AM Radio Discussion

[ChuckTiller]

With the recent posts concerning the sale of some AM radio stations in Houston, here is an interesting article from Radio Ink:

http://www.radioink.com/Article.asp?id=2385088&spid=30800

 

[Mediafrog+]

The article doesn't cover anything new.

The harsh reality that AM is a dying medium, mainly the domain of older listeners, who often stick with the technology out of habit or stubborness.

Could AM radio be saved? Probably. Will it be? Probably not.

For a future viable AM band, you would need to bulldoze everything and start over with frequency allocations, powers, locations, and antenna patterns, much as was done with the 1941 NARBA treaty. The band is drowning in co-channel interference. And many, if not most signals aren't powerful enough to cover the desired audience.

Part of any overhaul would involve the expansion of the FM band down to 76 MHz, and the migration of a large number of current AM stations to the expanded FM band. Mexico is going through something much like this, with AM licenses being swapped for FM. Canada and Australia are seeing the same trends. AM in Europe is virtually irrelevant and almost nonexistent in many places.

Remaining AM stations would need to increase power, implement directional signals that recognize the reality of urban growth, and be allocated a much more rational frequency arrangement, greatly reducing or eliminating the co-channel battle. The would also need to be a final and firm resolution of modulation technique--finally standardize analog AM stereo, or accept that either the Ibiquity or DRM formats (or other digital technology) is what will be used.

But I don't see any of this happening. AM station owners seem to be content with the current state of things, and will flog the technology until there are absolutely no listeners left...then AM will die of irrelevance. Shortwave is going through just that right now.

I'm afraid those listeners who want to "keep it as it is" are being driven by nostalgia, rather than any solid rationale for making AM radio a viable and relevant medium for the future. Again, same thing happening with shortwave. Once the old geezers die off, the audience will be gone.

Add to all of this, it's probably too late anyway. Other technologies have moved forward and left AM in the dust.

I grew up with AM radio in the 1960's, and yes, there was a certain romance about it, especially DXing at night. But time and technology march on. Broadcasters need to concentrate on the future, not the past.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

For a future viable AM band, you would need to bulldoze everything and start over with frequency allocations, powers, locations, and antenna patterns, much as was done with the 1941 NARBA treaty. The band is drowning in co-channel interference. And many, if not most signals aren't powerful enough to cover the desired audience.

This is the fault of an incompetent FCC. The FRC was originally established to PREVENT interfering stations on the AM band. They have totally failed, and should be abolished in their present form. If the AM band dies, it is a direct result of the lack of government regulation of interference.

 

[bturner]

I must agree. The FM dial needs to be expanded down to 76 mhz and allow, perhaps daytimers and other AMs to migrate there on a plan much like AMs were allowed to do when the AM expanded band came about. At the end of 5 years you choose which one you want: AM or your FM frequency.

 

[fybush]

For a future viable AM band, you would need to bulldoze everything and start over with frequency allocations, powers, locations, and antenna patterns, much as was done with the 1941 NARBA treaty. The band is drowning in co-channel interference. And many, if not most signals aren't powerful enough to cover the desired audience.

NARBA didn't really bulldoze much of anything at all. In the US, its immediate effect was felt mainly in the form of slight frequency changes to otherwise-unchanged facilities - KPRC from 920 to 950, KTRH from 1290 to 1320, KXYZ from 1440 to 1470. It was rule changes in the years that followed that really began crowding the dial...for instance, the opening of some Canadian and Mexican clear channels created by NARBA (like 740) to secondary US facilities like KTRH.

If you really want to find the wholesale bulldozing and starting over, you need to go all the way back to 1928...

 

[davideduardo]

This is the fault of an incompetent FCC. The FRC was originally established to PREVENT interfering stations on the AM band. They have totally failed, and should be abolished in their present form. If the AM band dies, it is a direct result of the lack of government regulation of interference.

The FCC, when the backbone of allocations and licenses was established in the 30's, had no way of knowing:

- That signals that covered-and-then-some cities of the 30's would be woefully inadequate with the post-W.W. II suburban sprawl.

- That nose producing devices like fluorescents, CFLs, dimmers, computers and such would invade the home and the workplace, making the usable signal levels required to listen to AM go from below 5 mV/m to 10 to 15 mV/m.

- That AM would decline in attractiveness due to fidelity issues, and this would be compounded by radio manufactures who took the opportunity of AM's decline in the 80's to reduce the cost and quality of AM sections of radios.

- That radios would not be sold as separate devices, and multifunction devices would often not include AM.

