The comment regarding DTV and HD radio creating 6 times the channels might be true. For those of us idiots who forked and spooned over thousands in the past 3 years for a first look at DTV and those PBS sellouts for multicasting we already have a good idea why cable does not want to fool with demodulating those silly signals:

1. The source material is the same junk TV mail delivery system already splattering out to the 500 channel receivers we pay for each month from sat TV baby dishes or from the cable guys themselves.

2. The quality is worse than analog once it is down-converted and sent to the old faithful NTSC sets.

3. Why waste more bandwidth on seriously fragmented by 4 or 5 multiples the already non-existent local source material delivered by these holding companies who control those old UHF independents and new network assignees.

We are getting our first experiences with VHF skipping and its effect on digital TV nowadays. The result is far less interference that conventional TV with its beat frequency interleaving. The new effect is zero signal or in-out and out again. But, there is no typical fade in and out or strange audio problems. This is another issue not talked about in this day of on or off design.

And as usual, you are a sounding board for the bogus NAB hype for HD radio as if that is a great stocking stuffer for the coming "holiday season". HD radio, should it force its way into the playing field, will start for the teams that are 8 runs ahead in the last inning and certainly not in the pitching position that has brought it to the little league and bush league playing fields to date. As we blog back and forth very slowly those bought out techs and men in hiding behind their corporate shields and 401K slips are discovering the fallacies of this megabucks sales pitch....it ain't working.

Don't take my deleted email word for this scientific fact finding mission. Just ask anyone not linked to their corporate home page or set up a secret site where folks can really report what they are discovering about the NAB's new pet rock-digital radio reduces the playing field by about 25 percent on FM in medium and major markets by blocking first adjacent signals outside of the 1 to 3 millivolt contours virtually eliminating about 1 in 4 market jumpers for each digital channel that goes on line. As the offended stations install their own channel guards (digital carriers), that can lead to about 50 percent of stations having their contours cut by at least 25 percent or a pop count loss typically of 50-75 percent of the target contours since most of these guys are playing for the horizon in the first place.

So this is the commencement of the 'thinning of the heard" just as digital guys are claiming from their witness protection programs around the corporate board rooms of the USA and via sponsored links and radio publications collecting digital dollars for the see, hear, and say nothing editorial comments.

I have other things to do but it will be fun someday to review these dozens of time devoted emails to various radio folks determined to play the middle and avoid flagging the sheer ignorance of radio and TV folks so determined to mimic their upper level team leaders in these very expense, often success stealing endeavors to attract new funding for anything digital or Latino or first named programming transitions. Just invite your readers to ride the contour of their digital brethren and note the number of dropouts from a conventional HD receiver commencing with the city grade signal and down to the market service contours. Perhaps more "robust decoders" will be the new hyper-buzz phrase for next year replacing the super brilliant multichannels twist that has now risen to 4 or 5 stereo channels per facility in less than a year to date. And the hits just keep on getting played again and again.

Jerry
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