The AM Forum

another fool wants am off the band
thinks now that the broadcasters are off part of 40 fone
the am ops " with their modified cb gear " should stay off the band

yours truly
mac
dit dit

link-

Removed link.  Nuff said elsewhere.

I think the guy who wrote that is right.

We should have the ARRL make up a chart and straighten us all out.

 ::)

A certifiable idiot who got rightly trounced.  So far 9 comments, all negative and critical of his  idiocy.   10, including mine.   

Cretin.

His call suffix is appropriate.

Just an exercise - If we were to to consider eliminating AM from the VHF aircraft band, what phone mode would we institute there?

If you were to remove AM from the aircraft band (and what would drive that? Bandwidth considerations?) one issue to keep in mind is that AM was retained in part because it allows people monitoring the frequency to tell if more than one aircraft is transmitting.

If two planes 'double' generally the listeners hear a heterodyne and some parts of both audio and it's clear that there has been an overlap of transmissions and the tower (if there is one) and the pilots can sort it out. With FM capture effect, it's possible for one plane's signal to totally dominate the receiver and so no one may be aware there is a second aircraft trying to communicate. Since most communication is done during the approach and landing phase when aircraft are close to the field, it's more critical to be aware of the presence of other aircraft, especially in the pattern.

I'd say retain AM, but if it had to change for bandwidth, then something like SSB with a pilot carrier for frequency lock would probably make most sense. FM wouldn't save bandwidth and has the capture effect issue. SSB you can at least hear audio from both transmitters. I know, blasphemy!  ;D

There is a large installed base of AM gear which would be expensive to replace. Bandwidth is somewhat of a consideration, but there aren't that many users - about 4000 commercial aircraft and about half a million GA birds ranging from Cub's and ELSA's like mine to G3's. The number aloft at one time and using the frequencies (720 channels, 12.5 Khz spacing) just isn't all that high. (although the range of coverage from a few thousand feet is impressive. I work repeaters 75 miles away on 50 mw all the time with my FT51R and a rubber duck hanging off the bottom of the plane. )

One goal for this flying season is to rig up a trailing wire antenna for 75 or 40 meters and make some AM contacts with my HF rig on board. Have to do some noise suppression on the ignitions system first though!

Interesting and most predictable thread. Obviously N0AH is a troll who enjoys attention and the incoming comments feed his ego. No amount of debate will change his mind or the minds of those who crawl out of the same dark place now and then. I am disappointed that e-ham would allow a thread like this to exist. It really serves no constructive purpose.

Rob W1AEX

Excactly. And I would contend the same holds here.

Just one more ignorant opinion.    Opinions are like assholes - everyone's got one.   Ignore the idiot.
I have no idea where his CB references came from.   Maybe the guy is an ex-freebander, who  scoffs at, and considers AM to be beneath his dignity?   His whole post is  a mess of misinformation, lies,  half-truths and nonsense.   

I have a feeling the "station in Michigan" was actually in Illinois... like me!

I have been running my robot quite a bit on 7160 when there is no one around.

That said, the problem he refers to works both ways.

I was in QSO with two non local stations on 7160 several nights ago and right in the middle of our very pleasant chat, some slop bucket from Spain starts calling CQ right on our freq.  This was followed by about 10 billion DX slobs throwing out their call signs.

I announced that the freq was in use but if the CQer would care to join, he would be more than welcome.  Bang!  More DX slobs.  I kept repeating my announcement and after a few minutes, the guy in Spain moved down a few kc's but all the DX slobs stayed on our freq.

So much for who is doing what to whom.

BTW, don't you love his comment that you can get DXCC in a week with a wire using a slob bucket?

Sort of says it all....

js

IMHO, these DX certificate chasers are THE most rabid hams, even more than contesters.  The whole ham community should clear the freq so he can work his missing section on the way to getting his IMPORTANT piece of wallpaper.  Why can't other hams understand that DX hunting is the HIGHEST priority!! :P

It isn't?

You're feeding the trolls, guys. Don't think for one second he's not reading this. All he has to do is google his own callsign and this thread will come up.

