[BC] Supermodulation

[Mark Humphrey]

These stories about the "supermodulation" wars have
intrigued me, but the heyday of unregulated positive
peaks was a bit before my time.... so here's the
question:  

Were there actually any confirmed and documented cases
of harmful interference that resulted from stations
modulating above 125% positive?  In other words, was a
new FCC rule really needed to protect innocent
bystanders?  Or was this, in fact, only a response to
some politically-connected 50 kW operators crying foul
because the "hot-rodded" 5 kW guys were beating them
in loudness?

If there's really no technical basis for this rule,
why shouldn't we ask to have it taken off the books? 
Let stations do what they want.  AM has evolved into a
mostly "talk" medium over the years and it might be
nice to let more of the natural symmetry of the voices
pass through.  If this increases perceived loudness
and increases apparent signal-to-noise ratio, that's
good, isn't it?

Mark



--- Dave Hultsman <reader at oldradio.com> wrote:
>
> 
> My guess was it was the only way to do the "Super
> Modulation" people 
> wanted. 

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