The Unsorted BBS Collection/thegreatunsorted.tar/thegreatunsorted/texts/pirate_radio/456

Text File | 1993-12-18 | 17KB | 425 lines

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            Articles in this issue include:

DAB for    beginners                    (Norman    Mcleod)
Re: Information    Sought on Early    Radio Broadcasting    (Harold    Hallikainen)
Micro Radio                        (Charles E Newman)
Re: RADIO OZ                        (Robert    Smathers)
satellite reception of commercial radio    stations    (Shaw Mr. G)

------------------------------


------------------------------

Subject: DAB for beginners
From: [e-mail] (Norman Mcleod)
Organization: Experimental Psychology, Sussex University, Brighton


DAB - realising the nightmare

I fear I am something of  a  heretic  when  it  comes  to  'high'
technology,   and   a  few  other  things  besides.   In  a  less
enlightened age, I should have  been  burnt  at  the  stake  long
ago...

For instance, I thought  that  to  extol  RDS  as  'the  greatest
invention  in  radio  since  the transistor' was putting it a bit
strong.  I  reckoned  that  RDS  would  end  up  being  about  as
important to the radio listener as teletext is to the TV viewer -
i.e. not very.

Yes, RDS has its uses, but it's hardly set the world alight,  has
it?   Now  we have this thing called Digital Audio Broadcasting -
DAB - looming upon us.  Will DAB be another RDS?  Or another MAC?
Or  another  HDTV, still gestating  after goodness knows how much
money and argument has been spent on it?  Or will  Digital  Audio
Broadcasting overturn the world-as-we-know-it while we watch?

And if DAB does cause a revolution, what sort  of  impact  is  it
going  to  have on the UK radio broadcasting industry and is it a
welcome one?  We need to face these questions now,  before  plans
are set in concrete for the technical progress of radio well into
the next century. Everybody, not just the wide-eyed technophiles,
should  take  a close look at the effects of DAB on the structure
and pattern of services which broadcasters can set up.

Radio is never going to be  as  free  as  publishing,  where  the
market rules and anyone who can fund a publication can start one.
Always the expansion of the industry is going to  be  constrained
by the fact that the amount of spectrum available is finite.

It is never quite as finite as one is led  to  believe  by  those
with  the  power to dish it out in our name, but, yes, ultimately
there comes a point when even the pirates  cannot  jam  any  more
stations in!

Spectrum Efficiency

Any new invention which uses spectrum more  efficiently  than  an
older   technology   without   sacrificing   any   of  the  older
technology's good points must clearly be a Good Thing.

Now DAB comes into its own with  national  networks.    Proposals
include six BBC and six independent networks occupying 3.5 MHz at
Band III, around 230  MHz.   This  is  much  more  efficient  for
network planning than the current state of affairs on FM, where a
2.2 MHz slab of spectrum is used up by each BBC network.

So country-wide, national networks can use DAB to good  effect  -
since it is technically suited to this sort of transmission.  The
smaller and  more  localised  the  service  you  want,  the  less
attractive  DAB  looks.   DAB  is not capable of providing 'stand
alone' services in smaller markets and  rural  localities  in  an
economic  manner.   You have to buy, and plan for, local services
six at a time.

This is going to make the prospects for  developing  identifiably
local  DAB  services  to  locations  outside the big metropolitan
areas very bleak.

And DAB is going to cost broadcasters and listeners alike  a  lot
of  dosh,  with  no  payback  in  sight  for much longer than the
current eight-year licence period.

What is DAB?

DAB stands for Digital  Audio  Broadcasting.   It  is  a  way  of
transmitting    radio   programmes,   either   from   terrestrial
transmitters or from a satellite.

What are the benefits of DAB?

Compared to current-day FM broadcasts, DAB claims  to  offer  the
following advantages:

* sound quality comparable to CD;

* reliable reception for all;

* more efficient use of spectrum;

* simple push-button selection
  - no tuning;

How does it work?

