# Can Anyone Save AM Radio?



## LincTex

http://www.startribune.com/business/223205681.html
Is anyone out there still listening?
The digital age is killing AM radio, an American institution that brought the nation fireside chats, Casey Kasem's Top 40 and scratchy broadcasts of the World Series. Long surpassed by FM and more recently cast aside by satellite radio and Pandora, AM is now under siege from a new threat: rising interference from smartphones and consumer electronics that reduce many AM stations to little more than static. Its audience has sunk to historic lows. But at least one man in Washington is tuning in.
Ajit Pai, the lone Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, is on a personal if quixotic quest to save AM. After a little more than a year in the job, he is urging the FCC to undertake an overhaul of AM radio, which he calls "the audible core of our national culture." He sees AM - largely local news, sports, conservative talk and religious broadcasters - as vital in emergencies and in rural areas.

http://www.radioink.com/Article.asp?id=2697606&spid=24698
The Quest to Save AM Radio
As late as 1978, half of all radio listeners tuned in to the AM dial. But by 2011, AM listeners had fallen to just 15 percent of total listeners, an average of 3.1 million people. These days, consumer electronic devices often interfere with AM signals, causing static and other interruptions. Some say we should let the AM frequency die, but Ajit Pai, the lone Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, is on a mission to save the AM signal.

http://www.radioink.com/Article.asp?id=2697606&spid=24698
As technology improves on a daily basis and consumers find ways to listen to their favorite audio on any number of crystal clear sounding devices, the AM dial continues to fade into the sunset. 
Should anybody really care? Despite a lot of chatter, not much has been done to get FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai's proposal to revitalize AM radio in front of his colleagues at the agency. Pai has been on a sort of P.R. campaign to fix the increasingly static sound of AM, most recently in The New York Times. "AM radio is localism, it is community," he said in the paper. "When the power goes out, when you can't get a good cell signal, when the Internet goes down, people turn to battery-powered AM radios to get the information they need." So far, his calls for help seems to have fallen on deaf ears as AM broadcasters and their engineers scramble to purchase FM translators and strategically place them in the local community...


----------



## TheLazyL

Why save it?

Just like the worker who shoveled coal into the train engine, technology has made them obsolete.


----------



## LincTex

TheLazyL said:


> Why save it?


It has a much farther reaching signal than FM. I can't be certain, but it seems that the batteries placed in simple AM radios will last longer than the ones in FM radios. It's ten times easier to build a simple AM receiver than an FM one - - Probably the same for the transmitter.

Technology is making it less used, but in remote parts of the country AM is still needed because the FM signals don't make it out to the nether regions.


----------



## SlobberToofTigger

TheLazyL said:


> Why save it?


I agree. The public has voted and AM serves no real purpose anymore due to there being alternatives. If it is ever needed again we can bring it back.


----------



## recoilless_57mm

JMO but, letting AM radio go by the way side is the same as letting cursive go the way of the dinosaur. The digital age does not rule completely. We are experiencing a knowledge deficit in the trades as we speak. The digital world is a tool like any other. Learn it, apply it and move forward. I don't think we should forget our basics. We always seem to quick to trash the old. JMO


----------



## SlobberToofTigger

AM radio is not a skill it is technology we produced when there was a market. AM and cursive are not comparable... Many technologies we have produced have been superseded and many more are on the path. the advantage of getting rid of AM radio is that the bandwidth can eventually be re purposed to give new technologies a chance.


----------



## recoilless_57mm

SlobberToofTigger said:


> AM radio is not a skill it is technology we produced when there was a market. AM and cursive are not comparable... Many technologies we have produced have been superseded and many more are on the path. the advantage of getting rid of AM radio is that the bandwidth can eventually be re purposed to give new technologies a chance.


Your point is well taken. However, loose the skill to produce or make this technology available and you have suppressed both. As I have said it is just my opinion. You have yours, I have mine. What would you like to do without next?


----------



## SlobberToofTigger

recoilless_57mm said:


> What would you like to do without next?


How about fat girls in short shorts and dudes in banana hammocks?


----------



## TheLazyL

recoilless_57mm said:


> .. What would you like to do without next?


Incandescent light bulbs.

Black & White TVs.

A low efficiency furnace.

Manuel typewriters.

Trying to type with thumbs on a 3" iPhone screen while looking thru trifocals.

Brassieres.


----------



## recoilless_57mm

TheLazyL said:


> Incandescent light bulbs.
> 
> Black & White TVs.
> 
> A low efficiency furnace.
> 
> Manuel typewriters.
> 
> Trying to type with thumbs on a 3" iPhone screen while looking thru trifocals.
> 
> Brassieres.


I'll hoist a beer to that! cheers


----------



## SlobberToofTigger

TheLazyL said:


> Brassieres.


But only in the interest of health and safety... Big grin.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/11/women-bras-study-france-false-necessity_n_3062114.html


----------



## NaeKid

If they got rid of AM-radio, I will have no sound coming through my single-speaker in my Jeep ....


----------



## recoilless_57mm

SlobberToofTigger said:


> How about fat girls in short shorts and dudes in banana hammocks?


I'd go a bit easy on the ladies. The ladies don't need my defense but, the ladies don't need the putdown either. Once again just my opinion.


