AM Radio Discussion

[Chuck Tiller]

With the recent posts concerning the sale of some AM radio stations in Houston, here is an interesting article from Radio Ink:

http://www.radioink.com/Article.asp?id=2385088&spid=30800

[Mediafrog+]

The article doesn't cover anything new.

The harsh reality that AM is a dying medium, mainly the domain of older listeners, who often stick with the technology out of habit or stubborness. 

Could AM radio be saved?  Probably.  Will it be?  Probably not.

For a future viable AM band, you would need to bulldoze everything and start over with frequency allocations, powers, locations, and antenna patterns, much as was done with the 1941 NARBA treaty.  The band is drowning in co-channel interference.  And many, if not most signals aren't powerful enough to cover the desired audience.

Part of any overhaul would involve the expansion of the FM band down to 76 MHz, and the migration of a large number of current AM stations to the expanded FM band.  Mexico is going through something much like this, with AM licenses being swapped for FM.  Canada and Australia are seeing the same trends.  AM in Europe is virtually irrelevant and almost nonexistent in many places.

Remaining AM stations would need to increase power, implement directional signals that recognize the reality of urban growth, and be allocated a much more rational frequency arrangement, greatly reducing or eliminating the co-channel battle.  The would also need to be a final and firm resolution of modulation technique--finally standardize analog AM stereo, or accept that either the Ibiquity or DRM formats (or other digital technology) is what will be used.

But I don't see any of this happening.  AM station owners seem to be content with the current state of things, and will flog the technology until there are absolutely no listeners left...then AM will die of irrelevance.  Shortwave is going through just that right now.

I'm afraid those listeners who want to "keep it as it is" are being driven by nostalgia, rather than any solid rationale for making AM radio a viable and relevant medium for the future.  Again, same thing happening with shortwave.  Once the old geezers die off, the audience will be gone.

Add to all of this, it's probably too late anyway.  Other technologies have moved forward and left AM in the dust. 

I grew up with AM radio in the 1960's, and yes, there was a certain romance about it, especially DXing at night.  But time and technology march on.  Broadcasters need to concentrate on the future, not the past.

[rbrucecarter5]

For a future viable AM band, you would need to bulldoze everything and start over with frequency allocations, powers, locations, and antenna patterns, much as was done with the 1941 NARBA treaty.  The band is drowning in co-channel interference.  And many, if not most signals aren't powerful enough to cover the desired audience.

This is the fault of an incompetent FCC.  The FRC was originally established to PREVENT interfering stations on the AM band.  They have totally failed, and should be abolished in their present form.  If the AM band dies, it is a direct result of the lack of government regulation of interference.

[bturner]

I must agree.  The FM dial needs to be expanded down to 76 mhz and allow, perhaps daytimers and other AMs to migrate there on a plan much like AMs were allowed to do when the AM expanded band came about.  At the end of 5 years you choose which one you want: AM or your FM frequency. 

[Scott Fybush]

For a future viable AM band, you would need to bulldoze everything and start over with frequency allocations, powers, locations, and antenna patterns, much as was done with the 1941 NARBA treaty.  The band is drowning in co-channel interference.  And many, if not most signals aren't powerful enough to cover the desired audience.

NARBA didn't really bulldoze much of anything at all. In the US, its immediate effect was felt mainly in the form of slight frequency changes to otherwise-unchanged facilities - KPRC from 920 to 950, KTRH from 1290 to 1320, KXYZ from 1440 to 1470. It was rule changes in the years that followed that really began crowding the dial...for instance, the opening of some Canadian and Mexican clear channels created by NARBA (like 740) to secondary US facilities like KTRH.

If you really want to find the wholesale bulldozing and starting over, you need to go all the way back to 1928...

[DavidEduardo]

This is the fault of an incompetent FCC.  The FRC was originally established to PREVENT interfering stations on the AM band.  They have totally failed, and should be abolished in their present form.  If the AM band dies, it is a direct result of the lack of government regulation of interference.

The FCC, when the backbone of allocations and licenses was established in the 30's, had no way of knowing:

- That signals that covered-and-then-some cities of the 30's would be woefully inadequate with the post-W.W. II suburban sprawl.

- That nose producing devices like fluorescents, CFLs, dimmers, computers and such would invade the home and the workplace, making the usable signal levels required to listen to AM go from below 5 mV/m to 10 to 15 mV/m.

- That AM would decline in attractiveness due to fidelity issues, and this would be compounded by radio manufactures who took the opportunity of AM's decline in the 80's to reduce the cost and quality of AM sections of radios.

- That radios would not be sold as separate devices, and multifunction devices would often not include AM.

[Tom Wells]

This is the fault of an incompetent FCC.  The FRC was originally established to PREVENT interfering stations on the AM band.  They have totally failed, and should be abolished in their present form.  If the AM band dies, it is a direct result of the lack of government regulation of interference.

The FCC, when the backbone of allocations and licenses was established in the 30's, had no way of knowing:

- That nose producing devices like fluorescents, CFLs, dimmers, computers and such would invade the home and the workplace, making the usable signal levels required to listen to AM go from below 5 mV/m to 10 to 15 mV/m.

There was no invasion, there was dereliction in duty.

The FCC had no way of knowing they weren't going to do their job?

Well, isn't that just a pity?

Maybe someone could send a postcard to the past and let them know when they are going to drop the ball.

Hey, let's see if we can destroy FM, too!  I have an old damped oscillation thingy over here somewhere.

What is the difference between a switching power supply and a spark-gap wireless transmitter of 1909?

Nothing, both send  wideband garbage out on wires of non-specific length, and hope for the best.

Intention doesn't really matter.  The important thing is to make as much noise as possible.

