• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

FM X-Band 76-87.7 Mhz

Carmine5 said:
As a follow up to this thread, Obama's Jobs Bill, which specifies incentive auctions, sets a threshold of 84 MHz to be auctioned off. This would put the reclaimed spectrum for wireless services down to channel 38. Channel 37 is reserved for medical devices and radio astronomy and would also serve as a buffer between wireless and TV. So the TV band in this case would start at channel 2 and end at channel 36.
Click to expand...

This makes sense. If channels are allocated properly, and some way is found to fix the problems with VHF, this can work. It may mean that some LPTVs, especially in major cities, will have to merge or shut down, but that's the way it goes. If some station wants to take the FCC to court, they can but I don't think they'll have much luck. There is plenty of legal precedence for the feds to move or shut down excess broadcasting stations going back to the 1920s for radio and 1950s for TV.

Full-powered stations should get priority for new channels, and some of that proposed $28 coming from the wireless companies should go directly to these stations to cover moving costs.

In connection with this the CBO has set a date of 2021 by which this spectrum is to be auctioned off. So, at most, it would give broadcasters about 10 years to work out and implement a new ATSC standard (2.0?) that is more bandwidth efficient. The downside is that will obsolete nearly all HDTVs and most broadcast equipment currently in use.
Click to expand...

A standard that is more bandwidth-efficient (read: more-complex modulation schemes) might make matters worse. The current system can't handle multipath very well. It would also obsolete many DTV receivers unless they can connect to the interwebs for firmware upgrades (none of mine can, unfortuntately).
 
We thought channel 37 was originally reserved as a quiet spot for space research.
 
ai4i said:
We thought channel 37 was originally reserved as a quiet spot for space research.
Click to expand...

Per 47 CFR 15.242, some medical devices are allowed to operate there, with restrictions.
 
Interesting thing about channel 37 is that we used to send the channel 3 output of cable converter boxes into block upconverters and the output (almost always on UHF channel 37) to the UHF input of VCR's. Also the straight cable to the VHF input of the VCR. As such, the VCR could be set to record any clear channels plus one premium channel (on 3->37) when we were out. One could do this, probably anywhere in the world, and never ever have to worry about QRM ingressing the line.

MarioMania said:
Why is it takng the FCC this long to decide what to do...?
Click to expand...
We think it took the UK several decades to figure out what to do with their old system A monochrome, VHF TV band when they changed over to the system PAL-I coloUr, UHF band.
They eventually placed DAB on the high VHF frequencies.
Still no word about the low VHF frequencies.
 
Here I would love to see hams get 54-60 as well as 70-72. Then we'll have the old 5-meter band back (plus some) as well as a new 4-meter band like in the U.K. (+1.5Mc. as theirs ends at 70.5). I don't know what else can be done with 54-72.

I still favor the F.M. band starting at 76.1!
 
I was in France, Spain and Italy a few weeks ago and brought along a radio that tuned 76-108. There were quite a few stations below 88 MHz. I seems like the proverbial "no brainer" to me.
 
We Should Expand the FM Band. Let TV Have VHF-hi and UHF.

And someone tell the FCC to lay the heck off on chopping down the spectrum to these lousy broadband spectrum hogs. Make them deal with what they have, Theres plenty of room in the GhZs.
 
KeithE4 said:
MarioMania said:
Well don't put those station on 87.7 or 81.7 in those area's that has DTV 5 & 6
Click to expand...

You'd have to eliminate the entire 76-82.5 or 81.5-88 MHz band in the areas that are using Channels 5 or 6, respectively.  The extra 500 kHz being to disallow an FM station too close to the channel edge (similar to the restrictions on the use of the lowest FM frequencies in Channel 6 territory).  The DTV signal covers the entire 6 MHz channel width.
Click to expand...

Why not expand to 87.5 MHz by relegating TV channel 6 to secondary use (a channel rarely used like Australian TV channels 0,3,4,5 and 5A) or space the FM stations within that 0.6 MHz spectrum between TV stations on channel 6 using existing distance guidelines?

I'm surprised that no one has suggested resurrecting the old pre-war 42-50 MHz FM band along with the 76-88 MHz suggestion, now that Lo-VHF has proven to be worthless for DTV!
 
I think 42-50 mHz is heavily susceptible to interference like E-Skip and Tropo, which is why the FCC moved it, they were trying to avoid a huge mess.

