In article , Fleetie wrote:
"John Phillips" wrote
In article , Keith G wrote:

When FM radio (2 in the evenings often and 3 most of the time) hits the
spot, which it frequently does, it really is the best 'audio' you can get
and is altogether better than any TV or digital sound!

I agree entirely on the superb quality of analogue FM broadcasts when
they do hit the spot.

However, on the subject of "better than any ... digital sound" sorry to
quibble but I believe the UK national "analogue FM" transmtter network
is fed with digital NICAM-encoded content. Assuming I'm right, even
though the transmission is analogue FM the source is still digital.
And what's more it's just 14-bit digital at 32 ksamples/sec before we
even get to the issue of 10-bit NICAM transcoding.

32ks/s (==16kHz bandwidth)? Isn't FM capable of up to 19kHz? ISTR hearing
that, or at least, that the difference signal (?) is stuck up 19kHz above
the main signal.

You are right about there being a pilot tone at 19 kHz and the stereo
difference signal above this centred on 38 kHz but the audio bandwidth
of FM is only 15 kHz (you need margin for anti-alias filtering
relative to the 16 kHz max for 32 ksample/s). See for example
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu.../radio.html#c2

--
John Phillips