As Dennis the Menace told his friend once,
"The first thing you hafta know about driving a car is, Always lock the doors before you start blowin' the horn".

[chrish]

mediafrog+ faster than you realize you are going to be a geezer too!

[jondavidvox]

Greetings....

Hope you don't mind a Northern usurper involving himself in your conversation, but I'd like to take part in this very good conversation....(Thanks Chuck!)

I agree that the AM Band needs a reconstruction.  That process needs to start with the FCC itself.  In filling future positions on the Commission; Politicians should be equally leavened with On-Air Broadcasters.  Further, Radio should be more under the umbrella of the 1st Amendment guaranteeing a Free Press, as opposed to being relegated into yet another capricious, arbitrarily-used political tool.

Next, there should be either a new North American treaty on frequency allocation and power, or far more serious enforcement of existing agreements.  International AM stations operate well over power, and break the Western Hemisphere Treaties at will.  This has the effect of gumming up the clarity of all stations on the entire continent.

Moreover, there needs to be an FCC re-evaluation of how the band services the community...An AM radio licensee may currently hold a license that fits perfectly inside the now painfully obsolete FCC plan, but no longer completely covers the community it was intended to serve with a quality, city-grade signal.  The effort should be focused on a good-faith, logical, and most importantly functional band.  For example:

Clear Channel (IA) Stations should have a reasonable expectation of full coverage throughout their ADI during the day, and by using a directional array affording full coverage of the CONUS at night.

Clear Channel (IB) Stations should have a reasonable expectation of full coverage throughout their ADI during the day, and by using a directional array affording coverage of a substantial portion (Split the CONUS into equal thirds) of the CONUS at night.

Class B Regional Stations should be licensed on a case-by-case basis providing 24-hour AM band coverage to fill the Class IA, and IB coverage gaps; with operating power adjusted to allow city-grade signal quality for the cities and towns within those regions.

Class C Regional Stations should be licensed on a case-by-case basis to provide 24-hour AM band coverage to fill all remaining coverage gaps; with operating power adjusted to allow city-grade signal quality for the cities and towns within those remaining areas.

Class D Regional Stations would be relicensed to FM with lower power, but adequate antenna height to provide city-grade signals for the cities located within the original license.

The objective of all of this being to provide licenses offering only robust 24/7-365 AM Band coverage featuring clean, powerful signals for the public.

Once that "clean-up" occurs, the FCC should mandate that manufacturers again produce real receivers for the Band, as and has already been brought up, Industry-Standard Digital AM Stereo should be agreed on and implemented post-haste.

Finally, the elephant in the room is this:  Any push to solve AM Band difficulties would first require overly-large Radio Corporations, currently drowning in debt service, to either stop stalling any improvement in AM Band technology for capital expenditure reasons, or divest themselves of those AM licenses they cannot afford.    Seems logical, doesn't it? 

But because they fear the additional competition a vibrant and functional AM Band would provide, (Think 610 KFRC) and because the politics-first FCC doesn't force them to....

There's no joy in AM-Ville tonight.

What do you think?

J-D 
 
Jon-David Wells
The Wells Report
NewsTalk 660 KSKY
Dallas/Ft. Worth

     

[rbrucecarter5]

Jon-David Wells
The Wells Report
NewsTalk 660 KSKY
Dallas/Ft. Worth
     

KSKY has a great signal in Houston!  Almost as strong as your signal over Lubbock.  Almost static free.

Your plan for the AM band seems to be a good balance of needed changes, while acknowledging the realities of the band today.

I would take it a bit further, though, and propose a massive frequency swap.  Nobody really cared when Sirius XM scrambled their channels.  Nobody cared when TV stations migrated to different channels - although admittedly that was transparent.  I think it would be no more than a few days of confusion as people adjusted to the new stations.  Listenership would probably improve once the stations were stronger, and less prone to interference.  Although the frequency swap nationwide would be massive, individual listeners would probably only have to remember a handful of new frequencies at most, which could be heavily promoted before the swap.

Any re-allocation would have to be intelligently based on propagation properties of the station, realistic range projections based on actual people served.  The entirety of North America would have to be involved - no more keeping Castro out of the picture.  We promise to null in his direction and let him have a couple of clears, he nulls everything else in our direction, he'd probably be happy.  Some 12000 stations moving around to better utilize what the band does right now.  Here is a stab at it:

540 - 990:  50 kW clears, no more than 3 on the continent, spaced at least 1500 miles apart.  Fill in with daytime only's, but not closer than 300 miles from a clear.  No chance of daytimers ever operating at night. 

1000 - 1300:  5 kW regionals, spaced at least 750 miles apart at night, some fill in during the day for daytimers only, no hope of nighttime hours.

1300 - 1600:  5 kW locals - no protection outside of the cities of license - unlimited hours, the vast majority of stations would be assigned here.  This is where IBOC could be quarantined along with eventual digital only. 

1600 - 1700: 250W community service  - a new low power AM band.  Unlimited hours, no protection outside of a 10 mile radius.

Of course the boundaries could be adjusted on each type of service, a sliding scale of power could be used.  The goal would be to eliminate the cacophony of interference on most of the band at night, allowing people to hear good, strong local signals during the day, and have the opportunity to hear nearby cities at night if they wished.  The existing cacophony of interference would be limited to a much smaller portion of the band, IBOC would be allowed to operated there unfettered, anybody outside of those service areas wouldn't have any expectation of reception anyway, but they could count on finding local signals very quickly as they traveled, etc.  I think a lot more stations could be squeezed into the band, too, with the expectation that most would be relegated to local status anyway - with the bonus that they could blast power at night to overcome interference and run digital for local audiences.