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Fewer cars with AM radios...

BamaTX said:
Considering this is a thread about vehicles, there's not many major highways with massive coverage holes left. Sure, there are gaps here and there. But reliability and availability is at an all time high. In an emergency, the chances of being able to dial 911 are pretty good since the FCC forces carriers to provide bandwidth for such calls to every capable device (even phones without SIM cards)..
Click to expand...
But the point is that, in an emergency, cellphones may totally stop working.

For example, after the big hurricane in Puerto Rico, within hours all the cell relay locations had depleted their batteries and went dead. Some did not come back for months. Cellular systems are very fragile in such cases.
 
wadio said:
When the AM band is no longer useful for entertainment purposes, what will the FCC do with it?
Click to expand...
The Netherlands deemed AM no longer useful some years ago - being a small, mostly flat country with no areas that could be considered "remote" by U.S. or even European standards, FM and DAB+ are more than adequate for radio coverage and fast mobile internet blankets the country. Instead of leaving the band empty, they reallocated their AM channels to non-commercial enthusiast and hobbyist broadcasters - people who may in the past have been "pirates".

Now, there are a large number of small stations from 1 to 100 watts on the dial, some full-time, some just appearing at weekends, mostly playing oldies and nostalgia programming - enthusiasts get to play at radio on a band that no longer has any commercial or public service use. Most of these stations likely have no listeners beyond those involved in running them and a few local radio nerds, but it seems an entirely harmless use of a dead band.

Overzicht van alle legale ether middengolf zenders in Nederland

Overzicht van alle legale ether middengolf zenders in Nederland
radio-tv-nederland.nl radio-tv-nederland.nl
 
DavidEduardo said:
But the point is that, in an emergency, cellphones may totally stop working.

For example, after the big hurricane in Puerto Rico, within hours all the cell relay locations had depleted their batteries and went dead. Some did not come back for months. Cellular systems are very fragile in such cases.
Click to expand...
Liking your post because your point is true. What happened was horrible btw.
 
In rural areas, repeaters are used to fill in gaps in mobile phone coverage, because they can be put on top of telephone poles and therefore won't be subject to NIMBY like full-size cell phone towers would. But the problem is, these repeaters have no generator or battery backup, so when the power goes out, they go out.

At my home, when the power's on I get at least three bars even in the middle of my basement. But when the power's out, inside I get no cell service at all, and outside I only get one bar.
 
kevtronics said:
In rural areas, repeaters are used to fill in gaps in mobile phone coverage, because they can be put on top of telephone poles and therefore won't be subject to NIMBY like full-size cell phone towers would. But the problem is, these repeaters have no generator or battery backup, so when the power goes out, they go out.

At my home, when the power's on I get at least three bars even in the middle of my basement. But when the power's out, inside I get no cell service at all, and outside I only get one bar.
Click to expand...
My provider was doing routine maintenance to their closest tower to me, which meant they had to shut it down for an entire morning. I average about 4 bars of service, however when that tower shut down, I was down to one bar, and it would drop out every few minutes. I could tell it was just my tower because I could drive down the street for a mile, and better reception would return.
 
Miss Tuned said:
The Netherlands deemed AM no longer useful some years ago - being a small, mostly flat country with no areas that could be considered "remote" by U.S. or even European standards, FM and DAB+ are more than adequate for radio coverage and fast mobile internet blankets the country. Instead of leaving the band empty, they reallocated their AM channels to non-commercial enthusiast and hobbyist broadcasters - people who may in the past have been "pirates".

Now, there are a large number of small stations from 1 to 100 watts on the dial, some full-time, some just appearing at weekends, mostly playing oldies and nostalgia programming - enthusiasts get to play at radio on a band that no longer has any commercial or public service use. Most of these stations likely have no listeners beyond those involved in running them and a few local radio nerds, but it seems an entirely harmless use of a dead band.

Click to expand...
I absolutely love this idea! Part 15 is too limited signal wise, here in the US, but if the FCC allowed up to 100 watts on a section of the AM dial for hobbyists, that would be great. Even if licensing and approval was still necessary from the FCC. It would help eliminate the "pirate" problem, and give real radio access to the public.

Do you know what requirements the Netherlands has for these operators (licensing, etc.)?
 
KilowattKat said:
I absolutely love this idea! Part 15 is too limited signal wise, here in the US, but if the FCC allowed up to 100 watts on a section of the AM dial for hobbyists, that would be great. Even if licensing and approval was still necessary from the FCC. It would help eliminate the "pirate" problem, and give real radio access to the public.

Do you know what requirements the Netherlands has for these operators (licensing, etc.)?
Click to expand...
I'm not Dutch, but my understanding from someone who lives there is that you do need a license from the government but the process is only to allocate a frequency and prevent nearby stations from interfering with one another. It's also useful for the government to know who is in charge of the station in case of problems - if a station was to start broadcasting obscenities or racist rants, etc.

It's not the standard European licensing process of "you must guarantee to broadcast this much speech, this much news, this much rock music".
 
