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Author Topic: FM BROADCASTING GOING DIGITAL OVERSEAS.  (Read 4604 times)
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W2PFY
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« on: December 14, 2017, 04:57:30 PM »

Maybe this has been covered? When will it happen here?

https://www.thelocal.no/20171213/norway-becomes-first-country-to-switch-off-fm-radio
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« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2017, 10:06:38 AM »

Wonder if it has anything to do with iBiquity after all there market success with IBOC? All radio Broadcasting is in trouble and somehow don’t see digital service where you have to acquire the signal and sit around while the codec unlocks for service being the solution.
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KD6VXI
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« Reply #2 on: December 18, 2017, 11:22:06 AM »

I purchased an entire station this weekend.  FM.  20kw main and 1kw backup.  No tower or site, but all the equipment, new spool of inch and 7/8 hardline, etc.

Functioning.

Including a broadcast rated rotary phase converter for the fm20k TX.

300 bucks.

Can't see broadcast surviving here, either.  Not if you habla englais
--Shane
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W2PFY
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« Reply #3 on: December 18, 2017, 02:08:18 PM »

I think the new and replacement radios for cars and trucks will be the driving force or last vestige for terrestrial broadcasting? The cell fone towers have stuff on there that I never imagined would be on there? I thought it was for talking to people and not to be used for texting,games, movies etc?

I can see the reason broadcasters would want to go digital as they can package more stuff into a given bandwidth and somehow I have a feeling that iPHones and their cousins could be very easily interwoven to your dashboard radio. I still drive vehicles that are about 15 years old and now my hot shot younger friends come around showing me their latest 2016-2017 vehicles that have all this space age stuff in them that are designed to remind me that I am an OLD BUZZARD.

   
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Steve - K4HX
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« Reply #4 on: December 22, 2017, 11:35:12 AM »

Another AMer goes dark, this one KQV, one of the earliest licensed stations in the country. From the ARRL Newsletter:

One of the few US broadcast stations east of the Mississippi that sport K-prefix call letters -- KQV in Pittsburgh -- will go silent at midnight on January 1 after nearly 1 century on the air. "It's a sad day for broadcasting and for the news business," KQV Station Manager Bob Dickey Jr. told the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. The family-owned news-talk station operates on 1410 kHz with 5,000 W into a five-tower array that provides separate day and night patterns. Unofficial accounts indicate that KQV started out as "special amateur station" 8ZAE, to be used by the Doubleday-Hill Electric Company primarily for two-way communication with another station in Washington, DC. (Doubleday-Hill also sold radios.) In October 1921, the Federal Radio Commission issued the station a "limited commercial license," randomly assigning the KQV call letters.

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« Reply #5 on: December 22, 2017, 02:24:25 PM »

  I like to listen to talk radio on the AM.

  Here in the Bay Area FM radio consists of No Habla English, then there is Left Wingy Dingy KPFA in Bezerkeley and the other stations which all play the same play list of crummy music and during the commute hours have 1 minute of crummy music for 10 minutes of crummier commercials. I decided long ago that I preferred road noise.

 All the fancy state of the art technology is wonderful but content does matter.
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« Reply #6 on: December 22, 2017, 03:32:56 PM »

Well I am sorry to hear of another AM station biting the dust! From reading the trade mags, it was said that unless the AM station owned an FM station, they were domed unless they were in a very large market.  Switching to digital to me is a good thing especially for TV broadcast. At my camp where the nearest stations are located near Burlington, VT They are 40 miles away and with analog the best reception was on just two channels and the rest were pretty much unwatchable. Now with digital the stations are just as clear as you could want. Two of the station only come in in the winter months after all the leaves fall from the trees. Some may not think that is a factor, but I noticed the same thing on analog. I don't know what else could be affecting the reception? Anyone have an opinion on that? A friend of mine was a commander in the Navy reserve and he had to travel from Plattsburgh, NY to Philadelphia, PA once a month. He is an avid sports listener and he told me that in his travels to and from his reserve unit that he listened to satellite radio and that for the entire trip with just a very small antenna on his car. He told me that he never experienced a drop out even while going under bridges.
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« Reply #7 on: December 22, 2017, 04:36:58 PM »

 Before I retired I was very involved in radio scada (supervisory control and data acquisition) for the local power company, we operated in the 928-952 MHz licensed band and the 902 to 928 MHz spread spectrum band. Attenuation by foliage was a definite problem.

 In one case I had a switch on a 12 kv circuit we wanted to control by radio, the switch was right where the circuit went from overhead to underground and moving it was not an option. The only radio system we had signal from was at just over 2,000 feet elevation on a line of sight mountain 20 miles away but across the street was a park and few 100 foot trees. If I went just a few hundred feet I had a -65 DBm signal but at the switch the signal was a -95, well below minimum acceptable level. I had to install a $10,000 dollar relay scheme on a pole 4 spans up from the switch where I had signal.
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KD6VXI
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« Reply #8 on: December 22, 2017, 07:32:49 PM »

Satellite radio is great.  The satellite company(ies before the merge) went all out and put translators up so you wouldn't lose signal.

Where I lived in the bay area we had a couple.  The redwood tree canopy made Sirius about useless.  Once the translator went in, no more problems.


--Shane
KD6VXI

(edited to repair autocorrections)
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Patrick J. / KD5OEI
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« Reply #9 on: December 23, 2017, 12:54:53 PM »

like AM news oldies and christian radio.
don't want to pay for radio.
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