1190am off the air

[billyg]

All this discussion about the 1190 night pattern simply points out what a farce AM radio has become from a technical standpoint. In an age of smartphones, the Internet, cable/fiber/satellite distribution, HD television, etc, etc you have an old-fashioned, massive, elaborate, 12-tower array that is unable to deliver a reliable signal over much of the market area. And similar situations exist with numerous other stations trying to reach an audience despite all sorts of holes in their signals, battling other stations on the frequency.

AM radio is simply outdated technology. And its a shame that Clear Channel has had opportunities to upgrade 1190's night signal to cover the NW Metro but never took advantage of it.

 

[dfaulkner]

All this discussion about the 1190 night pattern simply points out what a farce AM radio has become from a technical standpoint. In an age of smartphones, the Internet, cable/fiber/satellite distribution, HD television, etc, etc you have an old-fashioned, massive, elaborate, 12-tower array that is unable to deliver a reliable signal over much of the market area. And similar situations exist with numerous other stations trying to reach an audience despite all sorts of holes in their signals, battling other stations on the frequency.

....its a shame that Clear Channel has had opportunities to upgrade 1190's night signal to cover the NW Metro but never took advantage of it.

If they could do that & still be on 1190, that would be great ! I'm guessing that they would accomplish this by relocating the night transmitter site & I wonder how that would effect the areas that they cover well at night now..

 

[Nik]

AM radio is simply outdated technology. And its a shame that Clear Channel has had opportunities to upgrade 1190's night signal to cover the NW Metro but never took advantage of it.

So maybe an enginerd type can answer this for me - What kind of power would you need and what kind of signal quality and propogation would you get from broadcasting in FM on the AM band, say at 1190khz?

 

[Mediafrog+]

So maybe an enginerd type can answer this for me - What kind of power would you need and what kind of signal quality and propogation would you get from broadcasting in FM on the AM band, say at 1190khz?

AM and FM are two entirely different animals with extremely different frequency bandwidths. On the current FM band you have 100 frequency allocations spread out over 20 MHz of spectrum, in order to accommodate the +/- 75 kHz frequency deviation of the FM signal (that is why it is called frequency modulation.)

The AM band has 117 frequency allocations spread out over just 1.16 Mhz of spectrum, as the amplitude modulated signal takes up just a fraction of the space of an FM signal.

Using full fidelity FM at such low frequencies would be like trying to fit a whale into a VW beetle.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Yup. And so we have the mess known as AM "HD" radio. It's like trying to pile 100 pounds of *&#$ in a 10 pound sack. It simply cannot work right.

 

[grantchester]

Sure it can, if you steal bandwidth from your neighbors.

 

[dfwrunner]

Sure it can, if you steal bandwidth from your neighbors.

You don't have to use the full FM bandwidth to use frequency modulation, tho.

 

[Mediafrog+]

You don't have to use the full FM bandwidth to use frequency modulation, tho.

Narrowband FM is commonly used for 2-way voice communication in the VHF and UHF ranges, but is totally inadequate for music.

 

[dfwrunner]

You don't have to use the full FM bandwidth to use frequency modulation, tho.

Narrowband FM is commonly used for 2-way voice communication in the VHF and UHF ranges, but is totally inadequate for music.

I claim that AM is totally inadequate for music, but some here disagree...some aspects of the sound will be improved over AM...you can choose whatever bandwidth you'd like (within reason) independent of the frequency modulation process.

 

[jeffdfw]

This is the strangest station. I was just listening to Pugs and as he was in mid sentence he faded out and jazz started playing. ??? It's actually kinda catchy but WTF?

 

[Lancer]

You don't have to use the full FM bandwidth to use frequency modulation, tho.

Narrowband FM is commonly used for 2-way voice communication in the VHF and UHF ranges, but is totally inadequate for music.

Or you could spin it as a Music On Hold station, since that's what it would sound like...