hi guys

[donbohrer]

Just wanted to take the time to say hi. I'm a broadcast engineer working in el paso texas. Currently I am the engineer for 6 radio stations and network admin.

don (el paso)

[moamps]

A hearty welcome from one broadcast engineer to another!

Regards,
Milan

[Cal Weldon]

Welcome to the forums Don. Sounds like you and Milan will have lots to talk about.

[donbohrer]

Thanks Cal. Recently we started adding HD radio to our analog am/fm stations. That has been frustrating but fun.

Milan are your stations considering adding HD in the coming years. Ibiquity is the manufacturer that has provided a standard U.S. broadcasters will adopt.

What problems do you see in the future for broadcasting in general?


don (el paso)

[moamps]

Hi Don:

In Europe, the DAB system has been deployed and in operation for some time now (I think the UK boasts more installations than any other EU country). In Croatia, the DAB system is still in the test phase and is restricted to only a couple of state-owned radio stations sharing the same transmitter.
Given the slow pace of DAB implementation and its questionable gains in quality over analog FM, I don't expect my part of the world to be switching to DAB any time soon. In the meantime, it may as well happen that the DAB technology becomes obsolete and some other format takes its place, like HD for instance. The only problem with that scenario is that embedding the HD signal with the FM signal would complicate things for us to a considerable degree as the channels are spaced only 200kHz apart so the existing transmission system and broadcast stations would need to be rearranged.
Croatia is a small country, whose entire territory can be decently covered by the analog signal (95% of the territory 95% of the time) and all you'd need are 5 or 6 hi-power transmitters. The radio stations that have multiple transmitters at different locations to enhance their coverage use the RDS system to automatically select the strongest signal when their listeners are travelling and passing through different service zones. AM is here used only by the state-owned radio station and this is where I may see some potential for going digital.
Generally speaking, I believe in going digital only when it improves the quality of broadcast programs, which is a top priority for my radio station. We are among the few radio stations in this part of the world that broadcast music directly from CD players. We are switching to computers in the near future but even then we won't be using any compression formats (except perhaps FLAC).

Regards,
Milan