All he had to do was post once, and the followups have been steady and endless ever since; on eHam, and here. Now the infighting has begun over on eHam, just like he wanted. He won, everyone who responded lost.

Stop giving him exactly what he's looking for, and kill this thread already.

So what if somebody feeds the trolls on some two-bit internet discussion group?  Let him have his fun.  While he is reading the responses to his "article", he isn't somewhere else making an obnoxious slopbucket ass of himself over the air.

Maybe one of these would come in handy....

 :D

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rockwell-Collins-HF-80-205J3-45KW-SSB-AMP-with-Exciter_W0QQitemZ250405366121QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item250405366121&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2%7C65%3A15%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

Instead, he makes even bigger asses out of everyone giving him the attention. If you don't mind being that kind of ass, have at it.

I don't see any reason he can't be an ass on the air while reading the asses tripping over each other to say what an ass he is.

Mmmm...Drama **munches popcorn**
(http://www.wdisneyw.com/forums/images/smilies05/popcorn.gif)

There are a number of other slopbuckets who believe the same as AH. They ARE making pests of themselves near AM activity trying to run it off. I had a short QSO with one a couple of weeks back. Unlike the 3 other deliberate qwermers he was talking with, this guy actually admitted he knew the heterodyne heard on 7160 was amateur activity. I think he didn't expect anyone using AM to get on slopbucket and ask...why.....The usual rationalization was then heard.  The other guys were playing the QRM game pretending there is a broadcast station still there. I know at least one of these guys knows better. The fun part is he lives less than 3 miles away from me! More to follow maybe....

Just strap softly and turn up the wick.

What pisses me off about the whole thing is that U.S. amateurs, and U.S. amateurs alone, are forbidden to operate phone on 7075-7125, where so much foreign phone activity takes place, yet the DX'ers who insist that we continue to set aside a huge  chunk of the band to maintain a separate "DX phone band", have the gall to piss and moan about a little AM in the vicinity of 7160.

Continental U.S. is like the Jim Crow south before the civil rights era.  When operating phone, we are relegated to the back of the 40m bus.

 ;D ;D

Funny, but since SSB  IS  AM you'd think we'd all get along.

Virtually all phone transmissions on HF are by definition, amplitude modulation (ok maybe some out there is using nbfm somewhere).

there are no disticntions between which phone mode you use, as long as your in the phone portion of the band you're legal and good to go.

If anything, SSB is the "little brother" of Full Carrier AM.

how can you complain about someone doing the same thing you are?

The band width argument is a crock there's lots of space out there, and given the bandwidth of some Digital modes counter productive, so what's the real issue?

It just boils down to prejudice and ignorance, as usual when a group of people refuse to get along (notice it's not can't get along, but refuse to get along). 

Try to be nice, until it's time not to be nice anymore...

Unfortunately, some (or a lot) do not think SSB is AM.

SSB is a half-assed AM signal.

One thing I find interesting is that the anti-AM attitude shows up clearly in a  minority of the comments submitted in response.  I have noticed the same thing whenever some anti-AM rant gets posted on QRZ.com.

Remember a generation or so ago, when the anti-AM attitude was consciously instilled by ubiquitous propaganda everywhere within the amateur radio establishment, and was dutifully expected from anyone in the "mainstream"?

Damn, ya beat me to it. :)

Or when using something like the GRC-106 HF set in "AM compatible" mode (50W carrier+USB, 400W PEP), then they "tech-up" and inform you about your carrier leakage. I love them rigs.

Sometime back in the 80's I got an ARRL OO card complaining that I had excessive carrier on my "SSB signal".  It went on to say that I was in violation of the rule regarding spurious emissions.  I was running full carrier DSB AM!

Don said:
Heh, heh. I got one of those too.  ;D I actually called the 'observer' on the phone and sparred with him. He was so besides himself he couldn't speak once I got him in a corner when reading Part 97.

The SSB'ers that hate AM say that AM is obsolete.

Back on page 1 I posed a question on what mode would you pick today for the VHF AM aircraft band, ignoring the totally impractical switchover mess.

Looking at all the voice modes including the new digital modes, listing all the quirks, advantages and disadvantages of each mode, you still come up with AM. 

