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recent road trip to the coast

P

Pat3

Guest
Collins WAML 1340 was dead air
Hattiesburg WHJA 890 was off the air
WORV 1580 was off the air
WHSY 950 Was off the air
The only AM station still broadcasting was WFOR
On the Gulf Coast:
WGCM 1240 was dead air but the translator at 100.9 was operating with cruising oldies.
WROA was off the air but the FM translator was operating with easy listening but suddenly went to dead air for the rest of the time I was there.
KAGY 1510 Port Sulpher, LA was static so I assume it was off the air
WPMO 1580 Pascagoula was static, so I was either out of range or it was off the air.

How quickly familiar AM stations of my youth have fallen.
 
Pat3 said:
Collins WAML 1340 was dead air
Hattiesburg WHJA 890 was off the air
WORV 1580 was off the air
WHSY 950 Was off the air
The only AM station still broadcasting was WFOR
On the Gulf Coast:
WGCM 1240 was dead air but the translator at 100.9 was operating with cruising oldies.
WROA was off the air but the FM translator was operating with easy listening but suddenly went to dead air for the rest of the time I was there.
KAGY 1510 Port Sulpher, LA was static so I assume it was off the air
WPMO 1580 Pascagoula was static, so I was either out of range or it was off the air.

How quickly familiar AM stations of my youth have fallen.
Click to expand...

In some cases it could be the noise level.... some cars it drowns out the signal. On the air...unlistenable. Worse if the station is not running peak modulation or inferior processing.
 
Pat3 said:
How quickly familiar AM stations of my youth have fallen.
Click to expand...


What do you mean by "quickly?" These are all examples of low power AM stations (under 10,000 watts) that have suffered from the long slow decline of local revenue bases in small towns, the long, slow decline of AM radio audio quality, and the long slow decline of AM radio listening. This hasn't happened quickly. It happened over the course of 25 years.

But you're probably correct that the pace has quickened in the last five years. More and more, I read about legendary AM stations selling the land under their towers. The FCC's "AM revitalization" plan has led to thousands of FM translators, and there's a movement among owners to be allowed to shut down the AM signal, and just operate the translator. Apparently, some have already made that move without a rule change.

The other thing I noticed about those stations is that they're all owned by individuals or small local companies. Not one is owned by one of the big national radio companies. I'm not sure what that means...just making an observation.
 
You are right about the AM revitilization actually ruining some AM stations. A lot of once great signals start to go downhill after they add an FM. A lot of them will downgrade if they have expensive directional systems. Which may be understandable in most cases. WROA is going from 5,000 watts down to 900 watts, but a lot of their signal is being sent out to sea anyway. The only thing that bothers me is when they let a good AM signal go in the toilet or fall into disrepair, and you are out of range of the translator. There quite a few stations in Mississippi that are like that. There are some stations that I can pick up on AM in the house but the FM is too weak. I still can't figure out why so many stations run dead air or very low audio.
 
Pat3 said:
You are right about the AM revitilization actually ruining some AM stations. A lot of once great signals start to go downhill after they add an FM. A lot of them will downgrade if they have expensive directional systems. Which may be understandable in most cases. WROA is going from 5,000 watts down to 900 watts, but a lot of their signal is being sent out to sea anyway. The only thing that bothers me is when they let a good AM signal go in the toilet or fall into disrepair, and you are out of range of the translator. There quite a few stations in Mississippi that are like that. There are some stations that I can pick up on AM in the house but the FM is too weak. I still can't figure out why so many stations run dead air or very low audio.
Click to expand...

If I had an AM and participated in the revitalization. I would downgrade to 250W ND daytime class D if possible ASAP. Save the power, and tell the handful of AM listeners to make the switch. You can't live in the past and what once was. That is the reality.
 
TheBigA said:
Perhaps by accident or to retain the license. Until the FCC changes the rule, so they can shut down the AM altogether.
Click to expand...

But doesn't the rules require the translator to 100% mimic what's on the AM? That means if the AM is off, the translator should not be running. And if the AM is dead air, the translator should be dead air, too. At least for issues outside of routine maintenance.

I agree, though, that the AM side is going to be purposely neglected to save money, until they can whine to the FCC and convince them shutting it off completely is the only viable solution. That's the future of AM.

