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AM Radio is dying

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Mark Roberts said:
KALW mentioned its anniversary from time to time in 2021 and wrote it up in its (printed) program guide.
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Well, I suppose they have a much smaller audience than KRTH, so it would not have been as noticeable.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Well, I suppose they have a much smaller audience than KRTH, so it would not have been as noticeable.
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In a lot of ways, they're two very different situations. KALW is a far different station in purpose now. It's not a training ground any more and hasn't been for some time. The Samuel Gompers Trade School is long gone; the building is now part of City College of San Francisco. Of course, San Francisco has changed considerably, too.

What ought to be beyond dispute is that KALW is still under the auspices of its original owner. How many other radio stations can say that? Not very many.
 
Mark Roberts said:
So where does that leave us? I've often said that it can be impossible to determine who was the "first" with something or another related to radio. That may be the case here.
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I think we can safely say this, Mark.

KALW was definitely the first FM in Northern California, and K45LA/KHJ-FM/KRTH was the first in Southern California. And I think both can lay claim to having been continuously operated (defined as the license having remained in force).
 
Mark Roberts said:
What ought to be beyond dispute is that KALW is still under the auspices of its original owner. How many other radio stations can say that? Not very many.
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KKGO/105.1 can, having signed on in 1959 as KBCA with no change in ownership since.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Because they don't yet have a new transmitter site. They sold the old one for, perhaps, five times what the station was worth. Now they need a new site to return to full power.

But they ARE on the air.... with an STA (Special Temporary Authorization) to run very low power from a temporary site.

Remember, at 1560 that is not a very valuable station. A 1000 watt station on 550 would cover as well!
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As I recall Disney received about $12 million dollars from Family. There were much higher offers on the table for the land. But those were rejected because they called for the license to be turned in. The beer distributor next door really wanted to buy the land. They distribute all over Manhattan and Long Island. I thought I read when Family got about $54 million for the land. They made a nice profit on the deal.
 
semoochie said:
It isn't an FM but KBPS has been owned and operated by the Portland Public Schools since 1923. It must be fairly close to a record. That's 101 years!
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BPS = Benson Polytechnic School. The station is located at the school. Construction at the school has forced KBPS to rebuild its ground system but I've heard that it should be back to normal soon.
 
TheBigA said:
Maybe. WHA in Madison WI was first licensed in 1922, and was experimental back to the teens.
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I'd also say WOI in Ames, Iowa, but the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts went through a couple of renamings before becoming Iowa State University. The point is moot now anyway since most public radio stations in Iowa have been consolidated under the ownership of Iowa Public Radio. That happened just two years ago.
 
semoochie said:
It isn't an FM but KBPS has been owned and operated by the Portland Public Schools since 1923. It must be fairly close to a record. That's 101 years!
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I think there are more AMs than FMs that can make claims of continuous operation and ownership, since FM as we know it has "only" existed since the late 1940s.
 
Oldbones said:
He's an idiot. AM doesn't "transmit noise" any more than FM, Sirius or Spotify do. Yes, AM reception has gotten progressively noisier over the years, but that's not the station's fault.
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He's not an idiot. In fact, he's probably the smartest engineer I worked with in a 53-year broadcast career with some very bright people in engineering roles.

It is a band that is inherently prone to interference and static. Period. No, it's not the station's fault---it's a characteristic of the AM band. And we've known about its inferiority to FM in terms of audio quality and noise rejection since the 1930s.
 
michael hagerty said:
He's not an idiot. In fact, he's probably the smartest engineer I worked with in a 53-year broadcast career with some very bright people in engineering roles.

It is a band that is inherently prone to interference and static. Period. No, it's not the station's fault---it's a characteristic of the AM band. And we've known about its inferiority to FM in terms of audio quality and noise rejection since the 1930s.
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How does AM HD compare?To my ears, I find it hard to tell the difference between FM and AM HD
 
Kelly A said:
To answer your question with a question; How many AM HD or MA3 stations are on the air nationwide today?
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I find it hard to find one on the air to do the comparison. Issue with AM HD is not with fidelity or audio quality or noise rejection (of which all three are more than adequate for AM HD listenability). Issue is with station owners not wanting to install the exciter, or pay for the license, or make changes to the antenna system, or rewire a mono audio chain for stereo.
 
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