🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1191197905.161028.251110@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>, 
SFTVratings_troy@yahoo.com says...
>
>
>David Eduardo wrote:
>> <SFTVratings_troy@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > There are millions of obsolete televisions which will stop working in
>> > just over a year.  Does it look like the advertisers care?
>> > They won't care about obsolete radios either.
>> >
>>
>> Radio stations are not ready to go all digital, and probably will not be 
for
>> 8 to 10 years.... if ever.
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>
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>Both the UK and Germany have "tentatively" set 2015 as the shut-down
>for FM.  (They expect DAB to fill that role.)  I figure the U.S.
>transition will require a similar time period of fifteen years, so
>sometime around 2020 will be the end of analog.
>
>Although, I'd like to see AM die as early as 2010 since so few people
>listen to it.  Just make it pure digital, 10 kHz per channel.
>
>FM can continue until 2020 (it has no interference problems).

FM can continue forever because, unlike the digital television transition in 
the US, HD Radio required no new spectrum and there is no proposal to auction 
off any of the current FM band (88-108 MHz in the US). I know of no serious 
broadcaster who claims to have any real idea of when analog FM might be shut 
down.

If this ever occurs, it will probably be because other transmission channels 
finally provide a cheaper pipe to the listener and that pipe reaches enough 
listeners to make the loss of analog-only listeners inconsequential. FM in the 
US tends to use high powered transmitters with concurrent large electric 
bills. Digital transmission can get equivalent reach with much lower power -- 
power efficiency is probably close to 100x in favor of state of the art 
digital coding. Meanwhile, the cost of electricity is likely to continue to 
increase, at least in the medium term. (If the world ever gets practical 
fusion reactors, that trend could of course change :-).

Bob Orban