[BC] Re: Solving the problem

[Davis, Steve - SVP]

> From: broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net on behalf of Robert Meuser
> 
> Williams, Chris (Albuquerque) wrote:
> 
>  > Remember the FCC said develop IN BAND technology not 
>  > Ibiquity. I am surprised that that isn't debated more then 
>  > how bad IBOC by Ibiquity is.
> 
> The FCC said nothing. The industry could have had a separate 
> band but did not want it. This is now XM and Sirius (talk 
> about shooting one's self in the foot). They should have 
> filled up the band just to prevent competition.
> 
> We have in band because the industry wanted and developed the 
> early part of it themselves.
> 
> R
>  >
>  > Imagine a band created where we could set the bitrates to 
>  > whatever we want and do 5.1 or truly HD radio...........oh 
>  > wait Im sleep typing again. 
> See above. Broadcasters gave it away.
> 
> R

Sorry I haven't posted lately.  If you've been reading the trades you'll
know our engineering team has been embroiled in the HD2 rollout.  Things
have been pretty busy here.

Robert is correct, the FCC did not mandate anything.  Radio broadcasters
saw what was happening with HDTV in the US and Eureka-147 abroad.  We
saw the industry migrating to digital and didn't want to get left
behind.  So a number of broadcast companies (initially, CBS,
Westinghouse and Gannett) formed a company, "USADR", offering up their
brightest engineers, to try and come up with a means by which radio
could broadcast in digital, which was deemed necessary to remain
competitive.  Later more companies joined the group, and provided funds
and engineering talent.  Ultimately Lucent Technologies merged into this
group and we got IBiquity.  So, yes broadcasters developed this
ourselves.

"IBAC" ("In-band ALTERNATE channel", the system used today by TV) was
explored, as well as "IBOC" which we have today.  Engineering studies
revealed that there weren't enough open frequencies available for all
current aural broadcasters in all markets to also have a "digital"
channel as was done for TV, even during some to-be-determined interim
"transitional period".  Folks like Dana Puopolo who are actively
involved in the allocations process know just how scarce frequencies in
desirable locations are today.  And who would be left out?  So
ultimately this approach was scrapped.  

I am not sure what frequencies Robert is saying broadcasters "gave
away".  Robert are you referring to the band used by satellite?  If so,
remember that this band was set up by the FCC to be used for non-local,
national broadcasting only.  There are prohibitions on local origination
even on the associated terrestrial repeaters.  So we couldn't carve up
the band and put terrestrial digital radio on it.  Could terrestrial
broadcasters bid on this band and also enter the satellite broadcasting
business?  Absolutely.  My company, among others, did in fact bid on
those frequencies, but alas we were outbid.  The only thing that would
have changed would be who owned the satellite service.  The satellite
service is what it is by regulatory design.

As an alternative to IBOC the industry looked at L-Band (which Eureka is
using in many foreign markets) but sufficient spectrum simply wasn't
available in the US.  S-band was investigated but not only were there
other contenders for this spectrum, but the propagation characteristcs
of so high a frequency were deemed a significant obstacle.

TV channel 6 and any other NTSC TV channels weren't available when
digital terrestrial radio was originally being developed, nor was there
any clear indication that it might become available.  In fact there's no
guarantee that it will be available to us in the future, although the
potential to use it could exist once the FCC mandated TV transition to
digital has been completed.  I certainly have no objection to using a TV
channel for a digital radio service, FM or (better still) AM (it
wouldn't really be "AM" though ...).  If that spectrum is made available
in a public auction and the allowed use doesn't exclude local
terrestrial aural broadcasting, I'd be very interested in bidding on it.
Perhaps broadcasters could obtain these frequencies for less than the
multi-millions of dollars we've spent to date acquiring the stations on
the "free" frequencies.

AM IBOC does pose significant challenges, due primarily to (a) the 10
kHz channel spacing (which limits potential bitrates), (b) propagation
variabilities (time of day, seasonal and atmospheric conditions), (c)
congestion in the band and (d) variations in bandwidth and adjustment of
AM arrays from station to station.  Because of these challenges, in the
initial development of an in-band digital transmission system, AM was
excluded from the design spec.  However AM owners protested and
broadcasters wouldn't unite on a digital standard unless and until that
standard provided for both FM AND AM broadcasters.

In a future post (hopefully early next week) I'll address some of the
challenges in making the in-band digital system work for AM, and suggest
some solutions.  A word of warning: there are no "silver bullets" or
"quick fixes" that we're aware of.

My company, Clear Channel Radio, was named for the class 1A Clear
Channel AM stations which form a major part of our station portfolio.
One of our very first acquisitions was WOAI, a 50 KW Clear Channel
station in San Antonio, Texas on 1200 kHz.  In the '90s when many
broadcasters were acquiring primarily FM stations, we aggressively
pursued AM stations.  We own more AM stations, and more Clear Channel AM
stations, than any other broadcaster, and our highest-paid talent and
highest cost programming is generally on the AM band (Rich and others
here know the costs associated with a full service news-talk operation)
so any interference or harm to that band can be expected to harm us more
than anyone else.  Thus we take the possibility of interference very
seriously.  

In the meantime if you are experiencing interference to one of your AM
stations from a Clear Channel Radio station (whether due to IBOC or
not), or know of such interference, please let me know via e-mail.  I've
been reading with interest the reports of interference in and around
Boston, and while in that case neither the station causing nor receiving
the interference are owned by my company, I'm still asking our engineers
in that area to look into this issue.  When reporting interference,
please provide the frequency and call sign of the station experiencing
the interference, the same for the station causing the interference, and
the general location and time of day where/when this was observed.  Also
if you are an engineer and have a field meter handy it would be helpful
if you'd let me know the field intensity readings for the two stations
-- that's not required though.

Thanks,

Steve Davis
An old-line engineer trying to make it in the digital age.