 

[Tom Wells]

This is the fault of an incompetent FCC. The FRC was originally established to PREVENT interfering stations on the AM band. They have totally failed, and should be abolished in their present form. If the AM band dies, it is a direct result of the lack of government regulation of interference.

The FCC, when the backbone of allocations and licenses was established in the 30's, had no way of knowing:

- That nose producing devices like fluorescents, CFLs, dimmers, computers and such would invade the home and the workplace, making the usable signal levels required to listen to AM go from below 5 mV/m to 10 to 15 mV/m.

There was no invasion, there was dereliction in duty.

The FCC had no way of knowing they weren't going to do their job?

Well, isn't that just a pity?

Maybe someone could send a postcard to the past and let them know when they are going to drop the ball.

Hey, let's see if we can destroy FM, too! I have an old damped oscillation thingy over here somewhere.

What is the difference between a switching power supply and a spark-gap wireless transmitter of 1909?

Nothing, both send wideband garbage out on wires of non-specific length, and hope for the best.

Intention doesn't really matter. The important thing is to make as much noise as possible.

As Dennis the Menace told his friend once,
"The first thing you hafta know about driving a car is, Always lock the doors before you start blowin' the horn".

 

[chrish]

mediafrog+ faster than you realize you are going to be a geezer too!

 

[jondavidvox]

Greetings....

Hope you don't mind a Northern usurper involving himself in your conversation, but I'd like to take part in this very good conversation....(Thanks Chuck!)

I agree that the AM Band needs a reconstruction. That process needs to start with the FCC itself. In filling future positions on the Commission; Politicians should be equally leavened with On-Air Broadcasters. Further, Radio should be more under the umbrella of the 1st Amendment guaranteeing a Free Press, as opposed to being relegated into yet another capricious, arbitrarily-used political tool.

Next, there should be either a new North American treaty on frequency allocation and power, or far more serious enforcement of existing agreements. International AM stations operate well over power, and break the Western Hemisphere Treaties at will. This has the effect of gumming up the clarity of all stations on the entire continent.

Moreover, there needs to be an FCC re-evaluation of how the band services the community...An AM radio licensee may currently hold a license that fits perfectly inside the now painfully obsolete FCC plan, but no longer completely covers the community it was intended to serve with a quality, city-grade signal. The effort should be focused on a good-faith, logical, and most importantly functional band. For example:

Clear Channel (IA) Stations should have a reasonable expectation of full coverage throughout their ADI during the day, and by using a directional array affording full coverage of the CONUS at night.

Clear Channel (IB) Stations should have a reasonable expectation of full coverage throughout their ADI during the day, and by using a directional array affording coverage of a substantial portion (Split the CONUS into equal thirds) of the CONUS at night.

Class B Regional Stations should be licensed on a case-by-case basis providing 24-hour AM band coverage to fill the Class IA, and IB coverage gaps; with operating power adjusted to allow city-grade signal quality for the cities and towns within those regions.

Class C Regional Stations should be licensed on a case-by-case basis to provide 24-hour AM band coverage to fill all remaining coverage gaps; with operating power adjusted to allow city-grade signal quality for the cities and towns within those remaining areas.

Class D Regional Stations would be relicensed to FM with lower power, but adequate antenna height to provide city-grade signals for the cities located within the original license.

The objective of all of this being to provide licenses offering only robust 24/7-365 AM Band coverage featuring clean, powerful signals for the public.

Once that "clean-up" occurs, the FCC should mandate that manufacturers again produce real receivers for the Band, as and has already been brought up, Industry-Standard Digital AM Stereo should be agreed on and implemented post-haste.

Finally, the elephant in the room is this: Any push to solve AM Band difficulties would first require overly-large Radio Corporations, currently drowning in debt service, to either stop stalling any improvement in AM Band technology for capital expenditure reasons, or divest themselves of those AM licenses they cannot afford. Seems logical, doesn't it?

But because they fear the additional competition a vibrant and functional AM Band would provide, (Think 610 KFRC) and because the politics-first FCC doesn't force them to....

There's no joy in AM-Ville tonight.

What do you think?

J-D

Jon-David Wells
The Wells Report
NewsTalk 660 KSKY
Dallas/Ft. Worth

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Jon-David Wells
The Wells Report
NewsTalk 660 KSKY
Dallas/Ft. Worth

KSKY has a great signal in Houston! Almost as strong as your signal over Lubbock. Almost static free.

Your plan for the AM band seems to be a good balance of needed changes, while acknowledging the realities of the band today.