Consider a total change to the AM broadcast band, same thing, you wind up with AM. 

Obsolete?  Fundamental.  How can fundamentals become obsolete?  Ignorance is never obsolete either.

Do you really believe that a viable and proven mode is immune to the current
thinking in Wa$hington???  Honestly????

http://tinyurl.com/cbw8zs

Doesn't digital have the same problem that FM does?  The dominant signal "captures" the receiver and everything else becomes inaudible.  With digital audio, video and data it's all or nothing.  No in-between.  That "in between" is what could make the difference between life and death in aircraft traffic control near a busy air terminal, and has kept AM the standard all these decades.

I have been told that one reason they have kept AM as opposed to slopbucket is that from high-speed aircraft, the Doppler effect can introduce enough error to make SSB signals appear mis-tuned.


Isn't that a little like the pot calling the kettle black?  SSB dates back almost as far as regular AM.  The first SSB communication links were set up for VLF transatlantic telephone circuits in the early 20's.  I have in my personal R/9 magazine collection a series of four articles from 1933-34 with theory and construction details of a 75m filter type amateur radio SSB exciter.

The digital proponents may someday try to shove digital down the throats of radio amateurs just as slopbucket was shoved down our throats in the 50's and 60's, with a high pressure salesmanship campaign, propaganda, peer pressure and threats of FCC rulemaking action.  But I suspect it might take a while, with hundreds of thousands of expensive analogue riceboxes already in service. 100,000 old-fart retirees could raise a lot of hell if someone tried to tell them they couldn't use their radios any more.

It took over 10 years for SSB to become widely accepted in ham radio, and this was made possible only after the cheap "sideband for the masses" radios like Swans, Galaxies and Heapshit Hotwater rigs hit the market and the manufacturers were able to generate a whole new market for a product.

But I don't think hams and the general public to-day are as trustful of marketeering and gimmickry as they were in the 50's and 60's, and people are more cynical and less gullible to propaganda campaigns.  Look at the ham community's response to the ARRL "bandwidth" petition.

One of the things that hardened my determination to stay with AM was that I strongly resented all that pressure that was being exerted to force me and everyone else to "go sideband".

Two jetliners travelling towards each other, each doing 520 knots will see 244 Hertz shift at 136 MHz.

Two military jets travelling towards each other, each doing Mach 1.5 will see 1.325 kiloHertz shift at 399 MHz.

Actually, TS-830S was also manufactured as the TS-830M (for non U.S. sales) that included AM. And, there was an optional board that could be purchased from Kenwood Parts that allowed AM (in the "Wide CW" mode switch position) in the TS-830S. An optional 6 KHZ AM filter could also be purchased and installed in the 830S when the AM board was installed. I believe only the 520, 530, 820, 830 series of rigs did not include AM as a standard offering. The Yaesu and, I believe, most of the Icom HF rigs included AM in their rigs. Domestically, Ten-Tec was a hold-out for a long time in not including AM in their rigs.

2 slopbucket appliance operators sit in their shacks moving at zero miles per hour.

Calculate the amount of time necessary for them to complete their QSO discussing features and benefits of new appliance radios.

Yeah, It's kind of ironic that the HF equipment I have that CAN'T do AM, is all American.   (Heath SB 101, Heath SB 104A, Drake 2NT, & Ten Tec 540).  Got to give the riceboxes some credit for helping to promote AM.

Remember that memo sheet that Ten-Tec sent out to all their customers that included a rant about why they would never include AM in their rigs, implying that hams who ran AM were the scum of the earth?  Once that memo got spread around amongst the AM community and people started writing letters telling them they were disappointed and pissed off, and would never buy anything else from them as long as they maintained that attitude, they released another memo that was somewhat apologetic, and they moderated their anti-AM stance.  Hank, W2IQ, lived near the Ten-Tec factory and got to know some of their engineers.  I think he had a big influence on getting them to start including AM in their rigs.  He even took some prototypes home and tested them over the air for evaluation.  As I recall,  the anti-AM attitude turned out to originate from just one or two tight sphincters who worked there.

