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FCC to allow All-Digital on AM Band

The technical side of broadcasting. Think IBOC is a sham? Talk about it here! How about HDTV? Post DX reports here as well.
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RingtailedFox
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FCC to allow All-Digital on AM Band

Unread post by RingtailedFox »

Looks like the experiment led by WWFWD (AM 820 Frederick, Virginia) was a success... and definitely interesting enough to have the FCC take a deeper look into it. The FCC has decided to allow for pure-digital on the AM band as a way to potentially revitalize it and perhaps even turn the band back into prime real-estate for broadcasters... at least with higher-fidelity sound (comparable to FM). The FCC acknowledges that the hybrid mode has been a total disaster from interference and making the analog part sound even worse... but that pure-digital could work.

https://www.radioworld.com/tech-and-gea ... Kha0TRYVi4

As for WWFD... it still has analog FM translators (W232DG in Frederick and W252DC in Reston, VA) for those that lack HD Radio recievers...

what are your thoughts, fellow buzzboarders?
~ The Legendary Raccoon-Fox has spoken!
fuzzpower
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Re: FCC to allow All-Digital on AM Band

Unread post by fuzzpower »

How many people listened to the AM digital signal? Can you count it on two hands?
k8jd
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Re: FCC to allow All-Digital on AM Band

Unread post by k8jd »

I wonder if there will be any compatability with existing AM HD/FM HD receivers like in most automobiles and trucks built in the last 9 or 10 years ?
Maybe this will wander from mode to mode of un compatble trasnmission types like AM stereo did ?
Sounds like the swamp water is getting deep again !
Another DIGI mess for example, Amateur Radio Digi modes started with RTTY way back in the 50s, now it hs evolved from mechanical devices to computers and there is a new mode FAD jumping up every few months , now dozens of different modes on the air and you have to buy new computer software, and maybe reconfogure hardware , for each one. I am not directly involved with Amateur DIGI modes but try to keep track of developmants.
innate-in-you
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Re: FCC to allow All-Digital on AM Band

Unread post by innate-in-you »

k8jd wrote: Sun Nov 24, 2019 12:13 pm I wonder if there will be any compatability with existing AM HD/FM HD receivers like in most automobiles and trucks built in the last 9 or 10 years ?
Maybe this will wander from mode to mode of un compatble trasnmission types like AM stereo did ?
Sounds like the swamp water is getting deep again !
Another DIGI mess for example, Amateur Radio Digi modes started with RTTY way back in the 50s, now it hs evolved from mechanical devices to computers and there is a new mode FAD jumping up every few months , now dozens of different modes on the air and you have to buy new computer software, and maybe reconfogure hardware , for each one. I am not directly involved with Amateur DIGI modes but try to keep track of developmants.
Yes, VHF and UHF Amateur activity has dried up, perhaps with the exception of the June and September contests.

It used to be that anyone with 2m or 440Mhz radios could talk to each other. Then they put PL Squelch on every analog repeater input and came out with proprietary, mutually exclusive, digital modes on those digital radios.

Two and 440 are d-e-a-d DEAD!

I still maintain my earlier statement that HD radio for mediumwave was only an afterthought never intended to be a viable medium, rather an answer for MW station owners who asked "What about Us?"
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audiophile
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Re: FCC to allow All-Digital on AM Band

Unread post by audiophile »

I have it and almost never use it, because it sounds like a 24k stream. Yuck!
Ask not what your country can do FOR you; ask what they are about to do TO YOU!!
fuzzpower
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Re: FCC to allow All-Digital on AM Band

Unread post by fuzzpower »

My car is a 2014 model. No HD radio. I don’t plan on shelling out the bucks to upgrade to one.
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WOHO
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Re: FCC to allow All-Digital on AM Band

Unread post by WOHO »

Don't kill the AM band with pure digital. Analog AM that can travel hundreds of miles at night when it all hits the fan needs to be kept. IF, and IF, they feel that they MUST have an all-digital AM signa, then limit it to one small section of the band: the X-band from 1610-1710 only. PERIOD. It ain't gonna help.

Still time to send the FCC Comments on this moronic decision?

True about the ham operators.
F-the PL tones and the 'digital format of the month'- just let people hope on 146.94 and shoot the breeze anytime anywhere before the FCC steals the 2 meter and 440 bands from us. Digital doesn't do jack. You WANT people to be able to hear you on a plain old analog scanner, not have to configure color codes, time slots and talkgroup ID's for DMR - just talk in the clear on FM.
k8jd
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Re: FCC to allow All-Digital on AM Band

Unread post by k8jd »

WOHO wrote: Mon Nov 25, 2019 11:12 am Don't kill the AM band with pure digital. Analog AM that can travel hundreds of miles at night when it all hits the fan needs to be kept. IF, and IF, they feel that they MUST have an all-digital AM signa, then limit it to one small section of the band: the X-band from 1610-1710 only. PERIOD. It ain't gonna help.

Cat walked across my keyboard and wiped out a lengthy comment.

AM nighttime signals could go thousands of miles .That is before the FCC came up with the 750 mile interference Zone for Clear channel stations. Now once you get past 750 miles from the statins you have interference from other stations that were previoulsy not even allowed ay night operation.

One of my favorite stories I tell is about when I lived in Detroit, I had a 1956 Ford car radio set up in my bedroom, I [powered it with a 12 Vac transformer wired across the primary of the vibrator transformer with the vibrator removed, had about 6 ft of wire with one bare end pushed into the antenna socket. One night I found KFI , 640, in LA, coming thru loud and clear. I listened to it until late at night , Great DX bacl in the 60's !
ftballfan
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Re: FCC to allow All-Digital on AM Band

Unread post by ftballfan »

Both of the Jeeps I've had (2014 and 2019) have HD AM/FM radio
Deleted User 14896

Re: FCC to allow All-Digital on AM Band

Unread post by Deleted User 14896 »

WOHO wrote: Mon Nov 25, 2019 11:12 am Don't kill the AM band with pure digital. Analog AM that can travel hundreds of miles at night when it all hits the fan needs to be kept. IF, and IF, they feel that they MUST have an all-digital AM signa, then limit it to one small section of the band: the X-band from 1610-1710 only. PERIOD. It ain't gonna help.
I'll admit up front I'm no expert on this sort of thing. But won't digital be heard further?
When TV was analog, you couldn't DX nearly as far as you can now that it's digital. Am I thinking wrong here?
fuzzpower
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Re: FCC to allow All-Digital on AM Band

Unread post by fuzzpower »

TV DXing was much better in the analog days.
n8fnr
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Re: FCC to allow All-Digital on AM Band

Unread post by n8fnr »

k8jd wrote: Sun Nov 24, 2019 12:13 pm
Another DIGI mess for example, Amateur Radio Digi modes started with RTTY way back in the 50s, now it has evolved from mechanical devices to computers and there is a new mode FAD jumping up every few months , now dozens of different modes on the air and you have to buy new computer software, and maybe reconfigure hardware , for each one. I am not directly involved with Amateur DIGI modes but try to keep track of developments.
Why would you have to buy new software for any ham digi modes except for DMR and D-Star that require you to buy radios for those modes? WSJT is easily the most popular software for HF and is free as are any other modes I can think of. I have been running digi modes for years and have never had to reconfigure any hardware. Hell my rig, a Flex-6400 does not even require an interface.

Zack
N8FNR
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