I would take it a bit further, though, and propose a massive frequency swap. Nobody really cared when Sirius XM scrambled their channels. Nobody cared when TV stations migrated to different channels - although admittedly that was transparent. I think it would be no more than a few days of confusion as people adjusted to the new stations. Listenership would probably improve once the stations were stronger, and less prone to interference. Although the frequency swap nationwide would be massive, individual listeners would probably only have to remember a handful of new frequencies at most, which could be heavily promoted before the swap.

Any re-allocation would have to be intelligently based on propagation properties of the station, realistic range projections based on actual people served. The entirety of North America would have to be involved - no more keeping Castro out of the picture. We promise to null in his direction and let him have a couple of clears, he nulls everything else in our direction, he'd probably be happy. Some 12000 stations moving around to better utilize what the band does right now. Here is a stab at it:

540 - 990: 50 kW clears, no more than 3 on the continent, spaced at least 1500 miles apart. Fill in with daytime only's, but not closer than 300 miles from a clear. No chance of daytimers ever operating at night.

1000 - 1300: 5 kW regionals, spaced at least 750 miles apart at night, some fill in during the day for daytimers only, no hope of nighttime hours.

1300 - 1600: 5 kW locals - no protection outside of the cities of license - unlimited hours, the vast majority of stations would be assigned here. This is where IBOC could be quarantined along with eventual digital only.

1600 - 1700: 250W community service - a new low power AM band. Unlimited hours, no protection outside of a 10 mile radius.

Of course the boundaries could be adjusted on each type of service, a sliding scale of power could be used. The goal would be to eliminate the cacophony of interference on most of the band at night, allowing people to hear good, strong local signals during the day, and have the opportunity to hear nearby cities at night if they wished. The existing cacophony of interference would be limited to a much smaller portion of the band, IBOC would be allowed to operated there unfettered, anybody outside of those service areas wouldn't have any expectation of reception anyway, but they could count on finding local signals very quickly as they traveled, etc. I think a lot more stations could be squeezed into the band, too, with the expectation that most would be relegated to local status anyway - with the bonus that they could blast power at night to overcome interference and run digital for local audiences.

 

[Blaine]

Chuck,

Thanks for passing this article on to us! I happen to think that in addition to an older age demographic still utilizing the AM band on their radios, there is also somewhat of a cult culture that has reverted back to AM that skew younger. Don't get me wrong, I am not referring to a CHR-type age demo! While they might be streaming online, listening through a mobile app, etc. they are still tuning in to the content delivered initially through an AM frequency.

While I am the first to admit, there are many Ipoders out there.....there still seems to be a niche audience on the AM dial. Take morning drive as an example, for those that do not have an interest in re-hashing who got voted off the isalnd, how pitchy last night's American Idol performances were, or the latest celebrity scoop, AM still provides an alternative.

These are just my thoughts and I am in now way an expert on any of the technicalities here! I just like the conversation!

Thanks again Chuck!

Blaine

www.inthemoney.net

 

[davideduardo]

I would take it a bit further, though, and propose a massive frequency swap.

In the NARBA change in the early 40's, only a bit over 700 stations were affected. And the moves were, at most, 40 kHZ and many were 10 to 20 kHz.

To do what you propose means moving stations widely over the dial. The cost in rebuilding transmitter sites, often with new directionals, nearly always with total replacement of the transmitter and antenna tuning components would be enormously expensive.

Add in stations that would have to increase tower heightthat are on land that will not support guys for a taller structure or where zoning prohibits such change, and some stations will not survive.

Stations that need new directional designs might need a year to three years to get zoning, and have to spend hundreds of thousands on new land. Many would go silent.

Listenership would probably improve once the stations were stronger, and less prone to interference. Although the frequency swap nationwide would be massive, individual listeners would probably only have to remember a handful of new frequencies at most, which could be heavily promoted before the swap.

This does not change 30 years of cheap AM radios, the fact that AM at its best can't sound as good to listeners who did not grow up on the band and the still very limited coverage of most stations, and it won't work.

75% of Americans never use AM. Those that do are predominantly over 55. Nobody wants to invest in a shuffling of AM that essentially provides the same stuff on new frequencies at enormous cost.

 

[johndavis]

75% of Americans never use AM. Those that do are predominantly over 55. Nobody wants to invest in a shuffling of AM that essentially provides the same stuff on new frequencies at enormous cost.

Especially if you can build an online infrastructure (think streaming aggregators) at a fraction of the cost of "saving" AM. Sooner or later, being the best buggy whip manufacturer doesn't get you a whole lot of business.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

This does not change 30 years of cheap AM radios, the fact that AM at its best can't sound as good to listeners who did not grow up on the band and the still very limited coverage of most stations, and it won't work.

