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Re: [IRCA] KDLG-670 now IBOC
Patrick Martin wrote:
NPR seems to be in love with IBOC, so I presume the rest on the NPR
stations in Alaska will go in that direction. Many have here including
KUOW 1340 and KSJK 1230. If there are listenrs to either KBRW-680 or
KFAR -660 in the area, then they are probably out of luck.
A couple of points here:
While it's true that NPR has been a strong supporter of IBOC, NPR itself
does not own or operate any of the stations that carry its programming.
Those are controlled by several hundred separate licensees, and they're
the ones who make the decisions about whether or not to go digital. NPR
in Washington can try to tell them what to do, but I promise you the
local managers have minds of their own. The fact that so many public
radio stations have adopted IBOC, especially on FM, stems from the
simple fact that they (unlike most commercial stations) have lots and
lots of programming available for multicast streams. We have more shows
available for our WXXI-FM HD3 channel here in Rochester than we have
hours available to plug them all in. It's a nice problem to have.
In the case of the Alaska AMs, the motivation is a little more
complicated. Power is ridiculously expensive in many smaller Alaskan
towns, and a lot of these small AMs are operating on a shoestring. A few
of them have talked about turning off analog AM completely and running
their transmitters digital-only, at much lower power consumption. I've
seen studies that suggest it would actually be cheaper, over the course
of just a few years, to switch off the analog and buy new radios for
listeners than it would be to keep running the power-hungry analog
transmitters.
I think, but am not certain, that if these signals went digital-only,
the digital signals would fall in the station's center channel, not on
the sidebands as they do in the hybrid analog/digital system. Might make
for some VERY interesting DX down the road.
s
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