In essence, DAB takes six stereo channels, converts them into  an
economical  stream  of  digits,  and  then  spreads them about in
frequency and time over a 1.5 MHz bandwidth.  Because the signals
are spread about a wide chunk of spectrum, the frequency-specific
signal nulls which occur with mobile and portable  FM  reception,
causing  pops,  crackles  and  fades, only affect part of the DAB
signal, and it is rugged enough to be able to tolerate this.

The digits are transmitted on some 1500 low data  rate  carriers,
such  that  for  any  one  carrier  the data is sent sufficiently
slowly for multipath reflections to add to  the  detected  signal
rather than mangling it, because they occur within the guard band
between one digit and the next.  Moreover, national or  wide-area
network transmitters carrying the same modulation can all use the
same frequency band - all the signals just add up with DAB.   How
much will it cost?

I am indebted to Mike Thorne, of NTL, for providing me with  what
I  would  stress  are  projected  costs  for putting DAB in at an
established transmitting site.  This assumes that there is  space
for  the  antenna  on  the  existing mast, and room below for the
apparatus.  Costs include a pair of DAB transmitters  to  provide
back-up (since if the thing fails six services will all be off at
once), a new antenna, and installing  six  BT  stereo  lines  and
input equipment.

For a single transmitter  running  1kW  into  an  omnidirectional
aerial,  the  capital cost of going on the air is put at 450,000,
plus 70,000 annual running costs, including use of mast and  rent
for  the  building,  electricity, BT lines, and maintenance.  The
price for  an  NTL  'Total  Broadcast  Contract',  including  the
running  costs mentioned earlier and paying back the capital cost
over 8 - 10 years, comes to 25,000 pa per service.  This is  less
than half the comparable FM costing.

However, better service and more efficient frequency use  can  be
obtained  by using a number of transmitters in a single frequency
network (SFN).  The  cost  of  a  network  of  five  lower  power
transmitters   (250W)   is  around  double  that  of  the  single
transmitter, which puts it on roughly a par with FM.

DAB Receivers - the down side

Current DAB receivers are substantial racks of equipment designed
for  professional  investigations.   No-one  is presently able to
produce a DAB receiver for less than several thousand pounds.   A
portable  DAB receiver running off batteries is still unheard of,
awaiting another generation, at least, of chip

FREQUENCY IMPLICATIONS

There are two frequency bands where it  is  proposed  to  operate
DAB.  One is towards the upper end of what used to be the TV band
III, around 226 MHz, where current BBC tests  are  being  carried
out.

The other is what used to be referred to by the military  as  the
'L'  band - just below 1500 MHz.  The former Band III frequencies
are looked on as a 'parking' band, for terrestrial transmissions,
while the latter band is more likely to be employed for satellite
transmission.

The intention is that in the year 2007 DAB transmissions will  be
moved  out  of  the  'parking'  band  to  take  over space in the
familiar Band II (87.5 - 108 MHz) after certain FM stations  have
been closed down.

FM STATIONS TO CLOSE DOWN

It's this latter proposal which should ring  alarm  bells  if  it
were  likely  to  come  about,  although frankly I don't think it
will.  The prospect of unplugging non-DAB equipped listeners from
services  they  currently  enjoy  could only be contemplated when
their numbers were very small indeed.

Remember our history.  Look how little impact FM broadcasts  made
during  the  first fifteen years of their existence, from 1955 to
1970, say.  FM offered superior audio quality and sold  a  number
of  sets  to  readers  of  Hi-Fi  News,  but  outside  that small
community FM conspicuously failed to catch on.

I suspect one reason was that you couldn't get either Radio 1  or
the offshore pirates on FM, nor could you get Radio Luxembourg or
any other foreign stations.

Another reason for FM's failure to take off was that sets with FM
were  expensive,  relatively scarce, and often didn't work nearly
as well as they were supposed to.  Add that to the fact that  all
you  got on FM were duplicates of three BBC AM networks, plus one
local BBC station for the favoured few, and the whole affair  was
a sorry flop.

