DRM The part of Shortwave that is noisy now.

When I DX the shortwave radio stations I want to hear all the broadcasters possible from differnent countries. It seems that this DRM is only half of the meter bands. I want to just hear the audio. No factory or manufactuer will be releasing the chips inside these receivers until 2007 to 2010, but there will be a expensive price on the newest radio receivers that will carry DRM. This will be a problem in gaining listenership, and we have only seen a few FM station listeners who are will incomed and weatlthy to own even the most sophisticated receivers now. It will look like that DRM will be a luxury item just as well as the DVD player and the newest HDTV's.

I feel that DRM will need to get more chipsets for other receivers that are in the making. The only thing that has DRM is our computers equiped with WinRadio and some other receivers that are only prototypes. This DRM is great, but where in the world are the receivers? There are only test transmitters on site, but no radio receivers chipped with DRM decoding for the average joe listener. DRM right now is not in my pricing catagory unless I get a Ten Tec receiver that will eventally be out of date when the DRM encoding gets more complicated and will create reception problems. The GCC does not want to deal with DRM anytime soon cause the problems getting the connections to obtain the right equipment and special software.

We tried the DRM website, I guess I have to be very special person to get that kind of equipment. I don't see any radios even portable that will pick up the DRM, All I hear is talk, talk, talk and a bunch of engineering jibberish about a technology that will might go obsolete like Betamax did. I feel that digital broadcasting is not for shortwave at all, its for our DAB and satellite broadcasters.

As I tune a radio frequency on 9795 or 9805 the DRM transmission is extremely unintelligable and also its a bunch of hash noise that is interfering with other fellow SW broadcasters that we want to hear and enjoy for many years. Out in foreign countries, DRM is NOT going to be very easy to get cause of these chipsets being too complicated to install and also the price will be in the 100's or even in the thousand dollar price range, just as the same as the I pod with 60 GB
and the Blu-Ray disc players. DRM will be only for a limited audience. I feel that we should all have access to the same SW transmission in analog until there are enough digital/analog radio receiver to use and also affordable by the general public.

Also there might be a special antenna requirement to achive to get the best possible DRM reception, which means that most antennas for DRM should not have alot of noise as analog antennas, which means best antenna and RF engineering requirement to create, produce, and manufactuer extremely low noise antennas that will bring out the best shortwave, AM, and longwave signal possible. If this cannot be achived then you will get alot, I mean alot of errorous and RF congestion on your favorite DRM receiver.

We hope everyone understands this blog, that the GCC encourages DRM DXing, but remember that it will not entirely replace analog radio altogether. DRM is a digital mode, the same as RTTY and other digital mode we have been using for years, its not any different than the regular AM broadcasts we listen to on a day to day basis. If I were you, I should wait until everything phases in 75 to 100%, cause this future plan might fail or it will be the rich mans radio mode cause of the luxurous clarity of FM sound on shortwave. Also its not best to even think about using such expensive equipment during severe lightning storms or high level static discharge or EMP. Just remember to shop and reasearch before you buy any DRM SW radio.

Good Luck and Happy DRM DXing! 73! gccengineering