AM STEREO

[LasVegasRadioJunky]

Why didn't AM Stereo last. I had a car that came with an AM Stereo receiver and remember it sounded pretty good. Not as good as HD, but good enough to make a diffrerence on the AM band.

How many stations converted to AM Stereo?
How many car manufacturers jumped on the band wagon?
Is AM Stereo totally a thing of the past?

Maybe it died because talk, new and sports did not benefit from Stereo??

 

[strangelove]

My opinion only: there was tons of fighting and lawsuits in the industry over which AM stereo standard would be adopted that lasted for years (there were several at one time) and by the time the FCC settled on one in the early 90s, music had long since migrated to FM and AM stereo served no real use at that point as they were mostly talk stations on the band. I'm just basing this on what I've read, more first-hand insight is sure to follow.

 

[ThePickleReport]

I think strangelove summed it up well. I'd add that although a standard was chosen for AM stereo, radio manufacturers weren't required to add it to radios. AM Stereo doesn't do you any good if you don't have a proper radio to decode it.

 

[JH_Radio]

There are a dwindeling number of stations still broadcasting in AM Stereo. Lots of car manufactures put AM Stereo radio's. I don't know how many made it clear that the radio was capable of receiving the broadcasts though.
It is not a thing of the past.
The AMX-2000 made by Jeff Deck is (from what i read on the web) a very good AM Stereo tuner. I've also read the same about the Fanfare (very-high priced) FTA-100 tuner. I am hopeing to own a Jef Deck tuner soon. I don't see the FTA-100 being baught any time soon, mainly do to the very high cost.
Though I do have two AM Stereo units here (the Sony SRF-42 Walkman, and Sony SRF-A100 tabletop) , there isn't a stereo station around here to test the receiver on. I'm sure it works, but it would be nice to hear stereo come from someware.
I cannot get 1450 WCCT (Oldies) which broadcast in stereo.
On the SRF-42, I used to get WPHT (The big Talker 1210 AM/Philadelphia) and South Asian 1680 WTTM. Both sounded good on the aMax walkman.
I used to get noisy stereo on Long Island on the Sony SRF-A100 from a station who's call letters and frequency escape me at the moment. I remember it is out of Richfield, CT and runs the Scott Shannon's "True Oldies" format.
There are a number of websites that discuss AM Stereo. If you'd like more info, I can point you to a few of them.
John
Bensalem, PA

 

[Jody-Thornton]

Though I do have two AM Stereo units here (the Sony SRF-42 Walkman, and Sony SRF-A100 tabletop) , there isn't a stereo station around here to test the receiver on. I'm sure it works, but it would be nice to hear stereo come from someware.

I had a chance to pick up a Sony AM Stereo component tuner from a second hand store, but it's tuner was set to frequency allocations used in Europe (9 KHz spacing), and I didn't see a switch anywhere to change it to 10 KHz spacing. We have no AM Stereo signals left either. We had twenty or so available in 1990. But the nearest ones to me now are Chatham, Ontario and Ottawa, Ontario. And I am in Hamilton, so that's no good.

But I would still have liked the tuner for its audio bandwidth on the AM section. I was able to capture a couple of signals, and to me it sounded like it was about -3 dB off at 10 KHz (just a guess), but it was pretty clear. I mostly listen to talk radio anyway, and it would be nice to have AM performance that more closely matches my turntable and tape deck, even if it is just spoken word.

In the US, getting such a tuner may not be as beneficial to an AM fan as it once was, not with ClearChannel severing its AM outlets' response to 5 KHz. Yikes, when I was on air at two AM stations, I used to listen to the air feed while I did my show. I couldn't imagine running a signal through the board that chopped off at 5 KHz. But most commercial radios don't even respond to 3 KHz nowadays. That's a crime!

Cheers,
Jody Thornton

 

[kyscott]

Strangelove pretty much summed it up. By the time a standard was selected, the industry had moved on. For a while WSM in Nashville broadcast in stereo. I don't know if they still do. It sounded pretty dang good at one time.

 

[ropertex]

Here is a sample of WOWO Fort Wayne received 460 miles away in Pennsylvania at night in C-QUAM stereo!

Try THAT Ibiquity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm_iYK-ctiQ

Note the channel separation on the Beatles' "Michelle" (This was released in mono in England, but Capitol
released a stereo version in the US with vocal only on LEFT and mono music only on RIGHT, so it makes a great
test of separation.)

 

[mrcnokc]

A good example of federal government laissez faire policy that killed a technology. AM stereo was actually first approached in 1960 or 61, but the FCC wouldn't listen, because the emphasis was on FM stereo, and helping FM's get going. I think it was Magnavox who had the first system ready, but without FCC approval, it died. When it came into play again in the early 80's, the government again waited too long to approve the standard, and when it did, it was too late. AM had mostly migrated to endless sports and yak, yak, yak. AM stereo was a viable system that would have provided us with "choices", and perhaps expanded listening options. It wasn't perfect, but listening to AM stereo on a 50,000 watt station like Oklahoma City's KOMA in the 80's was a real treat, and it sounded great! I've still got my Radio Shack AM stereo tuner, and am waiting for a comeback, but I'm not holding my breath. Too bad...

