For sure! There’s definitely going to be problems with digital radio when it’s used to cram more channels on the same frequency band or whatever. But the particular implementation of broadcast digital radio aside, if we’re just talking modulation, I would bet on digital modes being able to transmit further more reliably than any analog FM signal.
I know that some of the digital modes like FT8 that hams use can be super effective at making long distance contacts in low noise environments. Of course these are text modes, and not used for voice. I’m not sure whether or not something like FT8 will do better than regular CW in the same conditions, but I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if it could… Being able to do error correction for signals would likely make a huge difference in noisy environments.
For sure! There’s definitely going to be problems with digital radio when it’s used to cram more channels on the same frequency band or whatever. But the particular implementation of broadcast digital radio aside, if we’re just talking modulation, I would bet on digital modes being able to transmit further more reliably than any analog FM signal.
I know that some of the digital modes like FT8 that hams use can be super effective at making long distance contacts in low noise environments. Of course these are text modes, and not used for voice. I’m not sure whether or not something like FT8 will do better than regular CW in the same conditions, but I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if it could… Being able to do error correction for signals would likely make a huge difference in noisy environments.