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Saving AM Radio

TheBigA said:
Because it costs a lot of money. AM as a system is way more expensive than FM.

It's cheaper to either have an FM translator or refer people to your mobile app.
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Let capitalism work

I am sure if anyone did do something, it would be the best they can do economically. Letting successfully funded AMs (or any business) take advantage of opertuntires is basic economics. If buying a translator is best then that's the way to go. There is no one size fits all in radio.

In areas of good ground conductivity a decent AM signal will let you get around the 15 mile 60 db rule. If you move a 1 kw station below 800 khz from above 1400 it should push the signal much farther. You might get an extra antenna height for a translator.

Every Station no mater what band needs web exposure.
 
Capitalism can't work if rules hold back any chance of significantly improving your business. What would it hurt to allow property engineered major construction permits on AM? If it doesn't make since it won't be done.

The commission should allow "horizontal" antennas like the Ham HF guys use. Dxengineering.com has a 2500watt HF antenna with 15 db gain. I know you can't use that particular antenna but something similar cut to a commercial AM frequency on a rented roof top could something useful if allowed.

Repeating an action and expecting different results is insane. The FM translators for AM did keep a lot of small market stations in the game. A couple of large market stations also survived too, like 680 in Atlanta. Any chance of AM as we know it having mass usage isn't going to happen with this set of rules.

The former heavily regulated and geographic limited railroads have reinvented themselves. Besides consolation they have change the way they run trains, embraced shipping containers, used distributed power and several other innovations to survive the downturn in the coal business.

Spectrum is like land. There is only so much of it.
 
It doesn't matter to the general public whether an AM station is 500 or 50,000 watts if they never even tune to that band. That's why few operators are interested in upgrading an AM signal. Take a look at the FCC applications for AM's, almost all are actually for downgrades or repeated STA's to operate at variances and/or lower power.
 
secondchoice said:
Capitalism can't work if rules hold back any chance of significantly improving your business.
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Capitalism says if it costs more to fix than it will make, you don't spend the money.

If deleting rules would somehow save AM radio, you'd hear the NAB yelling for them. So far, crickets.

secondchoice said:
Spectrum is like land. There is only so much of it.
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Just like land, some of it is worthless. You think beachfront is worth the same as an isolated desert?
 
secondchoice said:
Capitalism can't work if rules hold back any chance of significantly improving your business. What would it hurt to allow property engineered major construction permits on AM? If it doesn't make since it won't be done.

The commission should allow "horizontal" antennas like the Ham HF guys use. Dxengineering.com has a 2500watt HF antenna with 15 db gain. I know you can't use that particular antenna but something similar cut to a commercial AM frequency on a rented roof top could something useful if allowed.

Repeating an action and expecting different results is insane. The FM translators for AM did keep a lot of small market stations in the game. A couple of large market stations also survived too, like 680 in Atlanta. Any chance of AM as we know it having mass usage isn't going to happen with this set of rules.

The former heavily regulated and geographic limited railroads have reinvented themselves. Besides consolation they have change the way they run trains, embraced shipping containers, used distributed power and several other innovations to survive the downturn in the coal business.

Spectrum is like land. There is only so much of it.
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What do you mean by 2500 watt? Antennas have no power. Do you mean that's the max input power that particular antenna can handle from a given transmitter? It would take roughly 80 watts driven into a 15 dB gain antenna to get an ERP of 2500 watts.
 
secondchoice said:
Capitalism can't work if rules hold back any chance of significantly improving your business.
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The chairman of the FCC welcomes your many ideas and recommendations. He wants to delete rules that are holding back business. Send them all to him:


We encourage commenters to consider certain policy factors, as described below and consistent with standards and objectives set forth in recent Presidential orders as well as statutory and regulatory retrospective review standards.
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• Electronic Filers: Comments may be filed electronically using the Internet by accessing the ECFS: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/.
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