(AM) owner Ralph Carlson says he’s been on the air with Leonard Kahn’s Cam-D system for a week. The South Salt Lake City station uses “some” of Kahn’s Powerside equipment in addition to the Cam-D box, which is essentially a digitally processed analog system. Carlson was rather cautious with details as the system is still being tweaked.
Advantages of Cam-D, according to Carlson are that it will not cause co- or adjacent channel interference, no limit skywave reception. “At +- 8 kHz bandwidth, it exceeds NRSC standards,” he says.
Carlson wouldn’t reveal the cost of the system, but said he did not need to buy a new transmitter or antenna system to use it.
With Cam-D, he claims his 10 kW daytime signal can reach about 180 miles away in Green River, Utah. “Normally, our signal wouldn’t go out that far,” says Carlson.
The station runs 450 watts of power at night.
Compatible radios could be out in a year, he believes as there is an unnamed chipmaker lined up for the project, according to Carlson.
The 36-year radio veteran says he’s heard IBOC. “It’s not where I think it should be.”
He acknowledges Kahn is late in developing an alternative to IBOC. “We should have started a couple of years ago.”
We’ve reported a station in Nebraska was running Cam-D earlier this year but was taken off the air for performance reasons. Carlson says that was “not a finished model” and “the owner messed with it” after installation.