Washington AM for every car

[bossbill]

Maybe I'm missing something, but why are so many so hellbent on saving AM radio?
AM is inferior to FM. Skywave at night offers the opportunity to hear signals 1,000 miles away, while making it difficult to hear locally. Numerous stations power down at night. AM stations are signing off in droves. Mainstream listening is on FM stations. EV radios have problems with AM. Would someone please enlighten me as to WHY NAB and State organizations are so involved in saving a dying medium when FM is superior in every way?

 

[radiofan2023]

Because the NAB lobbies Congress on behalf of station owners, not the listeners to stations who have moved to apps/streaming to listen to stations, podcasts and music and started doing so years ago.

 

[bossbill]

Meanwhile, on-air broadcast is still the most-listened-to medium in automobiles, because it's free and easy. Most of the listening is to FM, not AM. One thing I have noticed, however, is that so many FM stations DON'T EVEN HAVE A NEWSCAST! Six of our eight stations offer top of the hour national news 24/7, plus local news in the morning.

 

[ted chittenden]

Maybe I'm missing something, but why are so many so hellbent on saving AM radio?
AM is inferior to FM. Skywave at night offers the opportunity to hear signals 1,000 miles away, while making it difficult to hear locally. Numerous stations power down at night. AM stations are signing off in droves. Mainstream listening is on FM stations. EV radios have problems with AM. Would someone please enlighten me as to WHY NAB and State organizations are so involved in saving a dying medium when FM is superior in every way?

As someone who grew up with AM radio (I'm 63 years old now), I find that the medium wave frequencies do have certain advantages over FM, especially in terms of distance listening, both day and night. There are still areas in my home state of Arizona (the bottom of the Salt River Canyon comes immediately to mind) where AM reception still remains better than FM reception due to terrain issues. FM may have a clearer sound but only if you're in range of the FM antenna without any terrain issues (hills, mountains, buildings) blocking your way.

While there are real issues with AM reception around computer screens, fluorescent lights, etc., I think that the manufacturers of AM radios have brought a lot of this on themselves. In the past, you *could* purchase AM receivers that, due to their wideband settings, could give you great sound, even if the signals were in mono. However, nowadays those manufacturers still putting out AM receivers have a lot less concerns about the quality of sound output as they did in the past.

As to the forces behind the requirement to have all car radios include the AM bands, there are folks, particularly farmers in some of the western states and Alaska, who live far enough away from towns with an FM station that AM is the only real option they have. In addition, many fans of conservative talk radio are not certain that their favorite format would survive the move to FM. While there have been some successes (Bonnville'sKTAR-FM in the Phoenix market comes to mind), there have also been quite a few failures as well in this department.

 

[bossbill]

You make a few good points, and I respect your opinion. However, due to new allotments over the past couple of decades, it is difficult to find a population center that doesn't have an FM station. I've owned FMs that are licensed to small communities, some nothing more than a "census designated place". Meanwhile, AM stations are signing off in every state.

Regarding propagation, I grew up in the AM days; my first several radio jobs were at AM stations. I worked at daytime only stations, and stations with directional arrays protecting other AMs thousands of miles away.

Growing up in a small town in Southwest Washington State, AM stations couldn't be heard 30 miles away due to skywave reception from other AMs hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles away. At night we listened to CKWX Vancouver BC and KGEM Boise.

You mention that AM stations have certain advantages over FM, especially in terms of distance listening, prompting me to ask the question: What significance would there be to know about an emergency in say, Mason City, Iowa, if I were located in say, Seattle? I mention these two specific cities, since when I worked at KOL 1300, with a two-tower directional pattern and a deep null toward Mason City, which meant that listeners just east of Seattle could not hear us reliably after dark.

You also mentioned conservative talk radio on AM. Large numbers of AM stations have defaulted to talk, because few listeners remain longing for monaural 8 kHz audio music. And I tried music on an AM station I owned 25 years ago. And few cared. Talk became the only programming that even worked. And virtually all AM stations that run talk programming air national shows. So much for being local.

I know, many of us grew up on AM radio, working at AM radio stations, and we are nostalgic. Those days are gone, and were gone before we even realized they were.

How about if we stick to "Radio in every car"...

 

[ted chittenden]

You make a few good points, and I respect your opinion. However, due to new allotments over the past couple of decades, it is difficult to find a population center that doesn't have an FM station. I've owned FMs that are licensed to small communities, some nothing more than a "census designated place". Meanwhile, AM stations are signing off in every state.

Regarding propagation, I grew up in the AM days; my first several radio jobs were at AM stations. I worked at daytime only stations, and stations with directional arrays protecting other AMs thousands of miles away.

Growing up in a small town in Southwest Washington State, AM stations couldn't be heard 30 miles away due to skywave reception from other AMs hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles away. At night we listened to CKWX Vancouver BC and KGEM Boise.

You mention that AM stations have certain advantages over FM, especially in terms of distance listening, prompting me to ask the question: What significance would there be to know about an emergency in say, Mason City, Iowa, if I were located in say, Seattle? I mention these two specific cities, since when I worked at KOL 1300, with a two-tower directional pattern and a deep null toward Mason City, which meant that listeners just east of Seattle could not hear us reliably after dark.

You also mentioned conservative talk radio on AM. Large numbers of AM stations have defaulted to talk, because few listeners remain longing for monaural 8 kHz audio music. And I tried music on an AM station I owned 25 years ago. And few cared. Talk became the only programming that even worked. And virtually all AM stations that run talk programming air national shows. So much for being local.

I know, many of us grew up on AM radio, working at AM radio stations, and we are nostalgic. Those days are gone, and were gone before we even realized they were.

How about if we stick to "Radio in every car"...

What I am about to say next in response to your post may be considered controversial and political in nature. When I wrote the comment about distance reception, I wasn't thinking only of regional events that perhaps wouldn't be of interest to those outside of that region. I was also thinking of national events and the behavior of the U.S. president after he lost the 2020 election and what appears to be interference he is attempting to run in the upcoming midterms. If all you can hear on your radio are local radio stations that, due to both money and threats, do not provide factual about what is happening after a contested election, you may not know what actions against his opponents he is taking. Having access to distant stations both inside and outside of the country during such times can give one a more complete picture of the activities that are happening in real time.

My above paragraph is also why I am very concerned about the loss of shortwave stations. Despite the critical comments of some, including one of this Board's current moderators, the fact remains that when Russia was under Communist rule and the Iron Curtain was drawn over eastern Europe, there were people in those countries who were able to receive news from the Voice of America, the BBC, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty that they could not receive from their own local news sources. I think it is a terrible thing to watch as the U.S. slides farther and farther away from its democratic (that's with a small d) roots, there will be few, if any shortwave radio stations from other countries that we can turn to for actual news about our own, if needed.

You say that streaming is, or already has, taken over and that people can get information using their computers and their cell phones should the U.S. fall? I'm sorry to disappoint but I can tell you that both Putin's Russia and the government of Iran, among others, have found ways to shut off the Internet to most of their citizens when troubling information that directly challenges their leaderships come from either at home or abroad. While the Internet setup in the U.S. is more complex, I see nothing stopping our commander-in-chief from turning off Internet access should information challenging his viewpoints come pouring in from both inside and outside of the U.S.

You say this can, or will, never happen in the good old U.S. of A? Maybe, maybe not. But one of the best ways to prevent this from happening is to make sure that people can hear radio stations from outside of their regions and even outside of our own country and making sure that the current leadership knows about it. Knowing that people have access to outside news sources that current leadership has no control over would, I think, make any would-be U.S. dictator and his staff think twice before going through with any plans.