Inhomogeneous broadening of resonance lines causes a reduction of abso
rption in nuclear resonance experiments. This is particularly devastat
ing to the observation of the Mossbauer effect in isomers like Ag-107
with a half-life of 44 s. It has been suggested in the literature that
homogeneous broadening can provide overlap of resonance lines and thu
s the Mossbauer effect can be recovered. The analysis presented in thi
s paper shows that this is not the case for Mossbauer experiments, unl
ess the radiative width Gamma(gamma) also increases. Although overlap
occurs when the lines are homogeneously broadened to a total width Gam
ma(H) which exceeds the natural width Gamma, and the inhomogeneous wid
th Delta, the Mossbauer absorption remains low because it is proportio
nal to the factor of Gamma(gamma)/Gamma(H).