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Saving AM Radio

Dittos. Different animals.
Oftentimes, the conservative talk host may not even graduated college, or maybe even flunked-out of high school.
Again,, what difference does that make? What is your obsession with college degrees?
 
It shows they know what they heck they're talking about.
Many times I heard Rush try to explain something when it sounded like he had no idea what he was talking about.

Many businesses won't hire non-college graduates. Or fire people who lied on their applications that they went to college.

Of course, not everyone who goes to college is smarter than those who don't, but it sure shows how little they know when they attempt to explain things they know little about.
And those who flunked out of college sure aren't respected.
 
It shows they know what they heck they're talking about.
Sometimes. But in my experience, there can be people just as qualified with and without degrees. In business, a person with successful work experience is often a much better hire than someone who just has a degree and is full of textbook theory.

I worked with and competed with a fine broadcaster in Puerto Rico who now owns about 15 stations there. He went to a tech academy in New York City and then worked his way up to the ownership of the biggest group and most successful one on the Island. He once told me, "I don't hire college graduates. They come in and think that a little piece of paper makes them know more than I do."
Many times I heard Rush try to explain something when it sounded like he had no idea what he was talking about.
Or, more simply, you did not agree with his conclusions.
Many businesses won't hire non-college graduates. Or fire people who lied on their applications that they went to college.
And they make a mistake of missing out on some people with excellent hands-on work experience.
Of course, not everyone who goes to college is smarter than those who don't, but it sure shows how little they know when they attempt to explain things they know little about.
There are other ways of learning besides college. And what I learned through experience about management is that the best manager hires department heads who know more than they do in each field and then learns from them.
And those who flunked out of college sure aren't respected.
While I did not "flunk" college (Was actually on the Dean's List while in school), there were times I felt like giving up as much of it was so enormously boring.

Fortunately, I found some good teachers who then referred me to classes with other good teachers. In the required math classes, one of them noticed I went to sleep often yet did perfect scores on the first weekly tests. He asked how much I knew and then said, just come to the final and don't bother with the classes. He then referred me to the right classes for the other math requirements where I did the same thing.

As I said, a lot of it was boring and part of an institutionalized system with no purpose.
 
Please kill this thread.
Why? The discussion is about the background of talk and news/talk hosts and whether they are "qualified" to give opinions.

The fact is that Americans are "qualified" to give any opinions they want. And you are able to decide whether to listen or not to what they have to say. It's up to you, not them.
 
The fact is that Americans are "qualified" to give any opinions they want.

I think THAT is what distinguishes news reporters from the entertainers who do talk radio. ANYONE can host a talk show. You don't need a college degree or even experience in radio. Dan Bongino was in law enforcement. Now he hosts a popular talk show. As they say: Opinions are like noses. Everybody's got one. Reporters benefit from experience. The link I gave earlier with Steve Inskeep interviewing a government official was an example where the reporter had more knowledge than the official, and could call him out when he heard BS.
 
Once again, there's no equivalence of AM talk radio and NPR. None. There are no NPR hosts who spout their own personal opinion for the entire show, and no shows that include the host's name in the title. NPR is the American version of the BBC or CBC. Not a liberal version of talk radio.
Just listen to NPR for an hour and note how many times they talk about "climate change". Its enough to make you vomit.
 
Just listen to NPR for an hour and note how many times they talk about "climate change". Its enough to make you vomit.

Climate change isn't a liberal or conservative thing. Ronald Reagan pushed for legislation having to do with climate change.

Regardless, NPR has no liberal talk shows in the way AM radio has conservative talk shows. No equivalence.
 
Climate change isn't a liberal or conservative thing. Ronald Reagan pushed for legislation having to do with climate change.

Regardless, NPR has no liberal talk shows in the way AM radio has conservative talk shows. No equivalence.
Yes what you say about Regan is true but I want to say npr is very liberal but that is because that audience is who they want if it was conservative there would be more discussion on trump in a positive light even when I listen to npr it does things like legalizing mushrooms and I am all for people doing what doesn’t hurt and being happy with their free time but that’s a liberal thing even if I think it is ok!
 