Not To Mention we would all need much bigger antennas on our cars.

But it would be neat to resurrect this forgotten band, which is mostly used for RC Cars and Baby Monitors.
 
Using the band on a secondary basis would be the best option IMHO. Also, AM stations should get the first allocation available, then give the rest to the LPFM and Bible-Bangers. Those that want to hear "special programming" (niche programming) could then go to the trouble of getting something that could hear it. I see it as a huge win for everyone. TV broadcasters need to push back to force the damn government to not steal any more useful (to them) TV spectrum in UHF. They really shouldn't even be on anything lower than 14 these days. It's not in their long-term best intrest. Let the cell guys build more sites or go straight to hell. For national security during disaters and for those that don't want to have to pay to watch TV they need to leave what we have alone.
 
The damn goverment itself is sitting on tons of spectrum so if it wants some space it would like to sell off to it's nice cellular customer, it should look in it's own inventory of wasted space.
 
OKCRadioGuy said:
The damn goverment itself is sitting on tons of spectrum so if it wants some space it would like to sell off to it's nice cellular customer, it should look in it's own inventory of wasted space.
Click to expand...

True, and a lot of it is very underutalized.
 
There really ARE radios that are capable of tuning these channels....they are called "ATSC Digital TV sets". Pretty much every home in America has them.

Before we waste decades trying to filter new FM radios in to peoples homes and cars, which I think would be an even more involved process than getting the AM X-Band receivers out was, how about creating a Digital Radio Service for high-quality listening at home?

Using ATSC, with the MP/H upgrades for better reception, could create a whole new service, capable of carrying anything from mono to DD5.1 surround. It would allow for EPG. The CC capabilities could allow for song titles and extensive artist background information. Some limited amount of video could be broadcast as well. Bring back high-quality audio, without the need for "listen above the road noise" type compression. Give me something to listen to on a great pair of headphones. Give me something to kick back and listen to on nights when TV sucks.
Give me some different genres of music, or some long-form news and features programs.

Don't just give me some more sat-fed, analog FM "translator" channels, from a handful of special-interest programmers.
 
kenglish said:
There really ARE radios that are capable of tuning these channels....they are called "ATSC Digital TV sets". Pretty much every home in America has them.

Before we waste decades trying to filter new FM radios in to peoples homes and cars, which I think would be an even more involved process than getting the AM X-Band receivers out was, how about creating a Digital Radio Service for high-quality listening at home?

Using ATSC, with the MP/H upgrades for better reception, could create a whole new service, capable of carrying anything from mono to DD5.1 surround. It would allow for EPG. The CC capabilities could allow for song titles and extensive artist background information. Some limited amount of video could be broadcast as well. Bring back high-quality audio, without the need for "listen above the road noise" type compression. Give me something to listen to on a great pair of headphones. Give me something to kick back and listen to on nights when TV sucks.
Give me some different genres of music, or some long-form news and features programs.

Don't just give me some more sat-fed, analog FM "translator" channels, from a handful of special-interest programmers.
Click to expand...


I think that the at-home digital radio service should be used for TV channels 2-4 instead of channels 5 and 6 (76-88 MHz) because the FM band is already crowded in many cities and the expansion of the FM dial with help with overcrowding. Furthermore, it will be beneficial to the struggling AM stations, especially the daytime-only and the Class C stations. In the long-term, expansion of the FM dial will create more opportunities for people who want to enter the radio industry but are unable to do so because of the radio oligopoly that exists in today's radio industry with a few companies controlling the overwhelming majority of radio stations in many markets. Finally, it will enhance the diversity of radio, which will make for better radio listening ultimately and allowing for competition that is missing today.
 
I'm thinking the reinstatement of the "7-7-7 Rule" might be better for broadcasting ;) .
But, maybe the "struggling" stations would find a niche in a new Digital Service, rather than fighting more and more of the same Analog FM competitors.

One idea I had, anyway, was (due to the ability of a single TV channel to handle over a hundred DD audio channels) would be to allow for more minority voices. And, a single TV Translator would be capable of sending those channels ALL to another town. So, even the nearby small towns could have the same level of service as the big city.
 
kenglish said:
There really ARE radios that are capable of tuning these channels....they are called "ATSC Digital TV sets". Pretty much every home in America has them.

Before we waste decades trying to filter new FM radios in to peoples homes and cars, which I think would be an even more involved process than getting the AM X-Band receivers out was, how about creating a Digital Radio Service for high-quality listening at home?