This is the just the American ham gear you have
Fact is that Drake 2NT is CW only.  Virtually all of Drakes full featured gear came with AM.
Their T4X(x)and R4(x) separates and the TR4x transceivers all had AM.  Then came the oddball
shortlived TR5 xcvr. (no AM)
But even their last HF ham market radio the TR7 series, continued to feature AM.  (early 80's)
Almost all of their gear had AM.  They were in fact an AM hold-out & Amercian made. kudos for them. I think the only ricebox from the 70's that had AM was the Yaesu stuff.   

Sorry, didn't mean to bash Drake.  Kudos to them for offering AM, in fact, I am seriously thinking of getting a TR4 ot T4X.

BTW, my Kenwood T599D from the 70's also has AM.

They better not switch to dogital. I paid alot of $$ for my AM FAA radios.


Anyone have a good scan of that? I always knew there was something rotten about Ten-Tec, but it wasn't their equipment. Something more sinister, deep insiode.. MOOOOHAHAHAhahahaaaaa!

http://www.myrockport.com/world.htm

scroll down, searching for "veal".  truly funny.

IIRC it was published in The AM Press/Exchange.  I probably have a copy of the original round here somewhere, but it would take a knockdown-dragout search to ever find it.  I think it dates back to sometime in the 80's.

ISSUE 85, Aug 1990:

http://www.amfone.net/AMPX/85.html


 
ISSUE 109 (1993 ?) :

http://amfone.net/AMPX/109.html

Never say never.

Ooops I just did.  :P

Twice.


on edit: wait, i quoted it, so that makes 4 times.

My head hurts.

Told you not to dry your hair in the microwave.

LOL. My mother told me to NEVER do that.   :'(

 ;D My mother NEVER told me to NEVER stick my head in the microwave. I NEVER listened to her anyway and now I can NEVER remember the........What were we talking about???

Ahhh, NEVERmind..

Regarding the AM broadcast band, there has been a proposal by some in the industry to convert TV channel 6 into an extended FM band once the digital transition is complete, and allow AM daytimers and those with severely restricted night time power to move to the expanded portion, either using FM or digital-only.  The existing AM band would be left to former clear channel stations and others with protected night time sky wave coverage.  Some propose mandating the change while others have proposed allowing the AM stations not occupying a clear channel station's night time frequency, and that wish to, stay on the AM band.  Some channel 6 TV stations that want to keep their old frequency for digital transmission would be forced to move.

Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea.  The AM band has long been stacked with too many local-coverage stations per channel, rendering most of the band totally useless at night.  VHF is much more appropriate for that type of broadcasting, while the AM band should be left to what it is most useful for, stations with extended coverage via sky wave at night.  The present situation is about as foolish and unrealistic as the 27 mHz allocation for CB, with the intent of local communication while the band periodically opens to distant sky wave propagation.

Under the proposal, the remaining stations in the AM band would be able to spread out to 20 or 30 kHz channel separation so there would be no overlapping of sidebands at night, and they would have enough room to use either analogue or digital transmission without trashing adjacent channel stations as the AM IBOC does at present.

According to  the broadcast rags I get, the main opposition to the proposal is not from the ch 6 TV stations that want to stay put, but from existing FM broadcasters that don't want the additional competition.  They say that the broadcast industry has already fallen on  hard times, and that the additional competition in local markets could be the straw that breaks the camel's back to pull them under.

But if the extended band would stay limited to re-accommodating existing AM stations, that claim would be bogus; the existing FM stations want to keep their advantage of round the clock reception over the AMs' crappy or non-existent night time coverage.  I agree that the last thing we need is even more broadcast stations than we already have in any urban area, regardless of transmission mode. I suspect the competition the local FM broadcasters are really worried about is from distant sky-wave AM stations at night.  To keep their listening audience, they might be forced to actually put something on the air worth listening to.

But as I see it, the FCC is unlikely to approve the proposal; the idea makes too much sense from a technical perspective and requires a sense of judgement too sound to be expected from FCC bureaucrats.

"Which guy do I send my rig off to, to get repaired?"

There's a real good reason for A.M. on the Aircraft band. Anybody want to take a good technical guess, why???

