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pat wrote:
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On Jan 13, 10:55 am, IBOCcrock wrote:

On Jan 13, 10:36?am, IBOCcrock wrote:




"Shortwave Awaits DRM in United States" DRM Proponents Eye 2008
Olympics, 26 MHz Band

by Jeff White, 7.18.2007 The author is vice chairman of the U.S.
DRM Group and president of the National Association of Shortwave
Broadcasters.

ELKHART, Ind. U.S. shortwave broadcasters anticipate the
availability of the first low-cost Digital Radio Mondiale
receiver by the end of the year, though no DRM transmissions are
originating yet in the United States, despite FCC approval.

China may begin DRM transmissions in time for the 2008 Olympics,
spurring a global receiver launch and shortwave broadcasters
from the U.S., and other countries would like to use DRM on the
26 MHz band for low-powered local FM-quality broadcasting.

These were the highlights of the U.S. DRM Group meeting, which
was held in May in conjunction with the annual meeting of the
National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters.

Broadcasters, manufacturers and others interested in the
progress of DRM in North America gathered for their fourth
annual meeting, held at the HCJB Global Technology Center in
Elkhart, Ind.

About 60 persons attended the meeting, which included program
producers, station managers, network operators, marketing
people, shortwave listeners and consultants.

DRM sends text, graphics

"This is our big opportunity," said Mike Adams, chairman of U.S.
DRM's International Broadcasters Committee, "to get together
each year and find out what's going on with DRM in North
America." Adams is an engineer who monitors new technologies for
Far East Broadcasting Company, a worldwide religious
broadcasting network.

FEBC's Mike Adams, TDF's Michel Penneroux and Continental's Don
Spragg lead a discussion about DRM's future in North America.

Herb Jacobson of HCJB began the meeting with a detailed
explanation of the basics of DRM -- its advantages to
broadcasters and how it works. He explained which popular
shortwave transmitters are easy to convert to DRM modulation and
which ones are more difficult.

Don Spragg, formerly of HCJB and now working for Continental
Electronics -- which, along with other U.S. manufacturers
Nautel, BE and Harris, sells DRM transmitters -- explained that
shortwave broadcasters were really behind the origins of DRM
because they wanted a system to enable them to go digital.

DRM officially was launched in 2003 and it has expanded to AM,
longwave and now FM use as well.

Spragg said that DRM technology enables broadcasters to transmit
in various grades of audio and can carry up to four programs
simultaneously in one channel. DRM can be used to transmit
voice, music, text, graphics, slide shows and multiple
languages. There are currently 766 hours per day of DRM
transmissions, according to the DRM Consortium.

Most, but not all, of these transmissions are in Europe,
including those from Deutsche Telekom's T-Systems, which
attended the meeting in Elkhart. In the Americas, there are DRM
transmissions from CBC Radio- Canada in Sackville, New
Brunswick; Telediffusion de France in French Guiana, HCJB in
Quito, Ecuador; Radio Netherlands in Bonaire; and Christian
Vision from Chile.

All of these facilities except Bonaire conducted special DRM
transmissions during the U.S. DRM meeting, and the monitoring
station in Elkhart was able to pick them all up with excellent
reception. The audio was FM mono quality.

There was also a special trans-Atlantic DRM test during the
meeting from Vatican Radio. The Vatican organ music and special
conference ID's were heard with excellent quality and a 21-27 dB
signal-to-noise ratio. Transmission power levels ranged from
four kilowatts from Quito up to 250 kW from Vatican Radio.

Receiver timeline fluid

"DRM has much to offer," concluded Spragg. "It's an exciting
time. DRM has an important place, especially if we're going to
see a revival of the shortwave broadcasting spectrum."

The current problem with DRM is that consumer-friendly receivers
are not yet available in North America. A few early receivers
are now on the market in Europe for as little as 200 euros, or
about $270; but improved versions are still being developed and
have yet to hit the store shelves.

For some time now, it has been possible to use certain shortwave
receivers connected to a personal computer with special DRM
software to listen to DRM transmissions. However, the goal is to
have stand- alone receivers that can pick up DRM signals without
the need to connect them to PCs. Recently, a few of these types
of radios have been released on the market in a small scale in
Europe, even as modifications and improvements continue to be
made.

Michel Penneroux, chairman of the DRM Consortium's Commercial
Committee, said, "The problem is in this kind of situation, the
timelines of the various players are different from one to the
other. The broadcasters have one timeline. The transmitter
industry has another. The receiver industry has [yet another].
So you wait until the retailers say 'We want this because the
customers are interested in this.'"

So far retailers like RadioShack have not yet shown much
interest in selling DRM receivers. "The numbers [they need] are
very big," said Penneroux, "with 2.5 billion receivers to renew
worldwide. Manufacturers are very secretive about what they want
to do, what are their plans, when they're going to launch. This
is the reality."

