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AM Radio Think Tank.

S

Scooter Lesley

Guest
660 AM is now under the WLFJ umbrella...ella...ella, but at one time, it was WESC-AM, and it got the business done, y'all! Years ago, I had a conversation with Don Gowens, their Engineer. WESC-AM was wired, and ready to go as AM Stereo, but still waiting on the FCC to give the nod. At that time, there wasn't any unit made to receive it,
if said nod came. The FCC also had blurbed about AM Digital Stereo, but we never heard any more about that either. So, "Discussioneers", what say? Where do we point the boney finger of blame? Was it the FCC, the American auto makers,...both...or whoooooo?
 
At least Ford and Chrysler had AM Stereo capable mid-grade and above radios for at least a decade. My 2003 Ford Mustang had Am Stereo. Just no one was transmitting in it! I was surprised when I picked up WJR Detroit and the stereo pilot came on the radio!
 
I'd like to thank DudeFan for his story into the Think Tank. I did not know that the Auto Makers even made a unit, but he actually owned one, and during his drive through Motown, he had a close encounter of the AM Stereo kind! It would've been neat to have taped something, just to see if the separation was legit or just as good as FM separation. Thanks again to DudeFan!
 
A lot of stations used the Motorola C-Quam generators/exciters when the big push to AM Stereo happened in the early to mid 1980's. AM 56 here in Columbia had one. Most stations then turned them off because of concerns AM Stereo would decrease their coverage area and alleged "platform movement" that would turn off listeners. Sounds kinda like IBOC don't it.

By the way, WJR had the stereo pilot on, but all their source material was mono.
 
yeah, harris corporation also made an am stereo exciter which generated the signal differently from the c-quam. i think one of the failures of am stereo was there was no standard and companies that make radios to auto makers didn't want to spend millions on radios that received one format when the other format could have possibly become the standard.
 
At one time WSOL 1370 I think it was in the mid 80's was running AM stereo out of the Elloree area. Clarence Jones the owner of the station had an AM stereo table top radio and it didn't sound bad at all. The seperation wasn't as good as FM but it wasn't bad at all. To me it was the best idea for AM I had seen in a long time, much better then today's IBOC system because the bleed over to the next adjacent channel wasn't bad and the sound improvement was pretty darn good.
 
WESC-AM did actually go through with broadcasting in stereo for awhile (not sure how long). The stereo separation at the time was better than the FM. However, I believe a lot of that was all new equipment vs. equipment shortly after the invention of stereo. The problem, as I understand it, was there was no set standard and broadcasters were forced to choose which sytem they thought was the way to go. To work, one standard should have been implemented and then forced down our throats like the beloved HD project.
 
This thread has lead to some great discussion. Thanks to posters Freqdev, and CraigD who both sited that there was "No Standard", and that was the true problem. Why didn't the FCC lay it all out, in writing? Answer: It's the FCC! It's sad, but since we still have all these AM's, why don't they do something! My brief stab at HD...
(Highly Delusional) is: If you can't Program one station correctly, and net a profit, then how are you able to swing the other two? That's just polishing the Turd!
 
I worked for an AM Stereo station. When we converted, we went all in. New everything. New board, new transmitter (using the Harris system), new logo. We bought a hundred radios for clients. I totally agree that not having a standard was the huge error. But for those of us that launched, there was no way to truly educate the listeners and public. Most clients and listeners would call up and say, "I can't tell a difference". And once they found out they had to go buy a new radio it muted their enthusiasm. It really sounded great, especially if you had a big signal, which we did in the daytime. It only took a few months to realize we had wasted a ton of money on something that was easily dismissed by listeners with this statement, "Stereo? Why don't yall just get an FM".
 
