Should fcc open Japan fm dial in USA

[KeithE4]

Now the rent-an-hour SW stations run anything, and many of the programs target the US audience. The FCC does not seem to care as those stations barely survive in an era where SW is for all practical purposes, dead in the Western Hemisphere.

Apparently they don't care if these stations transmit on what were forbidden bands north of the Tropic of Cancer, either. American broadcasters have been on the 60 and 90 meter bands for several years now.

 

[DavidEduardo]

DRM stands for "Dead Radio Moribund." There are only a relative handful of DRM broadcasters on shortwave.

But India is going to roll out national MW service using DRM, and has awarded contracts for the first phase covering all the major markets.

 

[DavidEduardo]

Which brings up another topic if I may forgiven for briefly derailling the thread for it. Since Smith-Mundt, for most practical intents and purposes, was mostly repealled*, what do you suppose the chances of a "VOA domestic" service in the next 10-15 years are on broadcast MW/FM air? I'm thinking... NPR Ibiquity secondary. Supposedly as a result they were airing, for a while, an experimental programme on their shortwave service with slow-scan images that, from what I read, seemed to be targetted specifically at the US.

*National Defence Authorisation Act for Fiscal Year 2013.

With NPR in existence, I can't see this getting any funding. The center and left will want more NPR funding, and the right will not want another government voice with "all those liberal journalists in Washington". It's a lose-lose idea.

 

[MarioMania]

Wiw, Way beating a dead horse

I even made a post about it, It's not going to happen

 

[KeithE4]

But India is going to roll out national MW service using DRM, and has awarded contracts for the first phase covering all the major markets.

Interesting. I wonder how well it'll work with MW propagation. I'd guess that it'd be better than on shortwave, and better than IBOC since it's supposed to be a better system.

 

[Carmine5]

DRM stands for "Dead Radio Moribund." There are only a relative handful of DRM broadcasters on shortwave.

BTW, a 1/2 wave dipole cut for 26.8 MHz is about 17 feet long, much longer than the 5-foot FM dipole antenna.

The photos for the DRM test showed a roof-mounted antenna that was larger than a near-by 2-bay FM array on the same building but it was difficult to tell how much larger. But it does show that an antenna for domestic broadcasting in this band can be roof-mounted and relatively low-profile. The test city was Zagreb which has a population of about 790,000. The contour map showed that the test signal covered Zagreb completely.