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RW Article: AM Radio Must Go All Digital
- Thread starter Carmine5
- Start date
I did not read the data wrong. I merely stated the information as presented in RAB's own material. In fact, the RAB fact sheet goes on to say:
"Across the nation, Americans spend increasing amounts of time in their cars — longer commutes, running errands, and taking the kids (and themselves) from activity to activity, 24/7. Radio — the medium that invented “drive time” — is always along for the ride.
Vehicle is primary location for Radio listening." Their words, not mine.
Do you have any secular source material for what you state or is it just your opinion?
It makes it common practice...for people who seemed shocked at such an arrangement.
My source is Nielsen Audio data... and many decades of Arbitron data, 43 years of viewing Arbitron diaries, and breakouts from Arbitron / Nielsen software as to listening location.
You and the RAB are correct in saying that a high percentage of people listen at some time each week while in the car. But they don't listen for long, as commutes are short relative to the time spent at home and at work.
A person may listen for 45 minutes a day in the car, but that same person may, on average, listen for 90 minutes or more while at home and at work. So 2/3 of the commercials run on the radio are not heard while people are in the car. The metric advertisers use is how many people hear each ad.
Two thirds of listening time is NOT spent in the car.
While more people may listen in the car than any place else, more time spent listening takes place out of the car.
You think the future of AM is analog?
Let's put it this way. The recent tests of pure digital AM on WBT in Charlotte at night were amazing (not). During the tests, the nighttime coverage of this 50,000 watt blowtorch gave an amazing usable coverage of 13 (yes thirteen) miles! WOW! Going from an analog coverage of the entire Eastern Seaboard to 13 miles of digital coverage. Is that PROGRESS or is that progress! AM was NEVER meant to provide a digital signal, period. Trying to SQUEEZE a digital signal and squeezing the life's blood on a less than 5 kHz analog piece of spectrum is destroying what is left of the AM band. It's a no-brainer. The IBOC noisemaker should be banned from the AM band. Return AM to the pre-NRSC mask and revisit C-QUAM/Stereo.
R
rbrucecarter5
Guest
My tests, actually tested pretty scientifically, showed a 290 mile range for C-Quam stereo using a Sony SRF-A1 walkman on a 5 kW regional and a 10 kW regional Dallas signal. Post conversion of both stations to HD, one station had a 35 mile stereo range, the other less than 10 miles. With substantial, even dramatic loss of analog range. Significantly weaker analog signals.
I believe that I recall reading that the WBT digital transmitter used for the tests was something around 400 watts. The test was not intended to replicate analog coverage, but to study the use of a digital only signal on AM.
A digital, MW, four hundred watt, crystal clear, 13 mile usable radius, night signal! Impressive numbers if true!
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D
diymedia
Guest
I don't know what the future of AM is, but I'm having a hard time seeing it as HD.
Are you talking about the test the other night? Inside Radio was bragging about how wonderful the results had been
:(http://www.insideradio.com/Article.asp?id=2712477&spid=32060#.UmE_5F_D-cw)
Depends. No one cares about covering the entire Eastern seaboard anymore. Those days ended more than 40 years ago. Radio stations program and sell to their local markets. There are more than enough radio station to cover the entire eastern seaboard, as opposed to how things were 80 years ago. So that's not the goal any more for station owners, nor the FCC. The main problem with AM is it sounds like hell. Even going back to pre NRSC with C-Quam won't fix that. The reason for the FM explosion in the 70s was because it sounded noticeably better, even though the coverage area was more restricted. That was a tradeoff listeners were willing to make.
According to the Inside Radio article it appears WBT used their normal power level and pattern for nighttime operation:
"They occurred when WBT was operating in its normal night-time directional mode, when skywaves carry its signal “from Canada to Cuba,” as the station boasts. Five vehicles equipped with factory-installed HD radios and laptops running custom software to monitor signal reception were used."
It also seems they were monitoring the WBT digital signal for its skywave propagation characteristics:
"Test results of WBT’s all-digital skywave signal are purely anecdotal. Based on feedback from NAB Radio Technology Committee members tuning in up and down the East Coast, it held its own against the analog signal. “The digital skywave propagation was at least on par with analog propagation and was far superior in terms of quality,” Smith says. That’s an about-face from nighttime analog-digital hybrid AM broadcasts, which have been described as a nightmare. In addition to Greater Media engineers, representatives from transmitter manufacturer Nautel, iBiquity and the NAB participated in the tests. - See more at: http://www.insideradio.com/Article.asp?id=2712477&spid=32060#.UmHZ9ChkI21
I really doubt that they were running 50 kw of digital power. AFAIK, there is no AM HD / IBOC transmitter being made in that power level level. Existing AM HD equipped stations are running low fractional power on the digital side.
Even if they built a custom experimental HD transmitter of higher power, there is a question of whether anything larger than the existing HD transmitter would fit in a station's transmitter site without extensive remodeling, electrical work and RF systems.
My read of the article is that they used the normal directional pattern, not the 50 kw power.
The earlier test on 1660 claimed full 10kw digital power.
Although the report also spent some time discussing the problem of *defining* power in the all-digital world. (a problem us TV types are quite familiar with ) In analog AM, when we say WBT runs 50,000 watts, we mean their *carrier* is 50,000 watts.
Hybrid mode IBOC still has that carrier, and there's a reasonably well-defined relationship between the digital power and the carrier. In all-digital mode the carrier no longer exists. So if we say a station is running 10,000 watts of digital power, how exactly are we measuring it?
Although the report also spent some time discussing the problem of *defining* power in the all-digital world. (a problem us TV types are quite familiar with
) In analog AM, when we say WBT runs 50,000 watts, we mean their *carrier* is 50,000 watts. Hybrid mode IBOC still has that carrier, and there's a reasonably well-defined relationship between the digital power and the carrier. In all-digital mode the carrier no longer exists. So if we say a station is running 10,000 watts of digital power, how exactly are we measuring it?
The earlier test on 1660 claimed full 10kw digital power.
Although the report also spent some time discussing the problem of *defining* power in the all-digital world. (a problem us TV types are quite familiar with
Hybrid mode IBOC still has that carrier, and there's a reasonably well-defined relationship between the digital power and the carrier. In all-digital mode the carrier no longer exists. So if we say a station is running 10,000 watts of digital power, how exactly are we measuring it?
Current equivalent IBOC digital levels are about -12dBc. That is roughly the same relationship between analog sidebands and carrier.
NRSC-5-C normative reference Doc. No. SY_SSS_1082s (Rev. F August 24, 2011) provides the technical aspects that you seek.
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Quick do it and get it to the FCC and the big radio owners, they'll lap up anything, we need to go DIGITAL!!!!!!!!
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