Yes what you say about Regan is true but I want to say npr is very liberal but that is because that audience is who they want if it was conservative there would be more discussion on trump in a positive light even when I listen to npr it does things like legalizing mushrooms and I am all for people doing what doesn’t hurt and being happy with their free time but that’s a liberal thing even if I think it is ok!
I realized at least 40 years ago that conservatives are unwilling or unable to recognize the center. I can't say the same about the left.
 
I think THAT is what distinguishes news reporters from the entertainers who do talk radio. ANYONE can host a talk show. You don't need a college degree or even experience in radio. Dan Bongino was in law enforcement. Now he hosts a popular talk show.
Sean Hannity was a construction worker.
 
I would agree that's been the mantra in the past. Recently? I'm not sure what they believe.
Agreed. Right now it seems neither major party is 100% behind the First Amendment, but that is the divisive nature of politics these days.
However, the government isn't paying for the additional shielding and other changes to the vehicle for allowing a mostly unused feature to exist on modern vehicles. Maybe the automakers should send lawmakers the bill.
The consumer always foots the bill, as they do for other stuff that not every auto buyer wants, but accepts as part of the car. It used to be that radio was optional. Stereo systems were optional. Now they are basically baked in. And I'm sure the cost of all that isn't free. It's part of the cost of the car, passed onto the consumer.
But that's all safety-related mandates. Allowing for AM radio, which most people under 55 have largely forgotten, is not an occupant safety feature.
True, but government mandate and regulation is government mandate and regulation. The Federal government mandates a lot of things which costs get passed onto the consumer. Some of it safety related, some of it not. This sort of thing is nothing new.
But I've seen no recent examples where radio, AM, or FM can provide emergency communications, especially after hours or on weekends. If the local authorities have forgotten, or don't activate EAS with relevant information, AM is usually just rolling whatever talk or religious programming.
Point taken. But you could say the same for any other method of providing emergency communications, though. The cell systems didn't seem to keep people from falling victim to fires in California and Hawaii, anymore than AM or FM radio could have. You just try to ensure that the systems to warn are there, and all of them have limitations. And in my view redundancy is better than no redundancy.
I've not heard any talk about a required shutdown of AM stations. Not sure where you're getting that impression.
I was responding to Wadio's suggestion that the AM band be mandatorily vacated. It's upthread, the post I was responding to.
But you aren't privy to what it costs to harden or keep AM radio in modern vehicles. If you had to write the check, I'd bet you would see it differently.
The customer ultimately writes the check. For everything. They write the check for the unneeded, tracking and surveillance software -- which has nothing to do with safety -- inside the car as well, much of it baked in to the car's electronics and non-removable. Those costs get passed on to the consumer, as the costs of all features, mandates, etc.
As I understand that issue, it isn't turning AM on an SDR, but the extra shielding required to keep EV speed controllers and other electronics from making the reception difficult and excessively noisy. Again, you're assuming without all the information.

FM frequencies aren't burdened with the susceptibility of noise that the AM/MW band is.

Considering it's all wrapped up in the same system, that's not necessarily true.
Points taken. I'm not privy to the actual design of the dash soundsystems. I just know they seem to be a computer in the dash with an SDR attached, and bluetooth capability, as well as some apps. Beyond that I'm an amateur observer. That said, the AM retention bill was a result of AM being pulled from Ford gas-only vehicles (Mustang) as well as Ford EV's.

And all it took was a software update to bring the AM back on all of those Ford vehicles. So, at least at this point, the difference is merely how the dash soundsystem's firmware is programmed. In the future, of course an EV's RFI level may be greater, and the situation may be different. If that's the case, the consumer will foot the bill.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BTW, some here stated that the AM bill is partisan, but it's bipartisan, with a co-sponsor being Ed Markey of Massachusetts, at least according to NPR. So it's not just GOP politicians behind it.

