How long will it be before AM radio fades away?

[TVradioguru]

Sorry if you found my tone assertive Dismuke, it wasn't intended that way, just trying to make a point having been a long tenured broadcast manager who has written many a check. Until you do, you simply don't have proper perspective on what the real world is. Same goes for Tom's comments. It's not lie; listeners are turned off by the poor audio quality of AM radio. Ranting about what the cause is clearly doesn't move the needle. If it sounds like a duck to listeners, it's a duck. Not opinon, nor a lie..reality.

See here is the problem.. I gather from your and Tom's comments that you both bring the hobbyist perspective to the discussion. That's fine. The problem as a professional who does their homework with actual expensive audience research and having owned radio and TV stations; I can't stand back and see incorrect information or opinion being thrown out as a matter of fact. Have an opinion as a hobbyist? Great! Just don't come in and write incredibly long, several hundred work thesis's and not expect to get educated on reality by professionals.

Sorry guy's but running a one miliwatt hobby radio station or a Internet streamed radio station does not qualify you as an expert on the real thing, no matter how strong your convictions.

 

[Tom Wells]

I understand business has ( and must have ) a certain perspective.
One the other hand, I have a DEGREE from a very "hard-ass" radio school that flunked out people mercilessly,
and cannot stomach bad engineering or excuses. Excuses are failures.

If you were told, "No, we just can't align the wheels on your vehicle, you'll just have to put up with tire wear",
would you accept that?

No, we can't get the sewer gas smell out of your house, you'll just have to accept that.

No, we can't sell milk anymore that stays fresh for more than 2 days...would you accept that?

No, we can't have flourescent lights that don't flicker, you'll have to accept that....

Etc, Etc.

I have been trying to debug a control circuit schematic that has has NEITHER jump-over lines OR dots to
specifiy whether a connection exists or not. And I have to accept THAT? It's utter BS.
Far from being a hobbyist, I am an electronic engineer by trade, practice, and free-time pursuits.
And I will maintain my integrity and standards.
I wouldn't have been satisfied to buy a transmitter, or even build one from a kit, or from a schematic.
It's my own design and build. Anything else would be too easy, and not satisfying enough.

So I come by my opinions the hard way, and with the full backing of the education received in a school that would rather die
than have their curriculum watered down by federal gov meddling. ( And they did die with dignity rather than drink the kool-aid)
The worlds of engineering and business often come to conflict.
That doesn't mean either one can be dimissed as "not real", or that either one is inferior.

 

[TheBigA]

If you were told, "No, we just can't align the wheels on your vehicle, you'll just have to put up with tire wear",
would you accept that?

There are things you can do something about. The wheels on your car, the smell in your house, or the milk you buy. Those are things under your purview and control. You can do something about that.

Then there are lots of things you can't do anything about. Preventing terrorism, eliminating taxes, or bringing back the past. You can't vote on them, and you can't petition them. You can try, you can complain, you can attack and ridicule. But it won't change some things. Those are just the facts of life.

 

[Tom Wells]

Maintaning proper engineering standards and quality is not "living in the past".
It's "maintaining proper engineering standards", just as in the other examples I mentioned.

Now, if we've "decided" to drop our standards, that's just another human failure,
and as my job has always been to keep things working correctly, I cannot do so without a strong respect for
standards and performance, along with measurement and correction of "issues".

I believe there are other engineers with the same high standards.
Certainly anyone who ever graduated from Valpo Tech has the same attitude, unless they were pretty good at faking it.

 

[TheBigA]

Maintaning proper engineering standards and quality is not "living in the past".
It's "maintaining proper engineering standards", just as in the other examples I mentioned.

Who set the standards? You? If not, those standards can change and you might not be consulted.

If that happens, there's not a thing you can do, and if you operate under previous standards, you will be cited.

Case in point: They changed the speed limit in my neighborhood. They didn't ask me. Next thing I know, I'm pulled over. Guess what: It's my fault. I must pay the ticket.

The standards for AM operation have changed. In my opinion, not for the better. But there's not a damned thing you or I or anyone can do about it.

 

[Tom Wells]

And everybody gets to enjoy the "sewer gas" smell on AM.

That's the new standard.

