NAB Digital Radio Committee to Discuss AM Nighttime IBOC in January

http://www.rwonline.com/leslie_report/

The IBOC at night question is on the NAB radar, though. Association officials will be discussing the AM interference question next month.

In his letter to Bob Savage, Rehr continued: “In respect to NAB’s history regarding In-Band On-Channel radio (IBOC), the association has proceeded cautiously over many years with active participation by a broad cross-section of our membership to achieve consensus positions as well as our work with all-industry organizations such as the National Radio Systems Committee.

“Currently, we have an upcoming NAB Digital Radio Committee meeting scheduled in January where we will review input on nighttime AM IBOC and other related issues.”

I’m glad to see NAB planning to talk about nighttime AM IBOC in this committee. A wise engineer suggested to me this week that perhaps the best way to approach this WYSL-WBZ debate is for an independent third party to conduct an engineering study to figure out what’s going on. This could help settle whether what is happening is specifically due to IBOC, or AM atmospheric conditions, or something else.

And, of course, determining who would pay for such a study would be the next step.