Keep in mind that there are politicians who was to defund and shut down DHS.
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Saving AM Radio
- Thread starter BruceB
- Start date
Keep in mind that there are politicians who was to defund and shut down DHS.
This thread certainly took an unanticipated direction. OK, we'll play along.
A little story follows.
About a week ago, storms came through Denver one evening. There's nothing particularly unusual about that, since this has been a stormy spring, with some bad hailstorms to our north and east. The day before, Greeley was hit hard, with hail and flooding - so much hail that snowplows had to be brought out to clear the streets. What was unusual was that I got an email alert about this particular storm at 9:45 pm.
It was a National Weather Service warning via an email from Nextdoor which came in on my phone.
Yes, Nextdoor, through a partnership with the Weather Channel.
About 45 minutes after we got the warning, the hail hit. For us, it was nickel-sized hail (one of our cars has a few dents as a result but I was able to cover it up in time thanks to the weather warning, preventing further damage). Later we learned that it was much worse to our north and east, being particularly bad in Aurora as well as around Denver International Airport and a nearby neighborhood called Green Valley Ranch, with tennis-ball-sized hail, so much of it that the streets were full of it and still icy the next day. It wasn't that bad for us but, for about 15 minutes, it felt like the house was under attack.
What's missing from this story? Three guesses and the first two don't count.
Yes, we did see alerts on TV from the 10 pm newscast, which served as confirmation that this was going to be bad. That's TV, at just the right time of day as it turned out.
But radio? Especially AM radio?
Mighty 50,000-watt clear-channel class-A KOA isn't good as a timely source for much of anything like this, or for much of anything, period. I'm sure that, at 10 at night, no other AM station's going to be doing anything other than riding a satellite feed. FM? Unlikely. Yeah, I could have turned on NOAA weather radio, but the scratchy audio and the repetitiveness make it hard to listen just to wait for the warning for Denver.
If it's not blazingly obvious by now, I'll make it clear: in most places*, broadcast radio is no longer top of mind for emergency information. I and many others have been trained not to rely on it. It's walked away from that role. I won't get into motivations or desirability....it's just what has happened. Other things have sprung up to replace it.
It's not the 1980s, when the radio station (on AM!) I worked for proudly promoted the fact that it had a direct teletype connection to the local National Weather Service office. Indeed, that teletype was useful in severe weather. If no one on the news staff was in the station at a given time, the announcing staff was expected to respond nearly instantly to any alert off that teletype. The teletype is long gone, the local NWS office was consolidated with one of the big-city offices, and that AM station, now owned by one of the heavily indebted chains, is a shell of its former self.
If you come up with a new justification for keeping AM radio around, I'd love to hear it. But not more of the same-old same-old that applied in 1984 that doesn't apply in 2024.
* Yes, there are outliers. The word of the month. Doesn't obviate the general principle.
A little story follows.
About a week ago, storms came through Denver one evening. There's nothing particularly unusual about that, since this has been a stormy spring, with some bad hailstorms to our north and east. The day before, Greeley was hit hard, with hail and flooding - so much hail that snowplows had to be brought out to clear the streets. What was unusual was that I got an email alert about this particular storm at 9:45 pm.
It was a National Weather Service warning via an email from Nextdoor which came in on my phone.
Yes, Nextdoor, through a partnership with the Weather Channel.
About 45 minutes after we got the warning, the hail hit. For us, it was nickel-sized hail (one of our cars has a few dents as a result but I was able to cover it up in time thanks to the weather warning, preventing further damage). Later we learned that it was much worse to our north and east, being particularly bad in Aurora as well as around Denver International Airport and a nearby neighborhood called Green Valley Ranch, with tennis-ball-sized hail, so much of it that the streets were full of it and still icy the next day. It wasn't that bad for us but, for about 15 minutes, it felt like the house was under attack.
What's missing from this story? Three guesses and the first two don't count.
Yes, we did see alerts on TV from the 10 pm newscast, which served as confirmation that this was going to be bad. That's TV, at just the right time of day as it turned out.
But radio? Especially AM radio?