Some participants at the meeting said that there may also be a
role for DRM in AM broadcasting in the United States, given the
controversy over problems with IBOC at night. They speculated
that combined DRM/HD Radio receivers might be on the horizon.

"We are building a digital radio world for the next 20 years,"
said Penneroux. "We are expecting by around the end of this year
the first low-cost DRM receiver with an ST chipset. The receiver
will be made in China, will cost less than 50 U.S. dollars, and
will have a high- quality front-end."

2008 Olympics

In fact, China may be where the big global DRM boom begins.

The Chinese appear to be moving toward domestic DRM
transmissions in time for the 2008 Olympics, which would mean
massive production of DRM receivers that would be available to
both the internal and worldwide markets at low cost.

Several U.S.-based and European shortwave broadcasters plan to
begin DRM transmissions to China in time for the Olympics.

There is also a great deal of interest in the United States and
other countries in using DRM on the 26 MHz band for low-powered
local FM- quality broadcasting.

Participants in the meeting in Elkhart acknowledged that this
would involve regulatory hurdles, since the 26 MHz band is
allocated to long- distance international broadcasting. But the
High Frequency Coordinating Conference, where most shortwave
frequency planning is done worldwide, recently proposed a
division of the band, with one portion to be used for
international broadcasting and the other part for local DRM
broadcasts.

So far no shortwave stations have begun DRM broadcasts from U.S.
soil, however the FCC has approved it and many stations are
watching the development of DRM and the receiver market.

No one wants to lose their current analog audience, but the
concept of transmitting on shortwave with an FM-quality signal
and reducing their electrical bills to a fraction of their
current levels has most U.S. international broadcasters keeping
a close eye on DRM.

Jeff White is general manager of WRMI - Radio Miami
International in addition to his roles with the U.S. DRM Group
and NASB.

http://www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0049/t.7242.html

This sounds exactly like the situation with HD/IBOC - no one
wants it, except for the scammers peddling their hyped-products.
Interesting, that Radio Shack has shown little interest in DRM
receivers - maybe, they learned after getting burned with having
to unload dust- collecting HD/IBOC receivers. Digital radio is
stalling everywhe

"Straining to hear digital radio - Europe has a head start in
terrestrial digital radio, but is anybody listening?"

"But today, digital radio is struggling to find its legs. While
it's still in the cradle in the United States, it has begun to
crawl, a bit, in Europe and elsewhere... Europe has had a
standard for digital radio for some time. The European Union
adopted the standard, called Eureka 147, 10 years ago. But high
prices and a lack of consumer interest have kept the market
tiny."

http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=...id=CA266524&re
f=nbra

"Annual DAB sales 50% below forecast"

"The following graphs are copied from the DRDB's (Digital Radio
Development Bureau -- UK DAB's marketing and PR arm) sales
forecast documents from 2004 and 2007, and they show that the
forecast sales for 2008 are a massive 50% below what the DRDB
had previously forecast they would be for 2008, and the
cumulative sales will be 18% below previously forecast by the
end of this year and 30% below what they had previously forecast
by the end of next year."

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/ar...AB-sales-50-be
low-...


By John Plunkett guardian.co.uk, January 10 2008

Digital radio will suffer a double blow this weekend with the
closure of two national digital stations, Oneword and Core.

GCap Media's music station Core is expected to close tomorrow,
while UBC's spoken word outfit Oneword, whose future has long
been in doubt, will cease broadcasting on Saturday.

Both stations were broadcast via digital audio broadcasting (DAB)
on Digital One, the national digital radio multiplex
majority-owned by GCap.

In a dramatic scaling back of GCap's digital offerings, its
digital music station ...

read more »


I personally love it and I'm looking forward to the demise of HD
radio in the US. jw

Shortwwave is not all about listening to advanced cultures in
well-established developed countries with wherewithal to promote
themselves on most the more advanced medium. Shortwave is more
about listening to and being able to get stations in countries,
locations around the world that are seldom heard, who have few
stations if they have more than one, broadcast at short spurts at
odd times to other countries, and do not broadcast in digital. I
know you are all the experts, but please, do not turn shortwave
into the same kind of mess that the government is turning
television into. Perhaps those of you who are serious about your
efforts want only the latest equipment, and are most satisfied when
you have to go out and buy some new gadget, but I, for one, do not
like to have to change equipment that is perfectly fine for my
purposes. I know that at some point, the promoters of digital may
prevail, but I hope it is not in my lifetime.

???

HF broadcasting is a joke in the era of the internets.

Even though you are the biggest clown in the news group the joke you
told was not funny. Why is that?

--
Telamon
Ventura, California