Then again, an AM band with 25% of the stations it has now, but each station with the maximum allowed power, would make for a cleaner band for the remaining stations and listeners.
 
tomservo said:
Then again, an AM band with 25% of the stations it has now, but each station with the maximum allowed power, would make for a cleaner band for the remaining stations and listeners.
Click to expand...

The FCC isn't going to cut the number of stations. That's not in their interest.
 
tomservo said:
But doesn't the rules require the translator to 100% mimic what's on the AM? That means if the AM is off, the translator should not be running. And if the AM is dead air, the translator should be dead air, too. At least for issues outside of routine maintenance.

I agree, though, that the AM side is going to be purposely neglected to save money, until they can whine to the FCC and convince them shutting it off completely is the only viable solution. That's the future of AM.

Then again, an AM band with 25% of the stations it has now, but each station with the maximum allowed power, would make for a cleaner band for the remaining stations and listeners.
Click to expand...

I travel 250 miles a week thru Alabama. When I feel nostalgic I'll scan the AM side. Most AM's Ican hear if are in close proximity to the transmitter (a mile or two). There is still noise and disruption. After about 5 or 10 minutes I switch back to FM. The average listener has zero tolerance for any noise with so many options, and now you have one or two generations who have never spent time scanning the AM dial. In most smaller and medium markets the options are limited. Smaller markets with a heritage signal that is family owned and has kept programming status quo usually still do well (they also applied for the AM revitalization in most cases), and some will tolerate AM for a sports or news program not available on an FM affiliate.
 
tomservo said:
You don't think they'll eventually cave in and let the AMs go dark, creating a franken-FM class of stand alone translators?
Click to expand...

As I said, it's not in their interest. They need AM stations on the air in case of an emergency. They also need those stations paying license fees.

The purpose of giving them translators was to keep the business viable so they'd keep the AMs on the air.
 
I love listening to WWL from New Orleans in the daytime. I would hate to see the AM radio go away. I also enjoy WMOX and WBBM in the evenings.
 
Sad to say that those of us that still enjoy AM (either local or DX'ing) are in the minority. I grew up listening to Wolfman Jack on WLAC and most oldies music just sounds "right" to me on a well maintained AM station with a decent receiver.
 
Unfortunately I have the same problem as Groove1670. A few miles from the transmitter and it's noise city on AM. It didn't used to be that way, either. And I'm not talking about going back to the 60's! My car's original radio/antenna worked great and I could pick up AM better than I could FM, albeit with typical in-car terrible frequency response. But the external amplified antenna bit the dust a few years into ownership, and the cheap replacement unit that's probably from China just lets in all kinds of noise. FM is fine, of course, but AM is all but useless. A shame, because I know the radio is capable of so much more.

Although finding good quality AM receivers is difficult today, one shining beacon of quality can be found with an SDR, software defined receivers can do basically unlimited audio bandwidth, so the user has complete control over audio fidelity on any band. I get the full 10 kHz off WHEP, my nearest local station and when they used to play oldies for an hour or so each day, it sounded fantastic.
 
It's a shame. I listen to Rush and Hannity on WJDX and the static is so bad in Rankin County it's unlistenable because the power lines criss cross the highway. It didn't use to be this bad. In Brandon near the Home Depot there is some annoying white noise that wipes out the lower end of the band. Not sure what it is, some sort of hash but not the usual electrical buzz. On highway 80 in Brandon some areas the static is so bad you can't even pick up WJNT without noise and it's 50,000 watts only a few miles away. Most of the newer radios today are total crap. They are mainly Iphone docks with cheap radios attached to them. Many of the new radios don't even have the AM band. It's a shame when you have a 250 watt translator that gets out nearly as good as 50,000 watts AM. The only thing that bothers me is not being able to pick up a station that had a good 5, 10, or 50Kw transmitter that is now off the air or on low power in favor of the FM side. Where I live the translators are nearly impossible to be picked up indoors due to low power and being sandwiched around more powerful stations, that overlap. If something isn't done about the static being created by the power companies AM will be totally dead in a few years. Isn't their an FCC rule against creating excessive noise? I know most Ham operators won't tolerate it. But maybe they've given up complaining about it as well.
 
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