Using ATSC, with the MP/H upgrades for better reception, could create a whole new service, capable of carrying anything from mono to DD5.1 surround. It would allow for EPG. The CC capabilities could allow for song titles and extensive artist background information. Some limited amount of video could be broadcast as well. Bring back high-quality audio, without the need for "listen above the road noise" type compression. Give me something to listen to on a great pair of headphones. Give me something to kick back and listen to on nights when TV sucks.
Give me some different genres of music, or some long-form news and features programs.

Don't just give me some more sat-fed, analog FM "translator" channels, from a handful of special-interest programmers.
Click to expand...

I think that would be the best solution for the expanded band. A LPFM/translator ghetto would never succeed. It needs to be something unique. After all, the purchase of new radios would be required anyway.

They should do it like other countries, such as Australia and England, though without all the screwups (operators choosing low quality streams to shoehorn in more stations, difficult upgrades to AAC+, etc.). A form of DAB would allow more stations on the expanded band. By that time, HD Radio would likely have been forgotten, and perhaps the standard FM band could be decluttered a bit.

I know that other countries use much higher frequency spectrums for DAB, but it could work on lower FM.
 
otharadioman said:
kenglish said:
There really ARE radios that are capable of tuning these channels....they are called "ATSC Digital TV sets". Pretty much every home in America has them.

Before we waste decades trying to filter new FM radios in to peoples homes and cars, which I think would be an even more involved process than getting the AM X-Band receivers out was, how about creating a Digital Radio Service for high-quality listening at home?

Using ATSC, with the MP/H upgrades for better reception, could create a whole new service, capable of carrying anything from mono to DD5.1 surround. It would allow for EPG. The CC capabilities could allow for song titles and extensive artist background information. Some limited amount of video could be broadcast as well. Bring back high-quality audio, without the need for "listen above the road noise" type compression. Give me something to listen to on a great pair of headphones. Give me something to kick back and listen to on nights when TV sucks.
Give me some different genres of music, or some long-form news and features programs.

Don't just give me some more sat-fed, analog FM "translator" channels, from a handful of special-interest programmers.
Click to expand...


I think that the at-home digital radio service should be used for TV channels 2-4 instead of channels 5 and 6 (76-88 MHz) because the FM band is already crowded in many cities and the expansion of the FM dial with help with overcrowding. Furthermore, it will be beneficial to the struggling AM stations, especially the daytime-only and the Class C stations. In the long-term, expansion of the FM dial will create more opportunities for people who want to enter the radio industry but are unable to do so because of the radio oligopoly that exists in today's radio industry with a few companies controlling the overwhelming majority of radio stations in many markets. Finally, it will enhance the diversity of radio, which will make for better radio listening ultimately and allowing for competition that is missing today.
Click to expand...

Radio World recently did an editorial on the future of AM which suggested putting AM stations on ATSC either as a sub-channel or M/H which is an interesting and certainly doable idea.

But now that Greg Walden's spectrum auction bill has passed the committee and become part of the JOBS Act there may be even less of a likelihood of channels 5 and 6 being repurposed for FM. I say that because of the protections that are in place for LPTV. The bill specifies that the LPTV service must be preserved. We know full power and Class A stations are protected from being forced onto VHF but not so low power television. As the FCC attempts to preserve LPTV, particularly in impacted markets, expect to see more and more low power stations migrate to VHF including channels 5 & 6 (the higher the channel the better, of course). The FCC has recently given LPTV a power boost to 3 kW for VHF as well as altered the broadcast mask standards in order to better replicate a station's existing coverage.
 
I see that XM Radio would carry all the local radio stations across the country free of charge through a must carry provision. All you would need is a XM radio. For the Premium users, the regular XM subscription would apply. All your AMs along with the Low Power FMs and the non profit stations would all be on FM. AM would be used for broadband. I forsee this 15-20 years from now, give or take. How many television channels can Direct TV or Dish Network handle? Thousands?
 
if we expand the FM band. why not come out with something better like NBFM broadcasting. make it where you can have stations say on 87.7 87.3 86.9 ect in a city/area

im sure it could be done quite easy and still get good audio with it. keep it more for local maybe a 1KW tpo max no translators AM stations could get a fm freq. but if you already have a FM station on the 88-108 band you dont get one unless you turn it in. (thus keeping the corps and the sat feeders from eating up the band)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom