[BC] RE: IBOC

[Michael Dinger]

On why they just didn't open up a new piece of spectrum:

As I understand it, the FCC proposed just such a solution about 15 years 
ago.  It was soundly shot down by the NAB and certain owners of large 
AM's.  Reason:  It would have put all stations on equal footing for 
coverage.  So if you are the owner of a big 50 kw AM for example, you 
would have a lot of new competition.  "why should the little peanut 
whistle on a graveyard AM frequency get the same as us!"  The slice of 
spectrum proposed for this was the 2.3GHz band.  Guess what is there 
now?  Isn't it something called XM and Sirius????

On IBOC in general:

The fact is blatantly obvious that a number on this list are dead set 
against it.  My view is this:  We may be getting asked to make the 
proverbial silk purse out of a sows ear, but it is our job as engineers 
to find a way to do it.  I had the honor of lighting up the very first 
HD station in my company (WSSR FM) Memorial Day weekend and will do 
another late next month (WERV FM), and even I am impressed with the 
difference.  The first thing you notice is how hampered we have been for 
the last 50+ years with a 75 us pre-emphasis curve and how each detail 
and nuance comes through.  (for better or worse!  I discovered a high 
pitch whistle in the STL that was masked by analog.)  To make it an 
event for the staff, I asked the PD of the station involved to come out 
and "push the button".  He was thrilled to be involved! 

I have been listening heavy to WBBM in HD the last couple of days, and 
the improvement even on an all news format is nothing short of 
astounding.  The voices are much more intelligible and you can almost 
discern which actuality cuts were recorded on different machines!  The 
other AM HD in the market that I have a probability of listening to, 
WRLL 1690, still has a bit of work to do to get their audio right.  
Granted the just turned it on, but it almost sounds like they are 
feeding the NRSC pre-emphasized audio into the HD channel.  The station 
format is oldies and I'm sure when they are done with all of the 
tweaking it will be a great sounding HD channel.  (Not to take away 
anything from the other HD AM in the market, WRTO.  But it is a 
Univision station and I don't know Spanish!)

In short my thing is this, Stop bitching about how bad it is and find a 
way to make it work.  We are engineers aren't we?  We should 
collectively be able to  McGuyver something together that would benefit 
all and not just moan about what we are handed.

Oh, and to those that bitch about an annual license fee, unless you are 
reading a different Ibiquity license than I am, there is NO ANNUAL FEE 
for the main channel.  Only for the secondary channels and data services 
and those are waived through the end of this year.  It is a 3% royalty 
on the gross revenue of those services.  Simple way around that, just 
don't charge for them.  Run them as a value added to your main channel.  
(ex: promo on main channel, "Keeping you up to date, continuous weather 
and traffic on WXYZ-HD3...")

Michael Dinger
Chief Engineer
Next Media
Joliet/Aurora IL
WJOL AM/WSSR/WRXQ/WCCQ/WERV