How many times do I have to prove that all newer AM radios are wideband and sound great - not because of any initiative to increase fidelity - but because manufacturers only put one cheap ceramic filter in the IF. I've measured +/-40 kHz bandwidth on some of the cheap junkers. But on local music stations, they sound incredible! If the station hasn't hobbled their bandwidth for the IBOC debacle, or there aren't hissy 10-15 kHz (or 5-10 kHz for radios hard to tune) IBOC trash on there ruining the sound.

 

[borderblaster]

Even so, it would cost stations millions to re-zone and re-build for very little benefit. In many markets, the AM audience has dissapeared. I've been places where the only AM choices are second or third tier regular or sports talk, classic country, screaming evangelists and foreign language. There's just not a mass audience that's coming back. Some of these ideas do remind me of Ray Livesay's proposal in the late 970s to move the U.S. to 9kHz spacings and gie all the daytimes full time on several new graveyard channels.

I don't see the 76 mHz band taking off either. Give me that new iPhone but buy a new radio (or several)? Ya gotta be kidding.

 

[Tom Wells]

Every time I hear the suggestion that paid service data modes are some sort of solution I laugh.

I will pay for something that works. It's been almost 10 years that I've used Cingular/AT&T wireless for
data modes and it is a barely workable situation for me.

Many times it's harder than fishing for dx on AM. And I get to pay for a LOT of spam delivered while desired content
may or may not arrive, EVER.

I'll once again point out that the infrastructure for AM transmisssion was fully built out millions of years ago, and
only requires proper respect to work forever, for free. Can anything humans build surpass this?

rbruce: Quite right. Many cheapies are less selective than old TRF designs from the mid 1920's.
My Atwater Kent Model 35 doesn't have a problem with selectivity until I am trying to pick up a dx 30 khz off from
a local 50 kw. Many of the moderrn cheapies have a weird bandpass that cuts audio at 5 khz when tuned to the
"proper" frequency, but when off-tuned 10, 20 or 30 khz provide over 15khz audio bandpass.
That's just plain weird.

How can the FCC not hang their head in shame for the poor job done of management?

Why are all other forms of pollution considered bad, but we willingly embrace and love RF pollution?

 

[davideduardo]

How many times do I have to prove that all newer AM radios are wideband and sound great - not because of any initiative to increase fidelity - but because manufacturers only put one cheap ceramic filter in the IF.

But nobody buys a "radio" today. Radios come as part of something else... a car, a phone, a phone charging base, etc. There are, depending on whose estimate you prefer, somewhere around 700 million radios or radio containing devices in the US. To try to get them replaced for better audio on a band that in some markets has less than 10% of listening... and most of that in geezer demos... is just not going to happen.

I went to a Radio Shack last week for a hard to find battery. I looked around, and except for one of those crank model emergency radios, there was not a single radio in the place, save for FM in some phones and mp3 devices or bases.

The beeping I'm hearing is the hearse backing up for AM radio.

 

[Kent]

Every time I hear the suggestion that paid service data modes are some sort of solution I laugh.

I will pay for something that works. It's been almost 10 years that I've used Cingular/AT&T wireless for
data modes and it is a barely workable situation for me.

Many times it's harder than fishing for dx on AM. And I get to pay for a LOT of spam delivered while desired content
may or may not arrive, EVER.

Interesting. I live out in the country and have a 25 mile drive to work everyday. I have no trouble streaming music to my iPhone on my commute. I can usually travel 200 miles from home in any direction and have, at most, one drop. Granted, it wasn't always like that as it's only been within the last year to 18 months that the entire drive to work from home has been given 3G. It's also about as wide as the highway I travel. If I turn off of it to get gas, it drops down to edge. I suspect I also don't run into the capacity issues AT&T has had in some areas since smartphone usage isn't nearly as common in this area as it is in big cities.

I think the point, though, is that networks will continue to be upgraded and, before long, everyone will be paying for data plans anyway. Those changes will probably happen before many AM's could upgrade their signals if there were to be a massive realignment.

 

[stan]

AM radio listening is generational. Having grown up during the 1960s when music on AM radio was our only choice, we didn't find it odd. Now, our kids grew up with FM radio, never listened to AM, and when forced to listen to music on AM asked what was wrong with the radio - too much static, no stereo, no dynamic range- the complaints we never had 50 years ago.

Of course, I don't think our kids listen to the radio these days. "Radio sucks" or "they don't play the music I can get on the Internet or mp3 device" are the common comments I hear now. It makes you wonder if years from now whether someone will be having the same conversation regarding the death of FM.

 

[stan]

Duplicate post