Fred

Just an off guess, but does it have to do with the capture effect FM xmitters on the same frequency will have with each other if they're close in sig strength? AM wouldn't suffer from this and multiple xmitters can be heard at the same time even if they're close in sig strength.

Yup. Any instances of doubling will be evident by the beating of the two signals. An indication that complete information might not have made it to the party that needs it, which is kind of important with tons of steel hurtling in many directions at high speeds in a small area.

I live within 5 miles of Bradley International and occasionally hear some funny stuff. One of my favorites went something like this:

Tower:  Proceed inbound on track 101 descending to 2000 feet. Commence level base turn left to intercept localizer, inbound track 270 Deg at 2000 feet. Descend on glide path to runway 6.

Aircraft:  What?

Tower:  Seriously?

Aircraft:  Nah, just kidding, I got it.

The corporate frequencies for the various airlines are always fun to listen to late at night. Lots of good-natured bantering going on between the flight crews and the staff.

Because there ain't a slopbucket in North America that can bother it ?

 ;D ;D  Good one!

Another one: 


Tower: "Piper Arrow N1444X-ray, I have you 3 miles out with pattern traffic at 1000 feet - what are your intentions?"

Pilot:  "My intentions are to to land this crate and get drunk at the airport bar - wanna join me?"




(BTW, those were the neat call letters on my airplane years ago... what a lucky break)
Here it is for sale for $78K: 
http://www.aviatorshotline.com/avsearch.cfm?template=detail&AID=33825

I was on a plane once where the radio traffic went like this, as we landed.

Tower:  Is it cold in there?

Pilot: Damn cold!


The emergency exit door had blown off at 5000 feet over the Chesapeake Bay. We stacked up traffic at BWI for an emergency landing. Fun stuff.

If you were quick, you coulda saved some time by grabbing the handle and kite-boarding your way down, caw mawn.

(In addition to becoming vely, vely famous amongst the lugers and base jumpers)   ;D

Considering what happened with the HD debacle here and the DAB debacle in Europe I wouldn't be worrying about that too much.

There is no movement to convert the AM BCB to digital, all there is is a stillborn effort by some of the big boy AM broadcasters to pollute the BCB with 50 KHz of hash in a 10 KHz space called IBOC. It is going over like a lead balloon and has been for about 5 years now (try to find a receiver). Digital FM has been enjoying about the same success rate.
Using channels 5 and 6 for BCB broadcasting has been brought up by those in the industry but it seems like a no go.

Just like AM stereo.

The vast majority of the public doesn't give a damn about audio quality, and besides, the rubbish that dominates the AM band these days could just as well be on slopbucket.

If people were very concerned about audio quality, the MP-3 format, like the old hissette tape format, never would have gained such wide acceptance.

The only thing about IBOC-FM that might possibly be a real selling point is the subcarrier  channels.  But there's not much worth listening to even on the main channel, and that is interrupted every 5 or 10 minutes with an endless string of commercials.  If "HD-FM Radio" really offers "CD quality", the improvement over the audio quality of a good solid analogue FM stereo signal would still be too subtle for the average Joe Bloe to even perceive, let alone to entice him to spend hundreds of bucks for a receiver while he can purchase a somewhat decent quality analogue set for $20.



That's about the only "new" idea to come along to broadcasting lately that might actually improve the service.  The local and "graveyard" channels on the AM band could be moved to the expanded FM band, and actually see their coverage area increased both day and night.  That would free up the AM band for what it does best, regional broadcasting during the day and nationwide coverage at night via skywave.  The remaining AM stations could be spread far enough apart that sidebands from adjacent channels wouldn't overlap, giving everyone clear-channel coverage.

Remember how well the measly 1 kw nighttime signal from the station in Elizabeth, NJ covered half the continent with entertainment quality on 1660 kHz or thereabouts, while it was the first and only expanded-band AM signal on the air? Of course, this would work only if those remaining AM stations had original programming with local flavour, like WWL used to have and WSM still does to a certain extent.

But this whole idea makes too much sense from a technical standpoint and from a public-interest perspective, to be acceptable to FCC bureaucrats and corporate bean counters, so the idea was probably dead in the water from the outset.

