[BC] DA Bandwidth

[Rich Wood]

------ At 02:41 AM 6/3/2006, Phil Alexander wrote: -------

>There will be no opening for further technical discussion. IT IS OVER.
>However, there will be another time if those of us who see very serious
>problems are correct. However, when that time comes, the pressure will
>be for a de facto analog sunset by INCREASING digital power IMHO.

While I agree that that was the original intent and still the cause 
of wet dreams among some, no one has come up with a way to replace 
the hundreds of millions (some say billions) of analog receivers. I'm 
told the receiver royalty is $40 so there will never be really 
inexpensive receivers. No more $9 Wal-Mart specials.

As you know I've done a lot of personal research on receiver 
availability and performance. The level of consumer and retailers' 
aggressive apathy leads me to believe a drop dead date for analog 
would do nothing more than kill radio - both bands. We might see a 
government-approved revival of domestic shortwave.

If the members of the HD Dominion believe pure digital must happen 
ASAP they can make it happen. Turn off their analog signals now. 
Let's see if it'll drive millions of listeners to stores that have 3 
receivers in stock, most set aside for radio stations. I wonder if 
listeners will stick around for as long as it takes to manufacture 
and deliver replacement receivers that haven't even been designed, 
yet. So far, we have two realistic options: the Yamaha $1900 home 
receiver and the Kenwood car tuner. The BA is deaf and the other 
integrated units aren't in stores in sufficient quantities. Still no 
iPod sized receivers that most people are buying today. Even though 
it would screw up my WGN/WGCI experiement I wonder if WGN would be 
willing to shut analog off once their exciter gets back from the 
shop, assuming that's the reason they returned to their historical 
high quality AM

Doing that would prove how sincerely the HD Dominion members believe 
in the system. To be fair, all analog would have to be shut down, not 
just AM. We could do it today as soon as Car Talk is over.

Rich