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Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

The technical side of broadcasting. Think IBOC is a sham? Talk about it here! How about HDTV? Post DX reports here as well.
Marcus
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Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by Marcus » Fri Mar 10, 2023 1:12 pm

https://www.nautel.com/content/user_fil ... s-2021.pdf

It is claimed that this mode is much more immune to static than the standard Amplitude Modulation. Could electric cars could receive it without too much difficulty?



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audiophile
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Re: Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by audiophile » Sat Mar 11, 2023 11:57 am

I doubt it.

An occasional static crash is of much shorter duration and the cyclic redundancy of bits can cover a lot of that.

If it was a continuous hash is not likely to be overcome, or the dropouts would become be annoying.


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SolarMax
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Re: Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by SolarMax » Sat Mar 11, 2023 8:53 pm

WWFD 820 in Frederick MD has been all-digital MA3 exclusively since mid-2018.
Some observations and opinions at

https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and- ... igital-ma3

https://www.insideradio.com/free/hubbar ... 34e0d.html



syntheticexctasy
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Re: Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by syntheticexctasy » Tue Mar 14, 2023 2:53 pm

I'll have to try and DX for this. Would be interesting to hear.

I drive a C-MAX and have no problem with AM reception (HD or otherwise)



billmich88888
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Re: Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by billmich88888 » Thu Mar 16, 2023 1:23 pm

does this do stereo?



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Re: Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by audiophile » Thu Mar 16, 2023 5:44 pm

billmich88888 wrote:
Thu Mar 16, 2023 1:23 pm
does this do stereo?
It does, but it sounds like krap. There is hardly enough bits to carry mono, dividing it up to carry stereo only makes it sound worse.


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billmich88888
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Re: Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by billmich88888 » Fri Mar 17, 2023 8:18 am

I fell in love c-quam stereo, I loved it, AM HD, not so much



syntheticexctasy
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Re: Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by syntheticexctasy » Wed Mar 22, 2023 12:18 pm

billmich88888 wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2023 8:18 am
I fell in love c-quam stereo, I loved it, AM HD, not so much
AM HD in it's current incarnation (hybrid) does indeed suck. Even on FM. I find myself switching a lot to analog manually for a couple reasons

1. analog processing of the audio before it goes out digitally really makes it sound like crap.
2. the low bitrates used make the good ol' analog signal sound like CD quality (Vs an 8kbit real audio file from 1998)

I'd imagine however, if the analog signal were to vanish and bandwidth were to open up, the codec might have a time to shine - problem is barely anyone knows what HD radio is, or cares. There's never been any exclusive content or really any compelling reason to spend any money on it - period (from either end).

The range expansion aspect is very interesting - I have to wonder how a receiver would react within range of two of these digital-only stations which are Co-Channel. Would you simply hear your news broadcast fade into some political broadcast, but digitally?



Marcus
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Re: Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by Marcus » Wed Mar 22, 2023 4:22 pm

On TV when two different digital broadcasts are on the same RF channel with about the same signal strength, there is no picture at all. The same would likely apply to the audio on a digital radio broadcast. Even analog to digital interference can do that. Where I live I can not hear 97.1 WXYT-FM or it's two secondary broadcasts because there are stations on both 96.9 and 97.3 near Port Huron.



syntheticexctasy
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Re: Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by syntheticexctasy » Thu Mar 23, 2023 7:58 am

Marcus wrote:
Wed Mar 22, 2023 4:22 pm
On TV when two different digital broadcasts are on the same RF channel with about the same signal strength, there is no picture at all. The same would likely apply to the audio on a digital radio broadcast. Even analog to digital interference can do that. Where I live I can not hear 97.1 WXYT-FM or it's two secondary broadcasts because there are stations on both 96.9 and 97.3 near Port Huron.
I'm not so sure about that - IBOC is quite a different animal from ATSC. ATSC has no protections built in for CCI, multipath, etc. IBOC is supposed to be more robust in that regard (due to the nature of moving targets)



paul8539
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Re: Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by paul8539 » Mon Mar 27, 2023 10:25 am

Is WWFD 820 the station that WTOP in Washington uses as its AM station now? Back when I was stationed in DC, WTOP was AM on 1500, then got an FM station, then got 820 Frederick, then moved to FM and 'Federal News Radio' took over 1500. WTOP was the WWJ of the DC area; news, traffic, and weather. What frequency are they broadcasting on now?



k8jd
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Re: Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by k8jd » Wed Mar 29, 2023 7:44 pm

no mention of WWFD being only digital in it's Radiolocator page . I guess they have no way to do something so unexpected !



k8jd
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Re: Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by k8jd » Wed Mar 29, 2023 7:46 pm

syntheticexctasy wrote:
Tue Mar 14, 2023 2:53 pm
I'll have to try and DX for this. Would be interesting to hear.

I drive a C-MAX and have no problem with AM reception (HD or otherwise)
SO...What's a C-MAX? is it hybrid ?



syntheticexctasy
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Re: Nautel MA3 All Digital AM

Post by syntheticexctasy » Thu Mar 30, 2023 12:00 pm

k8jd wrote:
Wed Mar 29, 2023 7:46 pm
syntheticexctasy wrote:
Tue Mar 14, 2023 2:53 pm
I'll have to try and DX for this. Would be interesting to hear.

I drive a C-MAX and have no problem with AM reception (HD or otherwise)
SO...What's a C-MAX? is it hybrid ?
indeed, it is.



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