You know I hate to harsh everyones buzz here, but I think this goes back once again to concerns regarding DXing, listening via skip, or even out of market fringe listening. So let's see here...I own a AM station with increasing competition and losing ground from FM, I-Pods, the Internet, etc. Now I can increase my coverage area, improve the audio frequency response and greatly improve signal to noise, and potentially turn off my analog portion someday thus finally competing with FM...Hmmm...that's a no-brainer. Especially now that Ford/Visteon announced last week that many of their car radios will finally be equipped with the Ibquity modems. THAT my friends changes the landscape! Would I give a rats-arse about someone who will never visit my advertisers? No! DXing is a hobby for a very small minority. What do I care whether the analog noise floor outside of my market goes up??
Okay I have my Kevlar suit on, bring it!
You fried right through that Kevlar all on your own.
1) It's not DXers whose complaints we're talking about. It's station owners, whose stations are being interfered with
within their own nighttime interference-free contours. You don't light up carriers on adjacent frequencies and pretend they will do no harm during nighttime propagation conditions.
2) Ford announced no such thing. The HD radios are a dealer-installed option...and according to a long-time friend who also runs a Ford dealership, this is an off-the radar non-starter.
No one's denying that AM has severe and increasing problems drawing listeners. However, increasing interference between stations and effectively destroying the AM band is not the way to fix what ails it.
