Matthew's Workbench » DRM http://www.matthewsworkbench.com Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:34:21 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 An Expanded FM Band? http://www.matthewsworkbench.com/expanded-fm-band/ http://www.matthewsworkbench.com/expanded-fm-band/#comments Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:03:05 +0000 Matthew Reed http://www.matthewsworkbench.com/expanded-fm-band/ TV Channel 5-6 Radio Proposal.]]> A group known as the Broadcast Maximization Committee, or BMC, made an interesting proposal to the FCC last month.  They want to expand the FM radio band to encompass television channels 5 and 6 (the ordinary FM band is positioned between television channels 6 and 7). The goal for this would be to reduce interference. You can read their complete proposal here: TV Channel 5-6 Radio Proposal.

As part of the plan, most AM radio stations in the country would move to the expanded FM channels and broadcast in digital mode (presumably DRM+). The new band would be divided to allow for the former AM stations, low power stations, and other uses. The AM band, now free from overcrowding, could be used for fewer station or for some other purpose.

This is just a proposal and probably nothing will come of it. Some see it as competition to the 26MHz.us proposal, although I don’t see why the two couldn’t coexist. I’m unsure whether I think the BMC plan would be a good idea or whether it would create more problems than it solved.

Radio World has two good articles about the proposal:

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