 

[rew]

I had a Sony model XR-A33 in my car. It would decode more than one format. The stereo sounded good but the radio had a switch that would change the bandwidth. Even the local 1 kw daytime only station sounded much much better in the wide band mode. The bandwidth made more difference in the sound than anyone would believe. Most stations were transmitting a good sounding signal the radios just wouldn't pass it. I bet the wideband would be useless now if there is any IBUZ (IBOC) close by.

 

[JH_Radio]

Wow, the seperation blows my mind. I remember hearing this type of seperation in the jingles and sweepers on WPHT both on the Sony SRF-42 and Chryslor AM Stereo/FMStereo/CD/Cassette ROZ moddle.
I don't know south asian music at all, but WTTM sounded excelent on both tuners as well.
FM Stereo doesn't have wide seperation like that. Not with the advent of broadcasting a digital signal along side the anolog.
Anolog-only stations sound crisper and have a much wider stereo seperation.
Thanks for that vidio! Now I have to find a way to get that station from here.
John
Bensalem, PA
PS: What tuner/antenna combo was used to get that station?

 

[billyg]

The problem I found with C-Quam in the 80's and 90's is that it still didnt take care of the static and interference. When the signal became weak you could hear that nasty "Platform Motion" when the stereo separation starts phasing in and out like an old Jimi Hendrix record.

I remember back in the mid 80's there just wasn't many AM Stereo radios available. Motorola charged companies to use their decoder chips, and many overseas electronic companies refused to pay for them. Had those chips had been cheap (or the FCC forced Motorola to give up their patent so anyone could make the decoder) companies like Panasonic or Sanyo could have made millions of AM stereo radios.

I bought the Realistic AM Stereo tuner discounted in 1987, and while it wasn't a great tuner when you could get a strong C-Quam station it could sound great. I remember listening to WLS (when they were doing a mix of talk and oldies), and later KOMA, KWKH, KVOO and KFDI-AM in Wichita.

 

[JH_Radio]

That would have been the Realistic TM-162? Tabletop AM-only tuner with Stereo. I didn't think that tuner was all that great for sound.
John

 

[michaeljwyo]

Someone pointed me to this place because people were talking about AM Stereo....one of my passions. I REALLY enjoyed the WOWO aircheck. I hadn't heard it yet. That reminds you just how good it really DID sound. I have several AM stereo capable radios....including the Chrysler Corp factory tuner in my car as well as a Sony SRF-A100 - still the best-sounding AM radio I've ever heard (in my humble opinion). Somebody made the point that some of these AM Stereo radios were good even for mono stations because they widened the bandwidth. So true. SO many people don't know just how good AM really sounds because there are no radios out there to pick it up that way. It's sad the way that today's radios chop everything and make AM sound muddy. So many people tell me they don't listen to AM because AM sounds like $#!+. No it's not AM that sounds crappy, it's the radios that make it sound crappy. I work at a small AM station in Wyoming that I put into C-quam stereo about 4 years ago and it sounds wonderful. There's no way we'll ever be converting to IBOC. I have a Sony ST-JX220A tuner sitting above my monitor here at my shop, and it is tuned to my little part 15 AM transmitter that broadcasts in stereo. Sounds as good as FM to me....it's beautiful and it's too bad the technology didn't make it. People tell me the station I work for may very well end up being the last AM Stereo station on earth. If that's the case, so be it. As long as I have anything to say about it, the pilot light will stay lit here at KEVA.

Michael n Wyo

 

[RadioMan203]

The AM daytimer I engineered in the 80's had Kahn AM stereo and I thought it was a great system. Before I started working there the Operations manager gave me an SRF-A1 walkman and I was amazed on just how good the station sounded. By the time I got involved I did some processing changes to suit the current format and it was a great sound.

BTW: For anybody with an SRF-A100 it's worth the investment of replacing all the electrolytic caps. I have two of these and both of them had leaking caps. The performance improved dramatically once I did this and all it cost was about $15 and a few hours time.

So far, the SRF-A1 and SRF-42 I have seem unaffected by leaky caps.

 

[JH_Radio]

I remember an AM Stereo group of which you were a huge part of, Michael. I thought your station was more powerful then a Part 15?
John
Bensalem, PA

 

[billyg]

That would have been the Realistic TM-162? Tabletop AM-only tuner with Stereo. I didn't think that tuner was all that great for sound.
John

Thats the one, it was OK sounding with a little EQ. I still have it in the original box. I haven't used it in years. There used to be a AM Oldies station in Wichita (KQAM) that broadcasted mono-only and it sounded better on the TM-162 than the tuner in my Technics receiver.

I think paid $10 for it on a discount rack, Radio Shack was just trying to get rid of them. I just wish I would have made airchecks with it at the time.

 

[gunterm]

Anyone have some good AM stereo aircheck links?

I've seen several radio stations with newer transmitters that already had the Motorola AM stereo encoder already built in, but I never understood why everyone wouldn't just turn it on. It would be a treat for the few with decoders still, does it hurt the regular signal if it's on?

I think Ford still puts AM stereo in their radios to this day.

 

[ccuphl]

There are a dwindeling number of stations still broadcasting in AM Stereo.

1310 WEMG/Camden, NJ, (Spanish/Tropical) is the one and only AM station that's still in stereo in Philadelphia.

Sounds pretty good, too.

 

[LasVegasRadioJunky]

Okay?

What about AM-HD-STEREO. Is that a possible scenario?

 

[strangelove]

Not sure if stereo sound is possible but sadly AM HD isn't all it's cracked up to be. No static to speak of but it sounds like a tinny webstream.