At least we can agree that is it the fault of the FCC.

 

[semoochie]

Regarding the "acoustic discussion": Several years ago, I read an article about a group of people, who had managed to bring old cylinder recordings up to the level of what was described as "mid-fi". It involved modern digital recording techniques and a lot of noise suppression. The article mentioned that cylinders were technically superior to 78rpms and that they wouldn't be able to improve the latter to anywhere near the same amount.

 

[Tom Wells]

Re: Standards

Those funny red octagonal signs and red lights at intersections now mean " whatever",
with many injuries and fatalities as a result.

Yellow now means " full speed ahead".

These situations are why standards are important.

 

[Gatekeeper007]

To go commercial, you need an audience, and none of these stations show up in the ratings.

Big A were not in a ratings market and in a rural area but we have proved many times that we have a very bulk of the listeners in oor area.

 

[TVradioguru]

I understand business has ( and must have ) a certain perspective.
One the other hand, I have a DEGREE from a very "hard-ass" radio school that flunked out people mercilessly,
and cannot stomach bad engineering or excuses. Excuses are failures.

That doesn't mean either one can be dimissed as "not real", or that either one is inferior.

Look..again, I'm not here to challenge your trade school education Tom. The point I was trying to make is that graduating from Valpo Tech, which you're obviously quite proud of, does not qualify you to speak for millions of radio listeners who's opinion are that AM radio is inferior quality, no more than operating a hobby radio station our of your basement qualify you to know the economics of the broadcasting business.

Just listen to AM on any radio that a consumer would touch today. AM is by far the worst sound and inferior reception to the people who care-consumers. Who's fault is it? Is it a vast government conspiracy to wipe out AM broadcasting as you've intimated? Hardly. AM has just gotten passed up by time and advancing technology. Time to move on.

 

[Tom Wells]

Time to move on to "Failure ?"

Not while I still breathe.

Without becoming argumentative, I AM a doctor of electronics
and acceptance of failure in any useful mode of radio is akin to saying we're not going to try to eliminate rickets, polio,
malaria, leprosy or cancer in humans.

I can just imagine telling one of the pressmen where I work, "Sorry, I can't fix that, you'll just have to get along somehow."
It's not in me. I'll die trying first.

And I won't stop tellling the truth about AM, either. It sounds better than FM. Period.
FM works better if everything is slop-engineered, but that's no excuse for slop engineering.

FM MONO could sound better without provision for the 19 kc, 'scuse me, khz pliot for stereo, but we gave up that
for 2 channels, OK, I accept that, but I'd love to start a class action suit against the FCC ( I know you can't sue the fed gov)
for dereliction of duty, for "breaking" my radios, by not fulfilling the duty they were commissioned to perform, maintaining
viable radio service for the greatest number of listeners, nationwide.

Rant mode off, making AM less "awful" can only help the industry, and the whole point of regulation is to keep something from becoming useless. No regulation is a return to 1926. The only thing missing is "blooper" receivers, but we have switching power supplies, unfiltered digital clocking, compact flourescents, dimmers, and plasma TVs instead to take up the slack.

Hello, FCC?

 

[TheBigA]

Big A were not in a ratings market and in a rural area but we have proved many times that we have a very bulk of the listeners in oor area.

If you can prove it, then being commercial or noncommercial shouldn't be an issue.

 

[TVradioguru]

Not while I still breathe.

Without becoming argumentative, I AM a doctor of electronics
and acceptance of failure in any useful mode of radio is akin to saying we're not going to try to eliminate rickets, polio,
malaria, leprosy or cancer in humans.

By all means Tom, keep tilting at those AM windmills... I'll be awaiting to witness the rebirth of hi fidelity AM.

I for one would never equate something as inane as broadcasting on par with health or disease matters that adversely affects peoples lives. That, I think you'd agree is a stretch, but nice to know you're working on eliminating polio and malaria. But then again, you are a doctor!

 

[KeithE4]

And I won't stop tellling the truth about AM, either. It sounds better than FM. Period.
FM works better if everything is slop-engineered, but that's no excuse for slop engineering.

Tom, exactly what is superior about AM over FM?

