Tuesday, August 23, 2005
HD RADIO-AN "EVIL THING"
If you go back in broadcast history to the days of yesteryear, TV and FM stereo were technologies that were not proprietary. I believe the inventor of TV wanted to patent the technology but never before IBOC has that been allowed to happen.
So here comes Ibiquity with IBOC. According to the trades if you signed on last year it was $5,000 but if you wait a couple of years it will be $25,000. Then they said you would have to pay a license fee just like your ASCAP and BMI at the prevailing rate to “reup” or whatever you want to call it. The trades said Ibiquity gave Clear Channel unnamed incentives and the head engineer at Clear Channel is on the NRSC board. I don't know all the details but this doesn't pass the smell test. As my grandmother would say, "There's something rotten in Denmark."
So Clear Channel is pushing for 6kHz music audio to diminish sidebands but I personally can hear IBOC hash when I tune my car radio to 1380 in Columbia, SC, which is five or six miles away from Clear Channel's WCOS-AM 1400. Why 1380? Because I own a simple country station doing live radio with real people (imagine that) not that far away broadcasting on 1380 AM in Bishopville, SC.
So the technicals look doubtful, and the money trail? It will make your head spin. Is this pathetic drama going to have the same sad conclusion as Braveheart? Mel Gibson playing William Wallace got pulled apart on the rack in the end. Are you with me? We've got to stop this evil thing.
James D. Jenkins,owner/GM
WAGS Radio
Bishopville, SC
So here comes Ibiquity with IBOC. According to the trades if you signed on last year it was $5,000 but if you wait a couple of years it will be $25,000. Then they said you would have to pay a license fee just like your ASCAP and BMI at the prevailing rate to “reup” or whatever you want to call it. The trades said Ibiquity gave Clear Channel unnamed incentives and the head engineer at Clear Channel is on the NRSC board. I don't know all the details but this doesn't pass the smell test. As my grandmother would say, "There's something rotten in Denmark."
So Clear Channel is pushing for 6kHz music audio to diminish sidebands but I personally can hear IBOC hash when I tune my car radio to 1380 in Columbia, SC, which is five or six miles away from Clear Channel's WCOS-AM 1400. Why 1380? Because I own a simple country station doing live radio with real people (imagine that) not that far away broadcasting on 1380 AM in Bishopville, SC.
So the technicals look doubtful, and the money trail? It will make your head spin. Is this pathetic drama going to have the same sad conclusion as Braveheart? Mel Gibson playing William Wallace got pulled apart on the rack in the end. Are you with me? We've got to stop this evil thing.
James D. Jenkins,owner/GM
WAGS Radio
Bishopville, SC