Mighty 50,000-watt clear-channel class-A KOA isn't good as a timely source for much of anything like this, or for much of anything, period. I'm sure that, at 10 at night, no other AM station's going to be doing anything other than riding a satellite feed. FM? Unlikely. Yeah, I could have turned on NOAA weather radio, but the scratchy audio and the repetitiveness make it hard to listen just to wait for the warning for Denver.
If it's not blazingly obvious by now, I'll make it clear: in most places*, broadcast radio is no longer top of mind for emergency information. I and many others have been trained not to rely on it. It's walked away from that role. I won't get into motivations or desirability....it's just what has happened. Other things have sprung up to replace it.
It's not the 1980s, when the radio station (on AM!) I worked for proudly promoted the fact that it had a direct teletype connection to the local National Weather Service office. Indeed, that teletype was useful in severe weather. If no one on the news staff was in the station at a given time, the announcing staff was expected to respond nearly instantly to any alert off that teletype. The teletype is long gone, the local NWS office was consolidated with one of the big-city offices, and that AM station, now owned by one of the heavily indebted chains, is a shell of its former self.
If you come up with a new justification for keeping AM radio around, I'd love to hear it. But not more of the same-old same-old that applied in 1984 that doesn't apply in 2024.
* Yes, there are outliers. The word of the month. Doesn't obviate the general principle.
Not exactly. The Homeland Security Act, written after 9/11, put all the responsibility in this new agency. They funded it with billions of dollars. None of the money went to radio, or training radio people for responding to emergencies. It all went to local emergency officials, and they were told to spend it as they see fit. Radio was left out. Radio didn't ''walk away.'' Something changed between 1980 and 2001. But people who can remember 1980 still think nothing has changed.
However, none of that changes the fact that the FCC license requires radio owners to make their signals available to the local emergency teams, whether those teams know it or not, and whether or not the public considers radio top of mind for emergency information. None of that matters. The rules for radio haven't changed, even if the audience doesn't care. So radio stations still do regular EAS tests and stay on the air in case of emergency. Which is why congress is mandating AM in all vehicles.
I've got weather apps from a The Weather Channel, a former TV meteorologist who has his own weather app, and another radar app. One lets me set alerts for several different places, and I do for a place about an hour west of us for early warning. I might turn the TV on if applicable. NOAA weather radio? The problem is it wakes me up for areas elsewhere in the region.
I remember the weather wire at one station where I worked. I remember watching it intently as my then-wife and I were planning a trip to Florida after we had had a good size snow, watching to see how much the 32 degree line would get to us
Okay, think about it for a second. Name one example of radio coming to the rescue that helped communities during natural or man-made disasters. Most, if not all come in with news and information after the disaster has already occurred, about the same time social media and cell sites have come back online. So how does traditional radio stand out during disasters? Answer: It doesn't.
It could, maybe, but it hasn't with any frequency (pardon the pun).
I was listening to an AM station when an Emergency message (a tornado watch 20 m away) activated the EBS system. then I tuned to NOAA, where there was continuous,. repeating messaging about it. When I tuned around the FM band, there was nothing about it (naturally). I could have missed whatever Emergency message was on an FM station, though.
The 2 Meter Band was dead, of course -- so much for Amateur Radio saving the day.
I think in modern times, being that everyone has a phone now, the phone is probably the EBS. Although I think radio still should have a part to play in it. Redundancy in disaster messages can't be a bad thing.
As for your main point, agreed. We all discussed this after the fires in Hawaii. Local radio couldn't deliver, for a whole bunch of reasons, some of them not the fault of whoever was running the stations.
And that's the only way radio could get the word out because stations (AM or FM) are required to have their EAS boxes programmed to break in and go live during certain emergencies. The problem is; and has been proven many times over the years, is the local emergency management folks have forgotten how to activate such alerts, or are so overwhelmed with the situation, that authoring and delivering a message in the heat of an emergency is a really low priority. If local or regional emergency management doesn't send anything, then there's nothing to broadcast.
A very similar argument to broadcast. Ham's talk a good game about what an important role they could play in theory, but when the rubber meets the road, the only scrambling is to same themselves. Which is fine, because amateur radio is a hobby, not putting yourself or others in harm's way. My only statement to follow that would be: Then don't claim you support emergency services via ham radio when there's zero obligation to do so.