 
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Yes what you say about Regan is true but I want to say npr is very liberal but that is because that audience is who they want if it was conservative there would be more discussion on trump in a positive light even when I listen to npr it does things like legalizing mushrooms and I am all for people doing what doesn’t hurt and being happy with their free time but that’s a liberal thing even if I think it is ok!
As BigA said; that's a false equivalency comparison. There are no stories where NPR has advocated the legalization of hallucinogenic mushrooms. The report was on a group proposing legalization, not that the network agreed.
 
Not necessarily. According to a survey conducted in the mid-2010's (reported in the Huffington Post), where they used standardized tests, 46% of college graduates in the US didn't learn anything.
All that a college Diploma means is that you paid your tuition and spent the required number of hours in the classroom. That's it. This college graduate who lives at my apartment complex came home one night. Stopped the car in the middle of the parking lot with the engine running and the headlights on to run into her apartment and then forgot about the car and it sat there all night, engine running lights on Doors unlocked. According
To some people here she's smarter than me because she has a college diploma
 
Yes what you say about Regan is true but I want to say npr is very liberal but that is because that audience is who they want if it was conservative there would be more discussion on trump in a positive light even when I listen to npr it does things like legalizing mushrooms and I am all for people doing what doesn’t hurt and being happy with their free time but that’s a liberal thing even if I think it is ok!

Just because they report on something doesn't mean they're advocating legalization.


There is an assumption because they report on something that they're taking a position on it. If you read their coverage, they don't advocate anything. The people they interview take positions, not NPR. Also, in general, deregulation is not a liberal position.
 
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True. It's amazing how many conservatives are so SCARED of NPR. Never listening to it, they assume it's like talk radio, where wacko and ill-informed hosts take pot-shots at conservatives.
But isn't that the crux of it? It isn't necessarily conservatives. It's that the further one goes in either direction, the more the center looks like the opposite extreme. Most contemporary conservative talk shows are much further right than the average long ago. Just to press the point, NPR would look deep right to people who were acclimated to WSWS. (Not a callsign, but close enough in principle.)

I for one will be relieved when the zombie apocalypse comes and AM radio will be there to tell us to not get bit.
"My fellow Americans. Moments ago, I was informed that our sun has released a quadruple X-class solar flare, and that everything worldwide will soon cease working forever. As a result, if you are anybody but the Amish, you will soon be dead. If you are the Amish, you won't be hearing this alert, and will soon inherit the earth. Goodbye."

But I've seen no recent examples where radio, AM, or FM can provide emergency communications, especially after hours or on weekends. If the local authorities have forgotten, or don't activate EAS with relevant information, AM is usually just rolling whatever talk or religious programming.
No amount of bragging about being there in an emergency is going to change the reality that 99.9 percent of AM stations aren't staffed 24/7 and can't do anything more after hours than relay an EAS activation that will also be heard all over the FM dial and on wireless devices.
Could the solution be augmenting EAS with a live audio feeding capability? Imagine automated stations (and only automated stations) setting their EAS decoders to not only receive and replay the usual short, pre-recorded EAS alerts, but to remain in "interrupt" mode at the ends of those alerts, where, after those alerts' end-of-message tones, the units would switch to an external source of live audio coming from a central switching point like a county OES office? There, a real live human OES official would narrate to the public while patching in audio from various other sources -- governors, mayors, county fire chiefs, tsunami warning center officials, national weather service offices, or even audio from local radio or TV broadcasters that did have live news staffs working on-air covering the disaster?

Of course, these augmented EAS units would need to have physical "cancel" buttons, so if employees of automated stations actually went in to initiate local disaster coverage, they could force their EAS boxes to switch back to internal station audio. But at least this way, when it came to major emergencies like strong hurricanes, megaquakes, Maui style firestorms, largescale terrorist attacks, and the like, where radio (in David's words) was the "last man standing" because of all other sources of information being knocked out, anyone listening to a station running on autopilot would hear more than a pre-recorded 30 second EAS synopsis.