Sound quality? Nope. FM by definition is quieter, and thanks to NRSC, frequency response is 10 kHz for AM, 15 kHz for FM. That may sound better to you, but that's just your own opinion. Even if they were both 15 kHz, the noise/static inherent on the lower frequencies would still make AM sound worse.

Better distance, again due to the frequencies used and propagation? Doesn't mean much anymore. The days of a station bragging about being able to be heard in 38 states and Canada are long gone. Their advertisers don't care, and really, how many listeners do a WGN, KFI, or WCBS have outside of their own metros, except for maybe live sports? The 50 kW stick allows for clearer reception within their large metros. The rest is gravy.

Receiver issues? There have been good and crappy AM radios going back the first mass-produced TRF units in the 1920s. Most of us bought the crappy ones - either "All-American Fives" in the '40s and '50s that sounded like a frog after a few years, pocket radios in the '60s, or Walkman-types in the '80s to today.

FM MONO could sound better without provision for the 19 kc, 'scuse me, khz pliot for stereo, but we gave up that for 2 channels, OK, I accept that, but I'd love to start a class action suit against the FCC ( I know you can't sue the fed gov) for dereliction of duty, for "breaking" my radios, by not fulfilling the duty they were commissioned to perform, maintaining viable radio service for the greatest number of listeners, nationwide.

There is no such thing as a nationwide radio service. All stations are local, even when carrying network/syndicated programming. And the greatest number of listeners are listening to FM, not AM, and have been for over 30 years. Why? Because the sound quality is better.

And, nobody "broke" your radios. If they are "broken" now, they were probably "broken" 50-60 years ago. The old tube radios' designs were compromises, balancing decent performance with economy - four cheap tubes plus a rectifier, a filter cap that opened up after a few years (hence, sounding like a frog), no power transformer, and a 4 or 5 inch speaker. Sure, you could buy high-end radios with big speakers, shortwave, a fancy wood cabinet, pushbutton presets like a car radio, and an external antenna connection, but most people did not once the cheaper radios became available in the late '30s.

Rant mode off, making AM less "awful" can only help the industry, and the whole point of regulation is to keep something from becoming useless. No regulation is a return to 1926. The only thing missing is "blooper" receivers, but we have switching power supplies, unfiltered digital clocking, compact flourescents, dimmers, and plasma TVs instead to take up the slack.

They're not going to go away. Most of them are well within Part 15 limits. In fact, most of those types of devices I've bought in recent years are far better than the ones from the '70s and '80s. A good DSP IF and/or audio section would help get rid of the noise, but if there is no market for AM radios anymore, who will bother to design and build it?

Hello, FCC?

They are not going to do anything unless Congress tells them to, which I doubt they will. Because of the ionosphere (a liability in 2010, not an asset), the frequencies below 88 MHz are all but worthless to most commercial users - really, anybody but hams, some broadcasters, and the military - and will command close to nothing in auction fees. If it doesn't bring in the bucks, the FCC and the Congresscritters don't care.

 

[gr8oldies]

I've got to think that even if you could get AM radio sounding as good as it possibly can, (CKLW in the 70s with a wideband reciever), lotsa luck in convincing people after 35 years that AM radio is in fact, a silk purse.

 

[TVradioguru]

An old-timer engineering buddy of mine once explained that AM signals traveled further (or something like that), the louder it was modulated. That's why even back in the 60's and 70's, AM stations were adding massive amounts of limiter and clipping gizmos to maximize signal. Some even adding reverb! I grew up as a youngster in that era, so I am painfully aware of the sound of AM back then coming out of a car radio or 2 inch speaker of my 9 volt battery radio or earpiece.

Let's not practice revisionist history, AM sounded like distorted, noisy poo; but was the only game in town back then. Now with all the additional higher quality choices, AM sounds like ultra-poo by comparison. (That's an official quality technical standard of course)

The reality is consumer electronics manufacturers aren't going to spend one tenth of a red cent reinventing the original wireless media delivery method, nor should they. Remember too; RCA, GE, Philco and all, who sold AM radios back in the day also had vested interest in the programming side being station owners. Who are the major consumer manufacturers today? Samsung, Panasonic, LG, Sony, etc. None of them own radio stations or networks. From a consumer side, nobody is around to keep their finger in the hole of an AM radio leaky boat.

