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David Layer gives us a NAB Radio Technology Update

It’s been a busy year on the regulatory front for broadcast radio in the US.  AM radio surprisingly took center stage back in the spring, with some automakers announcing their decision to stop putting AM in cars followed by the strong negative response to this from broadcasters, listeners, and Congress.  And after a nearly four-year effort, the FCC issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in August for authorizing asymmetric sidebands for FM digital radio stations as well as an opportunity for more stations to increase their digital power to -10 dBc.  Mr. Layer will discuss both of these topics as well as other radio technology activities that NAB is pursuing.

David Layer is vice president, advanced engineering in NAB’s Technology department and in his 28th year at NAB.  Educated as an Electrical Engineer at the University of Maryland and Purdue University in Indiana, David worked as a hardware designer for COMSAT Laboratories in the earlier part of his career, focusing on digital communications technologies for geosynchronous satellite systems.

When radio broadcasting started going digital in the latter part of the 1990s, David was hired by NAB to apply his digital communications expertise to the testing and standardization of broadcast radio technologies including digital audio broadcasting and data transmission over digital FM subcarriers.  As an administrator of the National Radio Systems Committee (NRSC, co-sponsored by NAB and the Consumer Technology Association), David participated in the evaluation of the HD Radio system which would be adopted by the FCC in 2002 as the digital radio standard for the US.

These days, David’s principal responsibilities include serving as a project manager for technology projects being conducted by PILOT (NAB’s innovation initiative), and as principal administrator of the NAB Radio Technology Committee, a group of technical executives from NAB member companies that advises NAB on technology development and technical regulatory matters.  David also provides technical support to NAB’s efforts at the FCC and on Capitol Hill.

Currently, David is the immediate past chairman of the RadioDNS Steering Board and is the NAB representative to the RDS Forum.  He is also vice-chair of the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) Radio Committee.  David is a senior member of the IEEE and is active in the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society (BTS), where he’s served multiple terms as a board member on the administrative committee, is a distinguished lecturer, and has been the chair or co-chair of numerous annual IEEE Broadcast Symposia (most recently in 2017). David is a member of the Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers (AFCCE) where he is a past board member and past chair of the AFCCE Scholarship Committee.

David was the recipient of the Association of Public Radio Engineer’s Engineering Achievement Award in 2023.  He received Radio World’s 2015 Excellence in Engineering Award and was recognized by Radio Ink Magazine in November 2010 as among the top ten best engineers in radio. In 2014 David received the Consumer Electronics Association Technology Leadership Award. The IEEE BTS awarded David the Matti Siukola Memorial Award for the Best Paper of both the 2014 and 2018 IEEE Broadcast Symposia.

David lives in Mount Airy, Maryland with his wife Nora and between them they have eleven children and ten grandchildren.  He spends his free time mostly doing yard work at his Mount Airy home, but does find some time to enjoy scuba diving and playing with his 2006 Chevy Corvette.