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259 points zdw | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.216s | source
1. fanf2 ◴[] No.41834140[source]
Some more about FM at http://www.theradiohistorian.org/fm/fm.htmlhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41471355

« FM signals were much more immune to interference than AM due to its “capture effect” – an interfering signal needed to be more than 50% the strength of the desired signal to cause audible interference, compared to 5% or less with AM. This characteristic would considerably reduce the required separation between stations occupying the same channel and allow more channel re-use, which compensated for its greater occupied bandwidth. And most importantly, because all natural and man-made static is amplitude modulated, FM proved to be amazingly noise-free. Armstrong improved its resistance to noise still further by incorporating a new receiver component – a limiter that stripped off the amplitude variations in the received signal before it reached the detector. He had finally solved the problem of static interference that had confounded radio experts since the beginnings of the art. »