Kelly A said:
Ham's don't use the spectrum they're assigned. And they'd better be careful; the wireless providers are eyeing the 440 and 1.2Mhz ham bands.
Click to expand...
The 70cm ham band (420-450 MHz) might be getting too low in frequency for wireless providers...you start getting into longer wavelengths which might be impractical for antennas inside of cell phones. I suspect the FCC will leave this band alone for a while.

The 23cm ham band (1240-1300 MHz) has already lost 25 MHz to GPS use (the band used to start at 1215 MHz.) The FCC may not want mobile services near that. There are also international agreements at work with this band in regard to satellite use by amateurs.

A chunk of spectrum that might wind up with hams is within the 30-50 MHz VHF public service low band, which has become pretty empty in recent years. There are numerous proposals for reallocating parts of this spectrum for hams.
 
Miss Tuned said:
The Netherlands deemed AM no longer useful some years ago - being a small, mostly flat country with no areas that could be considered "remote" by U.S. or even European standards, FM and DAB+ are more than adequate for radio coverage and fast mobile internet blankets the country. Instead of leaving the band empty, they reallocated their AM channels to non-commercial enthusiast and hobbyist broadcasters - people who may in the past have been "pirates".

Now, there are a large number of small stations from 1 to 100 watts on the dial, some full-time, some just appearing at weekends, mostly playing oldies and nostalgia programming - enthusiasts get to play at radio on a band that no longer has any commercial or public service use. Most of these stations likely have no listeners beyond those involved in running them and a few local radio nerds, but it seems an entirely harmless use of a dead band.

Click to expand...
So, I gather that these stations are just interference ridden and you take what you can get?
 
Miss Tuned said:
The Netherlands deemed AM no longer useful some years ago - being a small, mostly flat country with no areas that could be considered "remote" by U.S. or even European standards, FM and DAB+ are more than adequate for radio coverage and fast mobile internet blankets the country. Instead of leaving the band empty, they reallocated their AM channels to non-commercial enthusiast and hobbyist broadcasters - people who may in the past have been "pirates".

Now, there are a large number of small stations from 1 to 100 watts on the dial, some full-time, some just appearing at weekends, mostly playing oldies and nostalgia programming - enthusiasts get to play at radio on a band that no longer has any commercial or public service use. Most of these stations likely have no listeners beyond those involved in running them and a few local radio nerds, but it seems an entirely harmless use of a dead band.

Click to expand...
I'm not sure that would fly with pirates in the US. There's one near me on 89.7 FM playing Spanish music with a killer signal and pristine audio. They've posted notices on phone poles all over the area so they're not keeping it a secret. Somehow I don't think AM would cut it for these guys.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
A chunk of spectrum that might wind up with hams is within the 30-50 MHz VHF public service low band, which has become pretty empty in recent years. There are numerous proposals for reallocating parts of this spectrum for hams.
Click to expand...
Aren't there some government allocations in that part of the spectrum? As well as in Mexico?
 
wadio said:
I'm not sure that would fly with pirates in the US. There's one near me on 89.7 FM playing Spanish music with a killer signal and pristine audio. They've posted notices on phone poles all over the area so they're not keeping it a secret. Somehow I don't think AM would cut it for these guys.
Click to expand...
To me, there are two types of pirates: One, like your 89.7 station, wants to actually reach an audience, and one, where a radio hobbyists attempt to reach one another, or try out different setups.
The Netherlands plan sounds like it would be more useful for the hobbyists.
 
boombox4 said:
Aren't there some government allocations in that part of the spectrum? As well as in Mexico?
Click to expand...
I don't have access to the allocations table right now, but from what I remember, government and non-government fixed/mobile bands alternate in 1 MHz chunks between 30 and about 43 MHz.
 
semoochie said:
Short answer: ...only if the tree is listening. :) Somewhat longer answer: My concern is that it would create gobs of skywave interference hundreds of miles away!
Click to expand...
Well, yeah, but isn't the assumption here that we're abandoning this bit of spectrum for all but this particular use?
 
DavidEduardo said:
But the point is that, in an emergency, cellphones may totally stop working.

For example, after the big hurricane in Puerto Rico, within hours all the cell relay locations had depleted their batteries and went dead. Some did not come back for months. Cellular systems are very fragile in such cases.
Click to expand...
In well developed countries/territories, cell/PCS infrastructures have become more reliable and robust than they used to be. In fact, one could argue that cell communications in major cities has become much more reliable and updated than land lines.

Anymore it's a false assumption to think, especially in smaller markets, that your local radio station will be in any position to take control of emergency or disaster communications within a community. The station needs an influx of information, and if phone lines or cell PCS communications are down, they're in the same boat as their local community. That's especially true since most have had to cut back on things like local studios or staffing.
It's tough enough to keep the lights on at many stations today. The expectation that there would be staffing after hours and technology to pass along updates to local citizens, would likely lead to disappointment.
 
semoochie said:
Short answer: ...only if the tree is listening. :) Somewhat longer answer: My concern is that it would create gobs of skywave interference hundreds of miles away!
Click to expand...
At 100 watts, the ionosphere isn't usually able to pick up medium-wave frequencies, although it has happened before on the New Jersey TIS. However, 100 watts will get you some coverage on shortwave, as the Calgary comedy station on 1060 khz also broadcasts on 6.030 Mhz with 100 watts.
 
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