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Paul,
My luck continues to hold. Three near-local IBOCers are still refraining from despoiling the ether. I still must contend with splatter and bad programming, but, to paraphrase Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks!, "Two outta three ain't that bad." Of course he was talking about government, a far greater threat to mankind. (Sorry for borrowing your shtick.)
With these three out of the picture for now, I can't make any observations as to the strength of the noise. When it was there I avoided rather than studied it, much as I do their program content.
There has been a lot of speculation of why IBOC. Somewhere in it all is probably one or more valid reasons -- for trying it, not continuing it. I tend to discount grand conspiracy theories. Those require a degree of secrecy which has to my knowledge never been demonstrated with a group larger than one. As to wiping out competition, how does that work when it is your own station that suffers the ill effects on the analog signal, it's only good for local audiences with expensive radios, and the only other stations affected are adjacent channels which are not likely local competition to begin with. Heard the old _expression_: Pig in a poke? I think the IBOC purveyors have sold just that and hope to collect before anyone figures it out. Some people on these DX lists talk about AM stereo, I love technological things and until these discussions never knew it had ever been implemented. IBOC will no doubt achieve a similar level of success.
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