No, I haven't gone over to the dark side, but I did get a chance to borrow a Boston Acoustics "HD" receiver and play with it a bit. I'm not in range of any FM IBOC stations, so I've mostly been trying it out on AM. It's a fair to middlin' AM receiver when connected to a decent antenna, though somewhat prone to front end overload from strong local signals. Of course, I was particular interested in seeing what the receiver would do with AM IBOC skywave signals, so I spent some time checking them out around sunset today. I found that a surprising number of stations (e.g., WFAN, WCBS, WGY, WHAM) are shutting off their IBOC at local sunset rather than leaving it on until 6 pm as they are permitted to do - not exactly a ringing endorsement of the technology when they don't keep it on as long as they can.
Anyway, I found a total of 10 stations that the receiver recognized as running IBOC (i.e., the "HD" symbol on the display lit up). Of those, only three decoded to the point of producing a display of the callsign: WBZ, WTIC and WDCD. The most interesting reception was of WDCD (1540, Albany NY, 205 miles from me), where I actually received the digital audio stream, for a grand total of about 5 seconds. There wasn't a huge change in audio quality - the striking change was the sudden disappearance of co-channel interference (mainly from CHIN). Aside from that one brief burst, I had zilch digital audio decoding from a host of strong IBOC signals. So, is this the first reported instance of AM IBOC audio reception via skywave? Even if I can claim that dubious distinction, it certainly doesn't change my opinion, expressed years ago, that AM IBOC would be an absolute dud as far as DX'ers are concerned, and is a train wreck in general. Barry -- Barry McLarnon VE3JF Ottawa, ON _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org To Post a message: [email protected]
