Does IBOC have a future?

[atrainradio]

Most AMs turned off their HD a good while ago. Will the same happen to FM? I think so, on account that, well, no one aside from a few nerds (myself included, mind you) know it even exists. And I know it costs stations a bit in royalties to use it, and the electricity it additionally uses. I can see some stations begin to turn it off probably in the next five-ten years.

Or this is all just wish DX thinking on account of all the e-skip we've had recently.

[ThaDood]

Whelp, just before COVID-19  all hit, I bought a Sangean IBOC receiver, with C-QUAM AM Stereo included. (That, was the bigger draw to me.) Unfortunately, instead of coming here, it went to somewhere in Virginia Beach, then disappeared. I got my $$$ back, due to a package lost claim, but at this point, I see no reason to go IBOC today. That said, we'll see how much, and how deep, the pockets of Ibiquity are to continue IBOC. I actually see a bigger promise in DRM formats, but being more of an open-source, that's not likely to catch on in the USA. Still, digital is not going to go away, and SDR's maybe the savior for decoding various digital formats out there. So, as ASIA sings, "Only Time Will Tell". Just my $0.02 worth.

[Dude111]

Lets hope this IBOC stuff is all abandoned!

It ruins adjacent freqs,etc....

AM Stereo is awesome... Are there any stations still running it??

[ThaDood]

AM Stereo stations still out there? I know there's a few, some being Part 15'ers. Here's one list:   http://www.amstereo.org/     I don't know how current this is, but:      http://meduci.com/stations.html      There are also stations that switch-on the 25Hz Pilot tone, to flip older AM stereo chips, but run the audio MONO. Buffalo's WWKB 1520AM did that for a while. Anyway, they're out there.

[ChrisSmolinski]

Local WTHU Thurmond MD used to transmit in stereo, but stopped when the transmitter died and they had to go back to their old one. I assume it was not worth the effort to transmit stereo to all zero listeners using AM stereo receivers.

[Dude111]

Ya its sad Chris,you would think there may be 1 or 2 people out there!!

AM Stereo stations still out there? I know there's a few, some being Part 15'ers. Here's one list:   http://www.amstereo.org/     I don't know how current this is, but:      http://meduci.com/stations.html

Wow those sites are awesome and they dont block HTTP!

Thank you buddy!!

[atrainradio]

WEMG 1310 in Philly runs C-Quam....but their stereo feed stinks. Only a little audio out of the right channel. I doubt the owners even have a clue what C-Quam is. It's a shame!

[Dude111]

Someone should try and tell them!!

I wonder how 1300 in Chicago sounds??

[BoomboxDX]

I was neutral on IBOC until I got a Sony XDR and heard the two local AM stations running IBOC and as soon as hearing them I was sold on the IBOC technology being good for AM radio.

Within about 6 months the two stations pulled the plug on their IBOC, probably due to costs.

In the 2010's there were quite a few IBOC stations I could hear at night (the buzz, not the actual AM HD signals), nowadays I don't hear any except the buzzing from KSL 1160 Salt Lake City, a station I've never been able to decode with my Sony XDR or Sangean HDR16.

I don't think HD on FM will go away completely, although it's probable that more FM's will pull the plug on the technology because its not really something they can monetize. Some HD2's make the stations money as they rent the HD2 out to national networks. But the number of HD2's and HD3's aren't anywhere near what they were in 2017 when I got my XDR. Even NPR here switched off theirs in my metro.

The problem from the radio business side of things is that HD on FM doesn't really make a station money, unless they can rent an HD2 to somebody else that's willing to pay. If it's not making a station money, there's really no point in running the HD. Most listeners can't probably tell the difference between an FM station's HD1 and the analog FM, because they may be listening in the office or car or whatever, and they're not really hearing the fidelity difference all that much.

Then again, a lot of listeners have left radio for Spotify, Pandora, and other streaming services. But that's another issue.

[skeezix]

WXYG 540 in Sauk Rapids, MN is on C-QUAM. 

Around the Minneapolis area, we've had MW IBOC stations come & go. When they're on the air, they jam adjacent stations. I think there's some FM stations running IBOC around here, but I don't bother with them much.

[Dude111]

I wonder if any stations have C-QUAM and IBOC both enabled???