News

NPR Labs to Pilot Project of Radio Emergency Alerts For Deaf and Hard of Hearing People in U.S. Gulf Coast – Click here for more details. Latino USA Becomes First Radio Program to Commence Regular Radio Captioning Distribution – Click here for more details. Nautel to Promote NPR Labs HD Radio Calculator – Online IBOC tool to help stations gauge effects of increasing HD Radio power levels. Click here for more information. NPR Labs Launches New Mapping Tool – The Mapping And Population System (MAPS) provides terrain-sensitive coverage maps for reception of all public radio and television stations in the U.S. Click here for more information. Click here for the press release. NPR Labs, KUOW to Test New FM+HD Booster System  -- NPR Labs is working with member station KUOW(FM), Seattle on a new type of FM+HD booster system as well as new design methodology, which could ease the way for stations to employ both FM analog and FM HD Radio boosters to improve coverage in areas where interference may be high. Click here to read the article from Radio World. FCC’s Proposed LPFM Allotments Available for Study -- As a step toward implementing the Local Community Radio Act (LCRA), the FCC released a summary list of LPFM allotments for 155 radio markets in its recent Third Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making (MB 07-172).  NPR obtained a copy of the FCC’s computer program and prepared detailed reports from the program for each market, which may be helpful in examining the impact on FM translator applications, which are involved in the proceeding.  Details on the program and the results are available here. International Telecommunications Union supports Captioned Radio by pushing ITU standards recommendation ITU-R BS 1894 -- On May 25, 2011 the ITU announced that balloting had been completed by the 192 member countries and that Captioned Radio, a standard that has been in the making for over two years was successfully adopted as a consensus recommendation.  The document strongly encourages all of the internationally recognized digital radio systems to add Captioned Radio transmissions and for consumer electronics manufacturers to build products for the new service.  Click here for the full text of this document. NPR Labs Tests Asymmetrical IBOC Sidebands as Part of Nautel PowerBoost™ Study -- A report released June 1 by NPR Labs validates the technology of Nautel’s HD PowerBoost with Asymmetrical Sideband system in improving reception coverage, power output and efficiency for HD Radio™ transmission.  Click here for more information.    Interference to NCE-FM Stations from Channel 6 DTV -- The FCC is proposing a large increase in transmission power for low-VHF DTV stations, including channel 6, which is adjacent to the NCE-FM band.  NPR Labs conducted a study of all NCE-FM stations, which finds that interference could affect substantial numbers of FM listeners.  Click here for more information. More news...