Am radio

[BigJimmy]

a friend of mine at a NYC AM station says--- AM radio is on life support & the
plug should be pulled to put it out of its misery. He claims Canada & other
countries encourage AM stations to move to FM. ( & the AM is then taken off the air. )
Is that true?

 

[kevtronics]

Yes.

 

[davideduardo]

a friend of mine at a NYC AM station says--- AM radio is on life support & the
plug should be pulled to put it out of its misery. He claims Canada & other
countries encourage AM stations to move to FM. ( & the AM is then taken off the air. )
Is that true?

It's a bit more complicated than that.

By this date, and over a multi-decade period, AMs in Canada have been migrating to FM in a process where they exchange the AM for an FM license and, after a transition period, close the AM. However, in the larger metros, the Canadian authorities have re-authorized the use of quite a few "traded in" AM channels for niche and ethnic programming, resulting in new AMs appearing on the old channels.

Mexico, on the other hand, has legislated the wholesale move of "as many AMs as possible" to FM as the AM band is "no longer economically viable". As a result, about 85% of all Mexican AMs are transitioning to FM at present, and the channels will not be reassigned.

In both Mexico and Canada, the FM band was not already overpopulated and additional assignments could be made to transition most stations. That is not true in the US unless significant changes in adjacent channel and next adjacent channel interference rules are made.

There's more, but this is the bigger picture.

 

[kevtronics]

Canada and Mexico have also added some Expanded Band (1610-1700 kHz) AM stations. Or at least I know Canada has Expanded Band stations on the air... there are a few licensed to Mexico, but I don't know if they're actually on the air.

 

[davideduardo]

Canada and Mexico have also added some Expanded Band (1610-1700 kHz) AM stations. Or at least I know Canada has Expanded Band stations on the air... there are a few licensed to Mexico, but I don't know if they're actually on the air.

The Canadian X-Band stations appear to all be in service to minority or special interest communities and restricted to that by the terms of their licenses.

Mexico has a couple of X-Band stations. The border zone ones predate the decision to "close down" the AM dial to new licensing. The one in Mexico City also predates that rule, and is non-commercial as well.

México will not license new AMs as of about 3 years ago; they will make an exception for very rural government or non-commercial stations serving indigenous populations in languages other than Spanish if a case can be made for AM instead of FM such as very rugged rural terrain, etc.