At WNMB in North Myrtle Beach we still broadcast in AM Stereo. We use a much newer version of an exciter made by Delta Electronics. The sound we transmit is a great fidelity signal. The separation is better than most FM stations and the AM Stereo has a much smoother sound overall. We have heard from many listeners who hear us in stereo, and we still hear from some in the present time. There are lots of Ford Thunderbirds, Explorers, Expeditions and Mustangs with AM Stereo. There are many Chryslers with the AM Stereo.The Fords primarily have the Audiophile Satellite ready system and the AM section has a c-quam decoder and it is broadband. It sounds really good. Any of you folks who want to check it out are welcome to do so. We're at 429 Pine Avenue in the Ocean Drive Section of North Myrtle Beach, just off Main Street. We have lots of receivers including the Sony SRF A-100 and the Carver TX-11A. We also have several cars equipped with factory built AM Stereo radios, and we even some AM stereo converters that will play our station through your car's FM stereo radio.
So, what went wrong with AM stereo? Primarily it was the lack of the standard being set by the FCC. Leonard Kahn threatened to sue over the standard issue, so the Feds said we'll let the marketplace decide. It was not until the 90s that C-quam was adopted as the "standard" transmission system.
Today, too many AM station owners have made their stations the stepchild at the family gathering. They don't do good programming. Also today, AM radios in the cars are now being made really cheap, so they sound terrible. The listener then perceives that AM is inferior, when in fact, the most inferior thing is the cheap receiver. By the way, we have a website where there's more about all of this at www.wnmb900.com
 
time passes us by. am stereo was to help those stations that were losing listeners to fm. hd radio is the broadcast industry's help to fm radio versus satellite. add in pandora and i heart radio. did technology just pass me while i was typing this
 
All of the posts on this topic thread have been excellently enlightening...to say the least! I agree with the last post from freqdev. We just keep reinventing the wheel, but never bothering to fine tune the tread. All of the different recording formats that I thought had a lengthy future...just flubbed: DAT...Mini Disc. However, I do believe that the end result for Radio actually runs past the Satellite dish (fork & spoon) to the in-dash Internet radio, where we are all listening to a Site, with the benefit of 20 presets, that have a voice command option. It all sounds thick, but the bean counters are never happy with...being in park!
 
The trouble with internet radio is it needs internet to work. Our method right now of getting the internet varies so much from place to place, some places there are many different ways to get internet services and some places there are no way at all. Some day internet radio will be a good medium but first we have to have the internet availabe in most every place we have electricity no matter where that may be. Also we will need portable internet service that covers much better than current cell towers can cover now (not just the interstates and cities).
 
Gatekeeper007 said:
The trouble with internet radio is it needs internet to work. Our method right now of getting the internet varies so much from place to place, some places there are many different ways to get internet services and some places there are no way at all. Some day internet radio will be a good medium but first we have to have the internet availabe in most every place we have electricity no matter where that may be. Also we will need portable internet service that covers much better than current cell towers can cover now (not just the interstates and cities).
Click to expand...

Amen! The one place I need cellular access for this laptop, in a crowded suburban area, it is barely functional. and
much like trying to dx on AM. Except that I'm paying for this barely usable service. Many days, there's not enough signal to connect.
Even now when I enter "Post", it's a 75% chance the whole message will be lost. I regularly do a cut/paste save to a local document
so that the message doesn't totally evaporate upon posting. Then I can try as many times as needed to post the message.

I can't listen to Chuck Lundi's Rock Box here, there's not enough bandwidth/speed/reliability to stream....it's all stops and starts
because the video eats up all the capacity.
Many sites and pages are SO busy with interactive features and advertising that the desired content NEVER, EVER arrives.
How cool is that?

Internet is nice, but it certaintly ain't no Radio. When someone shows me computer that works in real-time and can be functional with
less than 10 discrete components, doesn't have to boot up, etc. I'll start being impresed enough to compare it favorably with radio.
Until then it's just trying to imitate the best features of radio.

When is all this super-wide area wi-fi supposed to start showing up? ???

Meanwhile the radio just works seamlessly. And it never shuts itself down for updates, and then act all proud of itself because it has
wandered off and done something that I didn't want it to do.
Another Adobe update? Another windows security patch? Another Flash Player update? Defrag? Pop-up survey?
My radio never has to stop while the new patches and routines are implemented.
The radio amazingly always already knows how to work without updates.
Until something like ibiquity comes along to prove they don't "get" the concept of "Radio".

Digital modes and computers....
It is what it is and I accept that, but don't try to tell me it's any sort of meaningful "replacement" for RF broadcast.
 
Well said, Tom. Radio is a much superior experience for the 95+ % of consumers who aren't caught up in the gadget race. The geeks just get more than their share of attention, especially online.
 
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