Technology signals new clarity,
more content from AM/FM radio
Radio broadcasters around the world are enhancing their signals to carry digital-quality music and talk, as well as offering more audio channels and data delivery services.
Today in the United States, 2,800 AM and FM stations are in the process of upgrading to digital HD RadioTM technology, with over 500 of them currently broadcasting with the new technology.
The ramp up is steep: virtually every day, a new station goes on the air. People in top 50 markets have access to HD Radio programming today. And, stations are beginning to launch second program streams utilizing the HD Radio multicast capabilities.
HD Radio is powered by iBiquty Digital Corporation, which is the sole developer and licenser of IBOC (In Band - On Channel) system, which allows a station to broadcast in digital without changing the station's frequency or channel.
Shields by Magnetic Shield Corporation are used in the RFU, (Radio Frequency Upconverter), an integral part of the technology iBiquity licenses to the companies that make radio transmitters.
Under development for more than a decade, a consortium of CBS radio and Gannet Broadcasting stations first funded the technology in 1991.
As interest spread, the list of developers grew to include Lucent Digital Radio and others.