"Telamon" wrote in message
...

I don¹t believe the argument that DRM can sound better than analog
using the same bandwidth.

I have listened to the recordings on the DRM site and they sure don¹t
sound better. No back ground noise sure but lots of audio artifacts
generated by the compression and playback algorithms.

I don't know if DRM's sound quality will reliably be better or not. I don't
think it's really much of an issue. The public didn't much care about the
HiFi AM experiments of around 1940, and it took about 25 years before FM
became popular. The standard AM broadcast sound seems good enough for most
people.

I suppose analog fade outs will be replaced by digital drop outs. I don't
think consumers will be happy paying for a service which drops out from time
to time.


Name any digital medium carrying popular content that is not controlled
in some way by codes that must be paid for in advance. I fully expect
SW radios will be controlled to hear at least some of the content as
soon as those radios are around.

Any new technology has patents, and the patent holders usually charge
licence fees. Digital isn't unique in that respect. I don't know if the
patents on CD technology has run out or not, but CD players are really cheap
now.

Anyway, standards evolve. The first "standards war" might have been between
Edison's up and down groove modulation system vs. the later side to side
system. The side to side system was, in general, a little better and won
out. However, there were some phoney attempts to create a different
standard. A few record companies tried to produce non standard records
which would only be playable on only one brand of machine. They failed.
People didn't have much interest in the non standard systems.

I wonder if David Sarnoff ever though of making a special disk format for
Elvis. The "Elvis disks" would play the records of RCA's biggest star on
exclusive RCA players. He might have thought of such a thing. Sarnoff was
many things, but he wasn't stupid. Whatever, there were no exclusive RCA
Elvis disks. Elvis was out on 78s, 45s, and LPs. I belive this was still
in the time frame that CBS had patents on the LP.


The reasons for controlling who can hear SW broadcasts could be
financial or propagandist.

--
Telamon

I can imagine an advantage for the propagandists, but I can imagine far
greater disadvantages. Let's say China or Cuba or North Korea decided to
put in their own propriatary digital modulation scheme. First problem is
there's a large base of perfectly good existing anolog radios to be
replaced. I doubt that could be done quickly or completely and it would
certainly antagonize the people of these countries. Not a good propaganda
move with the internal population. And the VOA or Radio Marti would still
have a long time to broadcast in AM. AM would probably outlast Fidel
Castro. And when these countries finally went all digital, I'm sure we
would crack their modulation scheme quickly. We're good at those things.
If they tried to change the scheme at a regular basis, they'd have to
somehow distribute the new codes on a public basis without the rival
propagandists getting them. I don't see how that can be possible. And the
restrictive countries aren't pushing the digital scheme.

As far as a finacial or commerical development of a propriatary digital SW
broadcasting scheme, I don't see why any of the current broadcasters would
support it. Broadcasters like Alex Jones, Brother Stair and the VOA want to
be heard as widely as possible. And I don't think the current audience of
SWLs will have much interest, either. There's plenty of choices for
information and entertainment out there, and most of them are free. The
digital pay schemes in current use either rely on dozens or even hundreds of
choices for the consumer at a reasonably low cost, or a special broadcast.

It's a longshot, but I can imagine the shock jocks, such as Howard Stern,
might go to pay radio. I think they might be better suited by sattelite
radio if they go to a subscription plan, but I think it would be doable on
SW. This would be a great thing for the SWL hobby. The new listeners would
also get exposed to Alex Jones and The Prophet and all the other amusments
SW radio has to offer.

Frank Dresser