Well, it's not like FM Stereo was ever "CD quality" anyway.

Pardon me, while I get out my Rabbit Maul.  ;)

FM broadcast audio is brickwalled at about 15 kHz. Not only that, that's only your monoaural (L+R) product. Both exciters and receivers exhibit that characteristic, or you'd hear a nasty 19 kHz squeal on FM Stereo stations. 19 kHz is the stereo pilot tone, but at 38 kHz is the L-R subcarrier.

A CD can recreate actual stereo to 22 kHz, FM broadcast can only manage composite stereo out to 15 kHz. Still, you're right, the difference wouldn't really be noticed.

Anyway, transitioning to IBOC FM doesn't give you much more subchanneling ability than you already have. That was Muzak's primary means of distribution for years, they'd pay for a 50 to 68 kHz subcarrier on a big FM in a given metro. Other non-broadcast services have done the same. Sattelite and internet take care of that now.

Still, in this day and age, the greatest percentage of FM music listeners over any given hour are listening in their car. Few listen at home, and those listening at work never outnumber those on the road.

For the most part, that's a high-noise environment, which is why so many of those FMs compress as hard as they do. There are artists and producers in every genre that like to take full advantage of the 90+ dB SNR of a CD, which an FM channel can't match, and a car makes worse. Some stations way overdo it, I know.

The point is that IBOC is a solution looking for a problem. There's really no reason for stations to do it. For the most part, the improvements in audio will be unnoticed or inaudible, and you can't be picked up on any old AM/FM radio kicking around, which is what you want the most if you're a broadcast station. Their income is dictated by the number of ears on 'em, caw mawn.

When they find a way to make it more lucrative than the current system, it'll happen. That's just not the case now.

Most of the HD FM sub-channels I listen to, have little to no commercials. The perceived audio quality is as good as a CD. On the main channel, I can manually switch between HD and regular signals and I hear a perceived difference in quality. How much, or how much better audio response there is, I don't really care. It sounds better in HD. Pricing for a typical home AM/FM HD tuner starts around $100. One of the great things I like, is that station with several sub-channels can have a wide assortment of programming (all rock, all country, all jazz, etc.) without having to tune up and down the band looking for it. Sensitivity also seems to be much better with a HD-type tuner. With only a small loop antenna for AM, during the evening  hours, 740 in Canada comes in like a NY station. AM stations in Chicago, Memphis, Denver sound also like locals. If you like AM DX'ing, you need one of these types of tuners. Blows the socks off the R-390A as far as AM in the broadcast band.

Agree with everything you say Pete but the sensitivity.  Like, HDTV, if I don't have a good signal, the HD cuts in and out, or I get nothing at all.  That said, my HD radio is a bedside clock radio not a professional tuner.  I enjoy the commercial free jazz from WWFM HD2.  It's enough value-added for me to justify the cost.

Ah, but I have Sangean HDT-1X, besides the Sony XDR-S3HD table radio, that allows me to switch between analog and digital. Running the HDT-1X through the 70's 4 channel amplifier really rocks the basement better then 3885.

(http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/spcialty/0151lrgA.jpg)

(http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/spcialty/5237.jpg)

Since you're obviously familiar with the available product choices, how would you say the price compares with standard AM/FM tuners and tabletops that are otherwise similarly equipped?

Just curious what the differential is.

Alright, call me stupid, but I'll bite.