Indeed it wasn't until the  late  eighties,  a  few  years  after
previously-simulcasting  AM  and FM transmitters split programmes
so that FM  offered  an  expanded  choice,  that  FM  became  the
majority  listening  medium for radio.  That's more than 30 years
after the FM service started and sets first became available.

There are some who  seem  to  think  that  all  DAB  need  do  is
rebroadcast  current   programmes in pristine CD quality and sets
will sell like hot cakes.  I doubt it.

Unless a significant number of  extra  programmes  are  available
ONLY on DAB, I fear the whole thing will be a repeat of the early
decades of FM.  There would be no question of  DAB  reaching  the
level   of   penetration  of  the  market  that   would  make  it
politically acceptable to switch FM radio off to let DAB take its
place, until such time as enough expensive DAB sets had been sold
to allow the development of a cheap DAB radio.

Make no mistake - millions of pounds has  been  spent  developing
DAB  even  so  far, and this is not charity work. The development
costs will have to be recovered from the first purchasers of  the
sets.  Whoever  buys  the  first  DAB  radios will be in the same
position as the people who copped the first mobile phones or  the
first fax machines not so many years ago.  They will be paying an
arm and a leg for them.  So DAB have got to offer more  than  the
same old songs, hasn't it?

[Moderator's Note:  Comments anyone?????  Bill]

------------------------------

Subject: Re: Information Sought on Early Radio Broadcasting
From: [e-mail] (Harold Hallikainen)
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

In article <2d26ej$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Kramer) writes:
>
>Second, I have secured a copy of a Department of Commerce
>station license issued in 1926.  The Radio Division of DOC
>licensed both a sending wave and a "receiving wave".  What
>was the purpose of licensing a receiving wave length?  Given
>the fact that a station was required to identify the receiving
>equipment it possessed, there was obviously some type of mon-
>itoring expectation but what was it that was supposed to be
>monitored?

    I wasn't around then, but as I recall reading, all broadcast
stations were required to monitor the 500 KHz ship's distress frequency.
I think all broadcast stations also had to be able to transmit on that
frequency to respond to an emergency.  Very unsure of this, but seem to
remember reading something about it.

Harold


------------------------------

Subject: Micro Radio
From: [e-mail] (Charles E Newman)
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)




       What would the FCC charge if they ever decided to license Micro-radio?
Micro Radio would give me a chance to start my own CHR station someday, In
the part of the country where I am, I could make a KILLING with a CHR station,
as there are no CHR stations anywheres near Sacramento. I could start out
with Micro-Radio level license, then graduate to higher-power licenses as
the station made more  money. I would then take the profits from the first
CHR station and buy a station in San Francisco and turn that into a CHR
station, stations I would love to get my hands on include KJAZ 92.7, KRQR 97.3,
KBAY 100.3, KKSF 103.7, KMEL 106.1 and KEAR 106.9, among these, KKSF, KMEL,
and KEAR are the best because they all can be heard for well over 100 miles.

------------------------------

Subject: Re: RADIO OZ
From: @triton.unm.edu:[e-mail] (Robert Smathers)
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <2cvjdb$[e-mail]>,
Bill Pfeiffer <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>It originates in Minneapolis Minn at WWTC radio, and is on ANIK-1 (I
>believe) satellite.  The LA affiliate is hardly a clear channel,


Bill,

Satellite is ASC-1 (c-band side).  Transponder 22 (on a consumer
receiver)  Left channel is at 7.92 MHz and the right channel
is at 8.12 MHz.  Video is the scrambled Midwest SportsChannel.

Your satellite services guru,

Robert
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Subject: satellite reception of commercial radio stations
From: [e-mail] (Shaw Mr. G)
Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Hi,
   Does anyone know if it is possible to receive commercial radio
stations by satellite in N.Z (or Australia).

I'm interested in broadcasts originating from the U.K. or Australia.

I guess all you need is a dish and a decoder but I don't know who
supplies them.

Thanks

Mike Buckler
------------------------------
[e-mail]
------------------------------



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