Part 15’ers– You may think this is off-topic, but it isn’t. If you are an avid AM radio listener, the time to act is NOW. If you are Part 15 AM operator, you MUST get involved in this issue!
Part 15’ers– You may think this is off-topic, but it isn’t. If you are an avid AM radio listener, the time to act is NOW. If you are Part 15 AM operator, you MUST get involved in this issue!
IBOC is a menace to AM radio! It is being forced on the American listening public by large broadcasting monopolies like Clear Channel. The NAB, the FCC and other key industry players have also been drinking the Ibiquity kool-aid.
An IBOC station occupies at least 3 AM channels, and if it’s local it will hog up to 5 or even 7 channels! And according to the FCC, this is “legal”! You will not be able to listen to the DX stations you enjoy at night, but in many cases even daytime listening in your own market will suffer. In my city, there are plenty of stations that are only spaced two channels apart. It is very fatiguing to listen to the shrill hiss, whine, and screech of IBOC sidebands, if you haven’t noticed. Not only that, but IBOC stations sound bad in their own right– they have their audio rolled off to less than 5 kHz, and you can never completely get rid of the hiss in the background!
Many frequencies at the high end of the band that are currently usable for Part 15 operation will disappear as high powered stations that are hundreds– or even thousands– of miles away pollute them, until they are just a sea of noise.
Please visit www.stopiboc.com to find out how you can help. One way is to write letters to IBOC stations and complain about interference to the stations you want to listen to. Or, just tell them that they sound bad! I just wrote a lengthy letter to the CE of a major market station. Most don’t care one bit about their listeners’ objections to IBOC. But don’t let that stop you from complaining! The more complaints, the better!
You can also complain to the FCC, though I don’t know that they will pay any attention. Other organizations to contact could include the NAB, New America Foundation, and Free Press (just do a Google search for these). With these latter organizations, you will want to explain the connection between large owners that are blocking reception of other stations through the use of their IBOC “jammers”.
Maybe you are thinking that perhaps in the future, Part 15 stations could go digital and use IBOC. Forget about it! First, it will be years before any equipment becomes available that you could afford, if ever. Second, you will not be able to pay Ibiquity the required royalties for the use of their patented CODEC. Can you believe that they have convinced the FCC to allow them to be the sole source of the technology that will eventually be used on every single radio station in this country. Isn’t that a sweet deal?! Yes, a few radio industry people are upset about that, but not enough to make a difference. And they are mostly small market stations that are not going to be able to afford to switch to IBOC, even if they would be happy with the 10 miles of coverage they MIGHT get.
So don’t just sit there! Get busy! Visit www.stopiboc.com now and learn how you can become involved. They also have some excellent audio files that you can listen to, if you’re not convinced yet!
IBOC
It seems to me that the FCC doesn’t care about protecting stations in the AM band evidenced by allowing IBOC and BPL. I have heard trash from both “new” modes both at base and mobile.
I have to wonder why, with AM listenership falling in general, the industry would think (my assumption) that I would listen to the ads. and programming just because it is in hi-fi stereo when I don’t want to hear it as it is on AM. It is the programming and commercials on most statons which drives me away from listening, not the quality of the audio, and I don’t need more channels that I will not use causing problems for the ones which I do want to hear.
This is an election year and maybe rather than complaining to the FCC we could go over their heads and complain to our congresspeople about the interference. I am willing to do this.
Neil
Write your Congressmen!
Neil,
Thanks for your interest! This is an excellent idea! The FCC is already in hot water with Congress over their handling of several other issues, and further Congressional oversight is likely, especially if there is a change of administration after the elections. Don’t wait until then to get involved, though! Currently the FCC is being scrutinized for their handling of cross-ownership rules and media monopolization.
It’s about time that somebody in Washington started paying attention to the American public. In city after city, citizens came to FCC hearings to tell them that we are not happy about having our media controlled by giant conglomerates. But they disregarded this feedback, apparently.
WEAK-AM
Classical Music and More!
At the risk of starting a
At the risk of starting a political flame war, I will say this:
The position of FCC Commissioner is politically appointed. Reagan started the ball rolling by basically eliminating community-related programming requirements, eliminating “equal time” rulses and allowing big corporations to acquire a large number of stations. Bush has just let the whole thing ride.
The “equal time” relaxations spawned Rush Limbaugh et al. The relaxation of corporate rules led to Clear Channel et al.
See this link for what Barack Obama has said about “media consolodation”: http://radiomagonline.com/fcc/radio_fcc_issues_surface/
I think our best hope for preserving sanity vs. corporate interests in the broacast industry starts at the top. I’m not promoting Obama, but I will say you will be a lot better off voting Democratic to stop the corporate stemroller.
FCC, The President, and Congress
First, let’s look at where the FCC fits in the scheme of things. From the FCC website home page:
About the FCC
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency, directly responsible to Congress. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC’s jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.
Organization
The FCC is directed by five Commissioners appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for 5-year terms, except when filling an unexpired term. The President designates one of the Commissioners to serve as Chairperson. Only three Commissioners may be members of the same political party. None of them can have a financial interest in any Commission-related business.
As the chief executive officer of the Commission, the Chairman delegates management and administrative responsibility to the Managing Director. The Commissioners supervise all FCC activities, delegating responsibilities to staff units and Bureaus.
The commissioners are appointed by the President but the agency is directly responsible to Congress. So it appears to me that it is reasonable for citizens to contact Congress about issues.
Regarding political debate here, it is probably best to leave that for other forums, but I will point out in general that the FCC rules changes have happened under both Dem. and Rep. Congresses and Presidents. I don’t see this as a single party issue and the influence of lobby groups probably has more to do with what has happened that the particular party in power. That’s why I suggested that Congress is the place for our input.
Neil
Die IBOC,Die
Well…I suggest we let natural selection take its course. Nobody in the listening public I talked to knew what IBOC was and they were certainly not ready to run out and buy new radios just to be able to use it. I just hope it is so poorly deployed as to hasten its demise,sort of like AM Stereo or quadrophonic. I think its going to muddy the band so badly that it will self destruct and go away,eventually…..
Regards,Lee
http://www.freewebs.com/wilcomlabs/index.htm
More Politics
At the risk of starting another political flame war, my opinion of the IBOC debacle is that it demonstrates the increasing politicization of regulatory agencies. The FCC seems to base more and more decisions on political grounds rather than technical merit. IBOC and BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) are two examples of this, BPL being more a solution in search of a problem.
Just my $0.02…