[BC] IBUZ in the nulls (Was: Absorbtion by Foliage)

[Rich Wood]

------ At 10:33 AM 10/31/2005, WFIFeng at aol.com wrote: -------

>To those of us who love (and live by) AM, this is very good news! Seeing and
>hearing those two 1mv/m hash signals above and below WOR is proof enough for
>me that IBUZ is not the answer for AM.

I've gotten my hands on a very high quality IBUZ tuner. I've spent 
the weekend driving all over creation testing it. I drove to Hartford 
where WOR has a strong listenable signal. I heard the hash. The 
receiver didn't switch to digital though its scan stopped at 710 when 
in digital only mode.

 From the top of Mt. Tom in Western MA I received every FM ever 
licensed. Many in digital. Mt. Tom is about the same distance from 
Hull, MA (WBZ's site) as Hartford is from WOR's site. Strangely, I 
heard no hash from WBZ in analog mode and good quality (mildly 
processed) digital. News/Talk.

I know WBZ's array is much simpler than WOR's. My wife used to work 
in Hull. I don't recall any other sites anywhere near WBZ's. WOR is 
surrounded with nearby sites.

Like many here, I wonder if the complexity of the array affects the 
level of interference and does digital match the analog pattern? I 
question that because of WOR's strong analog signal but no digital. I 
wonder if WBZ is running higher digital power than WOR. Their analog 
signal quality seemed comparable.

I was hoping to catch the AM Classical in Hartford but I could barely 
hear the analog on the Interstate entering the city North or South. I 
believe it's the old WCCC-AM with 500 watts day at 1290. Now WTMI.

On FM I noticed that the digital dropped out at about the same places 
as analog. Maybe a little earlier. In auto mode the constant 
switching from analog to digital was more annoying than multipath. If 
I were listening for pleasure I'd use analog or digital, not auto 
switching. In most cases the digital died with dignified silence, 
reappearing in spurts. Analog died in its usual way with increasing 
noise but still intelligible until it completely disappeared..

I heard FM artifacts only at Hip Hop at Stop Light levels. I don't 
believe any of the stations I listened to had secondary channels 
operating. At normal listening levels in a car's environment I don't 
think the average listener would consciously notice it. My real 
question is will women find the digital artifacts subconsciously 
annoying and lower their TSL? It'll be a very long time before we'll know.

I'm willing to bet, in a home environment, if you have signal 
problems in analog you'll have signal problems in digital. Also, if 
you connect a receiver to a good home audio system, you'll hear the 
artifacts. That's why SIRIUS and XM are not connected to my home 
theatre system.

And, PLEASE, let's stop referring to digital radio (including 
satellite) as "CD Quality." It ain't unless your audio system sucks 
and everything sounds bad. I played a CD and there was a world of 
difference. To my ears (recording studio trained), in a good signal 
area, car stopped, at normal levels, IBUZ-FM is no better than analog 
FM in fidelity. Driving through Hartford multipath was slightly less 
but signals tended to drop out completely just as the analog signal 
did. Nulls more than multipath.

Since I believe IBUZ is a done deal I'd buy a receiver at $200. 
Otherwise, it's just another way of receiving what I already have. I 
think that's going to be the consumer attitude. Other than NPR 
stations doing music on one channel and talk on the other, I still 
can't see how we're going to promote and sell something that gives 
credit to the main channel. I say this projecting in the future when 
analog goes away and it's all pure digital. I'm assuming the AM hash 
will go away when there's no analog to receive it.

I'm sure I'll have questions/comments when I find someone running a 
secondary channel.

Frankly, I'm thinking of moving without a forwarding address with the 
tuner. Even as a plain vanilla radio it has the best front end I've 
seen since old time radio.

Rich


Rich Wood
Rich Wood Multimedia
Phone: 413-303-9084
FAX: 413-480-0010