(One might ask: in fully automated markets, why not just have the regular, short, pre-recorded EAS alerts tell people to tune to some other, specific station for more information -- a station that would be the sole one chosen to run these theorized live feeds from the county OES. The answer: maybe that one station gets knocked out by the hurricane or megaquake. Or maybe that one station isn't one of the ones that's audible from listener X's location. In any "radio is the last man standing" scenario, where it's known that listener X can hear at least automated station X, then automated station X should take that live feed after the initial EAS alert -- provided the emergency is serious enough to justify doing long-form cut-ins on all the local area's automated stations in the first place.)

FM may be on the chopping block in a few years, as removing all radio from cars could save the automakers some money. Bluetoothing your phone into the soundsystem is cheaper for car companies than having the FM / AM chip, audio chip, the extra programming needed to include the Radio into the interface, as well as the antenna and extra wiring needed for FM as well as AM.
This is the reason why I said earlier in this thread that the authors of this bill need to revise it to include FM along with AM. FM is admittedly inferior to AM for wide-area coverage, but there are no types of disasters that would topple FM transmission antennas more than AM towers, and because dense population areas are always well within the signal footprints of FM stations, FM would actually be capable of reaching most of the people AM would. In other words, AM is best in strict geographical distance terms, considering it can reach deep into the hinterlands and scoop up every last outlier of the human race bunkered down in off-grid cabins. But FM signals are present in pretty much any micro-hamlet that even has a post office, and therefore cover most of the population, if not most of the land, that AM does. So by making sure this bill includes FM now, it won't be necessary to try getting another bill through for FM later if AM dies sooner than everyone is expecting. Getting another bill through later may not be possible depending on which party has control in the future, and with AM hanging on by its fingernails already, a quicker than expected death for AM could occur if something like a new great depression hit in the coming decade. AM stations could fall like dominoes in a financial climate like that.

And unless it's changed, the bill *still* had a loophole in it that allows automakers to omit AM anyway, so long as they disclose there's no AM capability on the sticker.
That in my mind would seem to make the bill entirely for show. Any automaker who wanted to cut the expenses and headaches of making AM workable in future, ultra-noisy EVs would probably take this backdoor exit.
 
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Many times I heard Rush try to explain something when it sounded like he had no idea what he was talking about.
Maybe it was the drugs talking.
Many businesses won't hire non-college graduates. Or fire people who lied on their applications that they went to college.
Businesses will fire someone who lied on their applications because they lied, indicating that that person wasn't trustworthy to begin with.
And those who flunked out of college sure aren't respected.
Gosh, how many stories over the years have there been about millionaires who flunked out of college, started a business, and made a fortune?

In my time in radio, I ran across a large proportion of people who were very much anti-higher-education. "Anti-intellectual" isn't the right word for those attitudes, but it's the best one I can think of right now. You miss out on other perspectives when you give in to those prejudices. So there are bad attitudes on both sides of that particular spectrum.
 
But FM signals are present in pretty much any micro-hamlet that even has a post office, and therefore cover most of the population, if not most of the land, that AM does.
If I remember correctly, there have been one or more posts here saying there are parts of the western United States where this is not true, but the strong AMs can be heard.
 
  1. In an emergency, will it occur to most people to tune into AM radio?
Counterpoint to the public-service emergency argument:

When the Netherlands started authorizing province-specific radio stations, a major justification was the ability of those stations to be used to convey emergency information. Omroep Brabant (Eindhoven and vicinity) was the first, at 87.6 MHz. (Technically, the province is Noord-Brabant, but that's an historical artifact.)

Residents of the province are given (or sent) cards telling them where to tune for emergency information.

All these stations are on FM.

The point of this example is that the European countries with centralized, government-sponsored medium-wave facilities clearly would have taken multiple considerations into account, including the dissemination of emergency information, and still decided it was time to pull the plug on those facilities. In the United States, the mythical "marketplace" has that role, which results in more fragmented, slower decision-making, but the result ultimately comes out the same.
 


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