| reply to DaveDude
Re: Crazy idea said by DaveDude: I could understand them taking away all of Vhf, but not the entire deal. Radio needs to go fully digital as well. Most of the digital OTA is now in the UHF band. I suspect it would be possible to reclaim the VHF bandwidth and pay the stations that would have to move their frequency from VHF to UHF out of the proceeds of the wireless auctions.
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| said by fAcEtIOUs:said by DaveDude: I could understand them taking away all of Vhf, but not the entire deal. Radio needs to go fully digital as well. Most of the digital OTA is now in the UHF band. I suspect it would be possible to reclaim the VHF bandwidth and pay the stations that would have to move their frequency from VHF to UHF out of the proceeds of the wireless auctions. Low VHF is less than optimal due to reflections and noise. High VHF could be used.
So I'd suggest abandoning low VHF, giving a small 70MHz allocation (70-70.5) to ham radio operators, and leaving the rest open for white space devices and an expanded (digital?) audio broadcasting service to supplement FM and get rid of this IBOC crap. |
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 tschmidtPremium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
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| reply to fAcEtIOUs
said by fAcEtIOUs:I suspect it would be possible to reclaim the VHF bandwidth and pay the stations that would have to move their frequency from VHF to UHF VHF Lo is not well suited for digital TV, due to propagation and man-made noise issues. VHF Hi has experienced a lot of problems since transition to Digital TV, but that seems to be more related to overly optimistic estimates of power requirement then anything else.
I assume that will also make VHF, or at least VHF Lo unattractive for other forms of digital communications. In addition FM broadcasters are clamoring for more spectrum, Low end of FM is adjacent to TV Channel 6 so expanding FM down is easy.
Looks like a lot more is in play then I though.
/tom |
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mc5w
join:2002-06-14
Independence, OH | Expanding FM radio into TV channels 5 and 6 is actually easier than you think. Japan already uses those frequencies for FM broadcast so expansion would be as easy as buying a seciond set of radios.
In actuality, the computer controlled tuners in FM radios probably can tune 76 to 108 MHz if the firmware is unlocked to allow the radio to tune both US and Japanese frequencies. That is, probably the only difference between a US and Japanese FM radio is a software restriction on which set of frequencies it can receive. If the manufacturers do not offer a firmware upgrade, I am pretty sure that somebody could hack the firmware. |
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