Seems strange that no one other than IBOC advocates have been able to
verify this superior coverage area. Strange also that observations
possible without HD receivers -- since there are no practical ones
available -- also do not seem to support this notion.
I'll be more inclined to believe this superior coverage when real
listeners, versus advocates, begin to experience it.
I just hesitate to believe that saying something over and over makes it
so. I know politicians do that, and I learned long ago what their
facts are worth.
Curt
W. Curt Deegan
Boca Raton, (Southeast) Florida
David Gleason wrote:
Good points, all.
Keep in mind that no station putting HD on
the air is
looking for anything except audience in their immediate local
groundwave coverage
area. There is literally no revenue for audience outside a station’s
own
metro (save maybe tow or three exceptions) so the fact that HD seems to
cover
the clean signal area better than analog in many real world test
situations supports
its usage. In several tests I have been a part of, the usable HD signal
extends
beyond the usable analog area, so this is a very big thing for us.
Barry,
I monitored WWNN until about 0130est last night. They never dropped
IBOC
and definitely were on day power. I determined that today when I could
see there was no difference from last night.
It is interesting you found no IBOC signal. I don't think anyone has
any
idea what will happen with the skywave component of the IBOC
sidebands.
That was my reason for posting the WWNN screw up last night, thinking
maybe someone
might hear something. Since there are virtually no HD radios, I didn't
expect anyone to actually be able to try to listen, but hearing the
IBOC hiss
interfering with adjacent channels on skywave would have been an
interesting
event.
As my tests show -- link below in signature -- the IBOC sidebands drop
off very fast compared to the analog part of the hybrid signal when
looking at
ground wave with antennas of varying gain. Others have reported a
similar
rapid drop off of the IBOC sidebands with increasing distance, more so
that the
analog component of the signal.
This would seem to indicate a usable HD ground wave signal will cover
less of a
range than a normal analog signal. It remains to be determined what
happens to the skywave and what if any damage it will do without the
hope of
actually reaching any potential audience.
Curt.
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