Re: [IRCA] Another perspective on AM IBOC, from the broadcasters' mailing list

[Scott Fybush <scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Patrick Martin wrote:
> Barry & Chuck,
> 
> Then in layman's terms, we have two choices if IBOC becomes a reality
> across the band. One, we move on to another band or move pyhsically to
> another location. Any other choices?

That's a somewhat pessimistic way of putting it, which is very much in 
keeping with the way these threads seem to be going.

I'm involved in other hobbies that are slowly being eroded by changing 
times and changing technologies - coin collecting, for instance, where 
clubs like mine (which is about to celebrate its centennial) are coming 
to terms with dwindling (and aging) membership rosters and a lack of new 
blood.

But they've got nothing on this crowd when it comes to turning over 
every possible rock to find the gloomiest possible way to reframe any 
discussion of what might - or might not - happen.

I can certainly understand why there's ample cause for concern. I'm 
worried, too. What I don't get is the apparent desire to drive the last 
nail into the coffin long before we know how this will actually play out.

Here's how I'm looking at the next few years: some frequencies will get 
noisier when night IBOC starts. A handful will become unusable - 1020 in 
the northeast, for instance, when WBZ kicks on at night. (1040's already 
unusable for me, thanks to my local WYSL.) A fair number of channels 
will have only a few - or no - IBOC signals putting enough power in my 
direction to create any more noise than is already there.

But as I keep trying to point out, there's nothing magical about IBOC 
sidebands and skywave. If I can null WWL's 50 kilowatts of analog on 
870, I'm going to be able to null its 500 watts of digital on 860 and 
880, too. (If WWL even runs IBOC, which isn't a done deal AFAIK.) Ditto 
for WBT, or KMOX, or WCCO where I am.

My best guess, based on the stations that already have IBOC installed 
and a few that I know are planning to install it, is that I may 
completely lose between 15 and 20 frequencies when night IBOC kicks in. 
That's not pretty. I'm not happy about it. But for me, at least, it's 
just one more in a series of annoyances that include rising levels of 
ambient electrical noise, an increase in illegal full-power night 
operation, and the breakdown of the clear channels that started decades 
ago, and of which this is just the latest symptom.

And you know what? I think of myself as an optimist. Without being a 
Pollyanna about the whole thing, I can at least be interested in 
studying how the system works once it's in operation. Fact is, nobody 
knows exactly what will happen - how many stations will adopt the 
system, how bad the interference will be in the real world, what sort of 
marketplace backlash there might be if and when stations with 
significant skywave audiences lose them to interference...and, as the 
post that started this thread implied, what developments in receiver 
technology might lie in our collective future.

 From the very beginning of the hobby, DXers have learned to adapt to 
changing technologies and changing band conditions. I'd love to have 
been alive and DXing in the 1930s, or even the 1960s, but here I am in 
2007, at age 35, and I missed those opportunities. I could throw up my 
hands and declare the whole thing dead and go work on upgrading my set 
of commemorative half dollars...or I can try to find some interesting 
challenges in whatever the future holds. I choose the latter.

s
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