 

[butlerguy03]

AM should have been dead 60 years ago.

I know this is a different era, but David Sarnoff thought FM was much clearer for the future and used it for TV...all but killing off Edwin Howard Armstrong's FM. Sarnoff knew RCA had to keep selling AM radios. He convinced the FCC to move the FM dial so Armstrong's recievers were useless.

Simple economic power; otherwise, AM radio probably would have disappeared by 1950.

 

[davideduardo]

AM should have been dead 60 years ago.

I know this is a different era, but David Sarnoff thought FM was much clearer for the future and used it for TV...all but killing off Edwin Howard Armstrong's FM. Sarnoff knew RCA had to keep selling AM radios. He convinced the FCC to move the FM dial so Armstrong's recievers were useless.

Simple economic power; otherwise, AM radio probably would have disappeared by 1950.

The move of FM from 47 mHz to today's band happened just after W.W. II when there were less than 100 FMs on the air in the whole country, and very, very few receivers due to the wartime shortages that did not allow much consumer electronics manufacturing.

I was not aware that Armstong manufactured receivers; he held the patents for aspects of the technology, and built the Alpine station and network linked without phone lines...

Sarnoff disliked Armstrong, who had been the major shareholder of RCA. RCA tried to do an FM receiver not based on the Armstrong patents, but no FM receiver was much of a seller until the very late 60's, which was over 20 years later.

 

[Tom Wells]

Trying to convince people who listen to modern slop-engineered AM radios tuned to NRSC (or worse) hobbled stations that AM sounds good just as hopeless as trying to convince modern suburban dwellers that Red Lobster is NOT seafood.

I prefer some static once in a while over multipath flutter and smashed flat compressed audio with no dynamics.

One reason AM sounds better is that there is less non-linearity in a well-designed AM detector than the average FM detector.

I listen to my own music at home on the AM part 15. And when I hear the same recordings on FM, there's no question
that my own sounds better (within the admittedly tiny range). Example : Kashmir by Led Zeppelin yesterday morning.
No, I don't follow NRSC cutoff, and built my transmitter with an ear toward very high linearity, no iron in the audio path,
and modulate on the grid of a 6SN7, one of the most linear types ever made.
(Which is why they were so common in old TV circuits).
My own station has audio up to 20 khz. An unfiltered feed from an FM signal with a stero pilot shows up a 1 khz heterodyne
on the spot 20 khz over, and can be seen on the scope. Sorry, but that's a fact.


I'm so sorry your AM and AM experience have been so poor.

But to say that it cannot be better than your own experience is like saying you wish to remain ignorant.

And I never said AM was intended to be nationwide. I'm saying that as currently practiced, it does not
provide the greatest number of useful signals nationwide, but (especially at night) only serves those well within a few miles of the towers. Great swaths of the country hear little more than a bowl of mush at night due to overcluttered frequencies.

I know what a bad filter cap sounds like, as well as leaky coupling caps and/or leaky failing bypass caps.

My radios aren't broken by age, because I can (and DO) fix any of the issues you mention.
The breaking is due to FCC incompetence and abandonment of the duty they were commissioned to perform.

Regarding the sound capabilities of AM,
just don't say "It can't be" to someone who daily does so. Feel free to disbelieve, but don't say it can't be done.

 

[davideduardo]

Trying to convince people who listen to modern slop-engineered AM radios tuned to NRSC (or worse) hobbled stations that AM sounds good just as hopeless as trying to convince modern suburban dwellers that Red Lobster is NOT seafood.

Hmm. Red Lobster sells fish, most of which come from salt water environments. Thus, it sells seafood.

You may not like the "packaging" and the fact that Red Lobster is a highly standardized chain operation, but that does not make fish from the sea into hot dogs or pizza.

More importantly, it seems that anything that is not the age of your vintage radios is somehow defective.

The FCC licensed too many stations... they interfered... the NRSC roll off was created to limit bandwidth to correct part of the interference... radio manufacturers realized that AM audience was dwindling and ageing... radios with cheaper AM designs could be sold to reduce the price of production to get into Walmart and such...

The AM of the 50's is not coming back in sound, in programming or in appeal.