NPR TO FINISH SECONDARY DIGITAL RADIO CHANNEL TESTS BY MID-DEC.

NPR is setting much store by the success of the supplemental audio channel as a way of increasing coverage in light of spectrum shortage and to promote localism, an issue that has come to the fore after the FCC decided to raise the ownership limits for commercial TV broadcasters. Starling said testing had been almost completed on schedule Sept. in 4 markets when iBiquity unveiled its new HD Codec (HDC) to replace the PAC Codec. Starling said data collection was done based on the PAC codec at KALW San Francisco, KKJZ L.A., WETA Washington, a long-standing test station for iBiquity, and WNYC N.Y.C.

The introduction of the HD Codec in Aug., which drew “rave” reviews from more than 40 broadcast engineers and executives, meant “all our test data on PAC Codec was not conclusive of what would be the real world coverage characteristics and that we have to do several rounds of some regression testing.” The new testing would be confined to Washington and N.Y., Starling said, because those stations were on the air permanently, whereas in L.A. and San Francisco the testing was done on “loaner” transmitters. It won’t be necessary to go back and redo all of those data, he said.

Asked whether there had been any preliminary findings on the viability of the 2nd channel, Starling was cautious, saying he didn’t want to be “premature about our expectations.” He said it was believed internally that if a city grade coverage contour of 70 dBu was achieved it would be substantial enough to “warrant asking the Commission to endorse this option” as part of the interim service rules for digital radio. “We think we will clearly exceed that, but I wouldn’t want to predict where we will wind up,” he said. “We will probably be somewhere between the 60 and 70 dBu contour as you could generally expect.”

The extended testing period following the unveiling of the HDC was made possible by the FCC giving a 6-month experimental authorization period, rather than the 90-day period sought by NPR, Starling said. “We really didn’t expect at that point [when authorization was sought] that iBiquity would accede to the broadcasters’ wishes and make the substitution of a better, more improved codec.” Starling said FM programs weren’t replicated on the test channel. Instead, for “the entertainment of those riding in the test van for those scores and scores of hours, they have a 1 kHz tone to listen to from the supplemental channel.” The main objective of the testing was to document where there could be any dropouts, at which point coverage was beginning to be lost, he said. That was easier to track with a tone, he said. There also were 3-4 different flags being monitored inside the receiver itself that gave additional information on how specific sections of the receivers were decoding -- or not, he said.

As for when receivers with supplemental channel capability would be available, Starling said: “It looks like there will be an announcement from Kenwood in January about the availability and exactly when that could be expected in the retail markets.” However, the FCC first would have to endorse use of the supplemental channel because the interim rules adopted in Oct. 2002 allowed for simulcasting only, he said: “So this would require a change in the initial report and order that embraced simulcasting only.”