Right now there are 101 radio's being manufactured today by various manufacturer's. Distribution points include Best Buy, Wal-mart, Target, and before they crapped out Circuit City. Also radio's are being sold in smaller regional retailers. Many radio's are the after market car radio's, and also home theatre A/V systems.
The price point of many of these radio's is much higher than buying a comparable analog model, no doubt. It costs right now about 5 dollars to make an analog tuner with its chipset installed. An HD tuner costs anywhere from 13 to 17 dollars with chipset, and consumes about 50% more power. When the first HD tabletop tuner was introduced, it cost 27 dollars for the tuner and consumed double the power. As time marches on, the cost is reduced and power consumption will decrease. This I can tell you for certain is why you do not see a large proliferation of HD tuners in cars already installed from the factory. It costs alot of money to install, and needs to be tested and certified for proper operation; not only the tuner, but the chipset manufactured by the major chip makers (TI, Samsung, ST, SiPort). You may say to yourself, we'll 14 bux, thats not a big deal vs. 5 bux. Times 500,000 units sold, this adds up. This is why the big pushback when it was proposed that HD radio be installed in every Sat radio made after the XM sirius merger. It had nothing to do with HD itself, just the cost of manufacuring units. This would have prompted many auto makers to not install Sirius or XM as being cost prohibitive.
As far as products/applications are concerned: There are new chips being tested that are smaller and cheaper than ever before. Obviously, I cannot devulge what and who, but cost will be almost down to single digits, power lowered even more, and smaller tuners. devices are now being introduced built in to PND's (personal navi. dveices), and at the recent NAB, an armband radio that will cost around 40 dollars. The evil empire that is Clear Channel is seeing revenue from the iTunes tagging for iPod. to implement tagging, it cost them nothing but labor to enter the info.
A solution looking for a problem: Yes and no. There are still many issues needed to be worked out on the broadcaster side as well as the radio side, but as far as implementation, many big broadcasters have already installed HD Radio, and as seen at the NAB, smaller broadcasters are seeing the benefit as well. For as many vocal distracters we have , we have as amny silent supporters. Many people have come out and said that we need to goto a different solution or abandon the digital altoghter. FM eXtra is truly a solution looking for a problem, and having only 1 radio that isn't even commercially available. The recent NAB is evidence that there are many competeing factors to radio including mobile DTV introduced at the show. If radio dies a slow natural death, then so be it. I am going to go down swinging, rather than P&M about this, that and the other.
 If if 's and but's were candies and nuts, the we all would have a good xmas.

Mike, W2ZE

Yep, that's true Pete.  I have the FT-101's "evil twin" the FT-301, and it has AM.  As a matter of fact, in spite of being a solid state rig, it uses high level modulation in the form of collector modulation, completely bypassing the SSB & CW signal chain in the process.  It also has 6 kHz AM receive bandwidth too.  It'll do 30W of carrier.  I tried it for a laugh on 10m AM last year, and was surprised to get good reports on it's transmit audio (Tom, WA3KLR, was one of the guys I worked last year on 10m AM).  So much so, that it has become my high band AM rig, due to its frequency agility tuneupwise (I only have to peak up a preselector, and I'm good to go).

There's nothing like listening to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, the long version, on HD Radio. Running it through the 4 channel decoder in the 4 channel amplifier with the volume cranked up. Drives the wife and dogs nuts.

With the Sony Radio pictured in my previous post, last year, Best Buy stores were clearing out their store stock. I was told they wanted to only carry their house brand version. Some stores cleared them out from a low of $39.95 to about $115 depending on the store. A quick Google search shows similar type models going for about $100 retail.

Plus how much more to cover Ibiquity's licence fee?

I hate the IBOC on AM. I hear the digital hash from 4 to 5 KC like a fine tooth comb on my good Stromberg-carlson tube tuner when I listen to the oldies station. So now I do not listen to the station. I use the FM section and listen to WRR the classical station. The tuner was never bothered by the old QAM AM signal. Fortunately for the AM station, most of their listeners do not have top grade analog AM tuners. I would consider a IBOC receiver, but WTH? some of those old records were never in stereo, yet the station has "stereo-ized" them and ruined it, and done it is such a way that you can't combine the IBOC channels back to one without it sounding weird, and turning the IBOC off renders the radio too narrow and dull, as the basic receiver part is less than 4KC wide somewhere in there, so the hash is not heard when IBOC is turned off. What I might be interested in is an outboard IBOC demodulator to try and use with my good tuner, but that's a nogo, since the whole decoder thing is licensed and patented etc.

I've been listening across the BC band late night.  What a shame the IBOC signals are trashing reception.

Don't seem to have that problem with the HD receiver.

when you don't have this problem, is the IBOC being received, or not being received 9due to night time power cutbacks)?