I agree, but will guarantee local authorities are more interested in sending life-safety info out on smartphones than some local AM stations. Mainly because people have their phones on them 24/7. The same can't be said for broadcast radio.
Once again, that's not their job. Their job is to stay on the air, turn their signal over to the experts, and let the experts do the warning.
Isn't that what I said?
Let's go to the tape:
"And that's the only way radio could get the word out because stations (AM or FM) are required to have their EAS boxes programmed to break in and go live during certain emergencies. The problem is; and has been proven many times over the years, is the local emergency management folks have forgotten how to activate such alerts, or are so overwhelmed with the situation, that authoring and delivering a message in the heat of an emergency is a really low priority. If local or regional emergency management doesn't send anything, then there's nothing to broadcast."
I was responding to your previous comment. That one hadn't been posted yet.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Tell me, why did you seize on the one negative in my detailed post to comment on and completely ignore the more useful parts of it? Are you deliberately cultivating an image as a naysayer?
Let's presume that whenever the emergency happens, you are at home. I am 99.9% certain you would have your phone with you, but how many households have an AM/FM radio other than in their cars?
That is a question that needs to have some kind of reasonably accurate answer before we can determine whether or not even FM radio is worth saving, much less AM. (Although if an emergency caused a widespread power failure, I will concede that the electrical interference issue would disappear.)
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I hope the ARRL doesn't know where you live, Kelly. Your statement flies in the face of countless situations where amateur radio was able to fill in gaps where more traditional communications had failed.
"Traditional". Like telephones. And, as we have been discussing in what has become a circular argument, AM/FM/TV.
But that requires that the station have access to useful information. A working transmitter without content is useless.
I'd be interested in hearing actual examples, not drills or wishful thinking, where amateur radio in the U.S. has been used in lieu of traditional communications to any great extent.
I take care of some club ham repeaters in my local area with an 'EmComm' group too. Granted we haven't had any heart-stopping natural or man made disasters yet, but have had some severe weather events. In each of those examples; the call letter, polo shirt wearing EmComm members are always MIA.
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The AM can be "seized" by the EAS and activated on any station. However, an AM tends to be receivable over much greater distances if it has the right power and is lower on the dial.
I suspect an example of ignoring facts as presented to maintain a narrative with holes.
I made the same point too and he ignored it, along with the Lahaina fire example.
Puerto Rico hurricane Maria destroyed almost 100% of all communications. 90% or more of cellular, al but 1 of the 30 radio stations. All TV, too. Total electrical failure.
Hams, many with generators, were the only communication with many areas, particularly in both the rugged mountains and the flooded shoreline flatland.
Some of those KP4's worked 18 hour days, and got friends to bring them tanks of fuel on foot in several cases.
Many were good enough technicians that even if they lost their antennas, they knew how to improvise with long-wires and the like..
Okay one, on an island with shaky utility infrastructure and equally weak government emergency services. One could consider that an 'outlier' example, not the norm.
How about in a big state like Texas during the big freeze a couple years ago? Crickets.
What about last week during the tornadoes across the U.S. midsection? Crickets.
Something that nobody has mentioned yet (at least in this thread) is that recent iPhone models have satellite communication capabilities. Currently, it only supports emergency communications but it may have data capabilities in the future. One has to question why Apple opted for satellite instead of an FM radio tuner. Apple included FM in some iPods so they must have some stats on usage.
Another development relevant to this discussion is that T-Mobile is partnering with SpaceX to deliver satellite-based cell service:
T-Mobile Takes Coverage Above and Beyond With SpaceX - T-Mobile Newsroom
In a live event today, T-Mobile and SpaceX announced Coverage Above and Beyond: a breakthrough new plan to bring cell phone connectivity nearly everywhere.
Radio may not be as essential in emergencies once these technologies are fully deployed.
WWL 870AM provided critical information to coastal communities in Louisiana and Mississippi during and after Katrina. A lot of evacuees sheltered in Houston would tune in for frequent updates.