[BC] Skywave dying

[Kevin Tekel]

Stan Tacker wrote:
> Remember how many stations installed AM stereo then turned it off
> because they lost a bit of loudness?  Will IBOC, with it's greater
> demands on the transmission system, be any different?  My money says no.
> It won't be around long.

IBOC *is* different, because it's much worse.

Installation of AM Stereo actually yielded a noticeable *improvement* for
existing listeners because it gave stations an excuse to retire well-worn
tube transmitters, install new multiband audio processing, and perform a
thorough bandwidth optimization on their directional arrays.  This made
analog AM sound better than ever, even for mono listeners.

Today, stations are performing similar upgrades to accomodate IBOC, but
any potential improvements are totally wasted by the fact that AM IBOC is
a horrible kludge of a system that makes analog AM receivers sound worse
than ever before.  Telephone-like audio bandwidth, clipping and ringing
distortions from overdriven 5 kHz brickwall filters, and a constant
background hiss due to imbalanced IBOC sidebands is a great way to drive
away any remaining listeners and turn them into satellite radio believers.

And the real spit-in-the-face is the fact that the best-sounding analog AM
receivers suddenly turn into the WORST-sounding receivers when tuned to an
IBOC signal!

p.s. To all the AM stations out there: Do you like 24/7 IBOC?  Relight
your C-Quam pilot to say *NO*!




 
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