[BC] Expanding AM & FM (was: Can traditional AM and IBOC co-exist?)

[Kevin Tekel]

Peter H. wrote:
> Incidentally, in about 1980, when Region 2 was considering going to
> 9 kHz, General Electric made a very nice digitally tuned "clock radio"
> which has switch selectable 10/9 kHz channel spacing. Also, I have a
> Volvo which has firmware selectable 9/10 kHz channel spacing.

I have a German-made Becker car radio, circa 1980, which has digital
tuning in 3 kHz steps on AM.  That way, no matter what channel spacing
is used, you'll never be more than 1 kHz off from a station's actual
frequency.  Newer Becker radios took this a step further by offering
1 kHz tuning increments on AM and 25 kHz tuning increments on FM.

Many radios these days tune from 520 to 1720 kHz on AM (the newer Becker
car radios tune all the way down to 510 kHz on AM, but that's rare).
520 to 1710 is more common, and 530 to 1710 is virtually universal,
except for a few radios which only go up to 1700.  1710 kHz was supposed
to be used for TIS stations, but so far the FCC has only given out one
license for a TIS-class station on 1710 kHz.  Similarly, 1610 kHz was
supposed to be used by full-power Expanded Band stations, but isn't;
I guess they gave up on the idea of moving all the TIS'es on 1610 up to
1710.

The FM band could also be expanded down to 87.5 MHz in areas with no
Channel 6 TV station, but there are quite a few radios which only tune
down to 87.9 or 87.7 on FM.  Some digital FM tuners also go up to
108.1 MHz, but that's in the aircraft band so it's not likely to be used
by any legally licensed FM broadcast stations.  However, there are
numerous pirates which broadcast on 87.5 MHz, sometimes even irrespective
if there's any local or semi-local Channel 6 TV station which they're
squashing.




		
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