Can The AM Band Be Saved?

[kenglish]

who nit-pick-to-death every suggestion that is made by people who still believe in our broadcast industry.

Wow...who woke up on the wrong side of the bed today?

OK, fine.  Let's petition the FCC to fix the AM band.

Wasn't me that woke up on the wrong side of the bed   .

I think the original topic was to the effect that the NAB was looking for answers. Sounds like they want some viable suggestions, and then they can "petition the FCC" to make whatever changes to the law that are needed to accommodate these changes legally.

It's still up to us as broadcasters to fix things at our end, and if it takes helping the listeners we still have get better reception (like, telling them how to make their TV quit buzzing in their radios), why not give it a page on the website, a link to some antenna products, or a phone number where they can report power-line noise issues?

There are still lots of people who depend on AM, or who just prefer it (for whatever reasons). We don't have to brush them aside, either.

[kenglish]

........Add to that the fact that in most markets there may be only one or two AMs with good enough coverage to serve the whole market... none in some markets, in fact... and that AM is noisy and receivers are pretty crappy on the AM side... and that discontent you speak of is purely on the listener side.

Good points. I know of at least one local station here in town that regularly airs spots (PAID spots  , no less) from C. Crane and others, advertising good-sounding AM radios. I saw a YouTube video recently, from a guy who found a couple of NOS (New, Old stock..still in the box) denon NAB Super Tuners. People were amazed at how good they sounded on AM stations.
I was amazed, myself, at how good a McKay-Dymek AM-5 sounded on many local stations...both music and sports/talk. How hard is it to steer a listener to a good product, if they want to listen to AM?

Anybody know what it would take to fully implement the NRSC standards in a station, or what it would take to add it to an existing receiver? Or, has the standard been superseded?

[Tom Wells]

In Indiana corn country, if a homeowner decides to grow their own sweet corn, they may recieve a visit from a representative of a huge corporation with various strong suggestions that they have no right to mind their own business OR grow their own corn.

Huh?

Since when does this happen?  If I go down to my local garden shop and buy a package of sweet corn kernels (or other vegetable seeds, for that matter) and plant them, don't I automatically get "permission" from the "owner" of that particular hybrid to grow, harvest, and eat the results of my labor?  We grew corn in our backyard in Indiana for several years.  The Corn Police never showed up at our front door once (granted, that was 40+ years ago, but still...).

I've only heard of this second hand in Indiana, but a close friend DID have this happen in Illinois. I'll have to ask him about what year this was.
The large hybrid seed producers do NOT want cross-pollinization of corn to occur.  It may depend on just how close you are to their
show plots, where detassling is a way of life and a livelihood in the months of June/July.
They don't trust homeowners/hobby farmers to detassle.

[DavidEduardo]

Anybody know what it would take to fully implement the NRSC standards in a station, or what it would take to add it to an existing receiver? Or, has the standard been superseded?

NRSC in essence puts a brick-wall filter at 10 kHz to prevent heterodyning in a closely packed band. It is the standard.

[Tom Wells]

Anybody know what it would take to fully implement the NRSC standards in a station, or what it would take to add it to an existing receiver? Or, has the standard been superseded?

NRSC in essence puts a brick-wall filter at 10 kHz to prevent heterodyning in a closely packed band. It is the standard.

Makes no difference at all unless the user's receiver is also  20-30 db down 8 khz from center response.
It is partial pickup of the CARRIER on the adjacent that gives the 10 khz whine. 
Modulation products beyond 10 khz are liable to create the "upside-down" frequency response monkey chatter.
ONLY a constant (or relatively) signal 10 khz adjacent creates the 10 khz het.

Brickwall filters usually create nasty byproducts, which is why so much work went into proper IF transformer design.
It's also why I prefer 262.5 khz IFs.  The response is still kind to audio, while  giving sharper cutoff skirts than 455s.

Ceramic filters are "pretend" filters as much as a "Close-n-Play" was a pretend phonograph.

Chopping the audio at the station is foolishness.

[radiophiler]

I'm curious about how Mexico and/or Canada is handling the shift of AMs to FM.

It seems as though in the U.S., our FM spectrum is already too crowded on the coasts and around other major metropolitan areas to accomplish this.

Can David E or someone else shed more light, if nothing else, provide a link about this? Thanks.

[blackgold]

I've noticed listening to WBZ and WINS in Boston and New York, respectively, that they also list their FM HD3 frequencies.  Like back in 2007, WBZ started airing their HD signal on WODS-FM HD3 before putting it on WBZ-FM HD3.  And WINS mentioned their HD signal on WFNS-FM HD3 in the Big Apple.  So, in a small way, the migration from AM to FM(albeit on HD radio) has already begun.

[kenglish]

Isn't there also some form of pre-emphasis curve included in the NRSC specs?

Kinda wondering, too...It seems like every HD Radio I've opened up is an almost identical Software-Defined Radio (SDR) module, it looks like. Can the NRSC-related functions be easily done with software? If the HD Radios are using them (SDR), they must be getting more widespread.

Could they also be designed to do noise-blanking, some sort of auto-notch "whistle filter", or even Synchronous-AM (even selective sidebands), automatically?

Not every $20 radio will do all this stuff, of course, but offering some better-quality receivers at a moderately higher price, to the folks who want better quality, might help.

[kenglish]

Another thought...
Why do the FCC OTARD rules specifically exclude outdoor antennas for "broadcast" services, while specifically calling out the other, competing services? An FM radio will certainly sound far better with an outdoor antenna than with the ribbon-lead one hanging behind the stereo cabinet. And, AM (though it might be best with a big loop or longwire) can always benefit from something outside, even if it's fairly small.

There's a point that COULD be handled at the FCC level.

[DavidEduardo]

Why do the FCC OTARD rules specifically exclude outdoor antennas for "broadcast" services, while specifically calling out the other, competing services? An FM radio will certainly sound far better with an outdoor antenna than with the ribbon-lead one hanging behind the stereo cabinet. And, AM (though it might be best with a big loop or longwire) can always benefit from something outside, even if it's fairly small.

There's a point that COULD be handled at the FCC level.

Generally, the ferrite rod antenna inside a conventional radio with an AM section is much better than any piece of wire short of something in the 50 foot long, 20 foot high type longwire with shielded leads and a good ground.

For decades, DX enthusiasts have preferred somewhat larger size (10" to 12") ferrite rods that can be turned for directionality; the point being that those little ferrite rods wrapped in wire and tuned with a little coil are really good AM antennas.

They fit in even the little transistor radios of the 60's and 70's... but they won't fit in phones and mp3 players. But users of portable devices are not going to want to plug a long piece of wire into their nanos.