----------



## cowboyhermit

The difference I see between AM radio and all the things mentioned above is that AM has a huge installed "user base". Bringing it back would cost billions when you factor in not just the stations and repeaters but the millions of receivers across the continent. It is also different because radio is a highly regulated industry so it is not simply a matter of market forces as mentioned.
In a country with 30some million people the cbc am station gets over 4 million listeners every week so it's market share is not so insignificant up here. The range is much better, not due to the fact that is AM but due to the lower frequencies, we can pick up American AM stations from the middle of Alberta/Saskatchewan but just barely pick up FM stations from 100miles away.

The biggest problem for AM is that a FM transmitter can be built small and incredibly cheap.

I don't think the government should spend money to "save" AM, instead open the market and encourage/allow people to start whatever station they want without huge amounts of red tape and fees. On a more realistic note the death of radio has been predicted almost since it was first invented, and it's still here.


----------



## recoilless_57mm

cowboyhermit said:


> The difference I see between AM radio and all the things mentioned above is that AM has a huge installed "user base". Bringing it back would cost billions when you factor in not just the stations and repeaters but the millions of receivers across the continent. It is also different because radio is a highly regulated industry so it is not simply a matter of market forces as mentioned.
> In a country with 30some million people the cbc am station gets over 4 million listeners every week so it's market share is not so insignificant up here. The range is much better, not due to the fact that is AM but due to the lower frequencies, we can pick up American AM stations from the middle of Alberta/Saskatchewan but just barely pick up FM stations from 100miles away.
> 
> The biggest problem for AM is that a FM transmitter can be built small and incredibly cheap.
> 
> I don't think the government should spend money to "save" AM, instead open the market and encourage/allow people to start whatever station they want without huge amounts of red tape and fees. On a more realistic note the death of radio has been predicted almost since it was first invented, and it's still here.


I like this idea. Lets see where AM can go in a free market. Excellent idea.


----------



## BillS

AM radio will survive in the talk format. Stations with sports talk, political talk, and religious talk will survive. Here in NE Wisconsin we have a fraction of the stations we would have in the region where the Madison and Milwaukee stations overlap. But on AM we still have two religious broadcast stations, a political talk station, and two sports talk stations. We actually went from one sports talk to two in the last five years. And of course we still have at least one AM country station, which I find funny.


----------



## Magus

I like A.M


----------



## NaeKid

AM-radio (even over the internet) is what I listen to ... better programming.

This is my local-station: http://www.660news.com/

At the top of the link is a "ListenLive" button - if you click on it, you will hear what I hear all day!


----------



## GaryS

I only listen to AM and Sirius, and I have no problems with opening up the frequencies as cowboyhermit suggests.

FWIW, I tune in far more hours of AM than TV.


----------



## GrinnanBarrett

AM radio has depended on an older and older audience for years now. The audience today for AM radio is the all news and traffic programs listener. It tends to be a much older listener and that means that advertisers have little or no interest in them as a target audience. The twenty somethings up to the late forties audience is what advertisers care about. AM radio is going to attract advertisers like AARP insurance, Medical miracle cures, and stuff you see on the QVC. I am and old man so don't flame me on this one. AM is dying like Free TV non digital broadcasting. 

For the last few years AM has also been home to much of the talk radio in this country but that looks like it is coming to a close. I will be sorry to see it die. I can remember when AM radio was the voice of baseball (Before TV). GB


----------



## LincTex

I would suppose most modern farm equipment also uses XM radio or Sirius....

But for _years_, the whole state of North Dakota listened in on KFYR 550 (in Bismarck, smack dab in the middle) and Al Gustin's Ag Reports every hour, where commodity prices bent the ears of farmer's on their fender mounted radios and any pending weather updates listened to anxiously in combine cabs.

At Night, after 8PM (my bedtime) the "good" rock music would come on, and I would hide my AM radio under my pillow and have it *just* loud enough to listen to Dance The Night Away, Double Vision, I Was Made For Lovin' You, Miss You, Hold The Line, Do Ya Think I'm Sexy, We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions, and Carry On Wayward Son.

Maybe we are more connected than ever, and digital is growing by leaps, but there's gotta be folks out in the middle of nowhere that actually still NEED AM signals because nothing else reaches them.


----------



## BillS

1360 Sheboygan still has a noon farm report.


----------



## Tweto

Until reading this thread I had not realized how important AM radio was to me. I never listen to music so the FM band is unused. To those of you that have a CCRadio you know it is one of the best radios for AM. I have had 4 or 5 of them over the years and now I'm down to one. I keep it next to my bed and at night I have head phones that I wear all night. If I can listen to AM at night I sleep great, if I take them off I have trouble sleeping. When I'm in the shop I always have the AM radio on.

After retiring, I drove a 18 wheeler OTR for awhile. It's amazing how little AM I could get in some areas of the country, so I got Sirius XM radio. Most of their programming was pretty lame but it was something to listen to.

On the subject of the OP, I don't think that AM radio is going anywhere, but when Satellite radio can get their act together and provide local radio (like Dish does for HDTV) then I will upgrade.


----------



## Justaguy987

Coast to coast am. I wish Art Bell was still on. I have not listened to it much since he left.


----------



## k0xxx

I grew up in the Louisiana delta country listening to KAAY out of Little Rock, Arkansas at night. I can still remember listening to the Dr. Demento show and the first time that I heard Charlie Daniels' Uneasy Rider. :?) Later, when traveling across the country, I listened to the Charlie Douglas Road Gang on WWL in New Orleans. I still listen to AM radio talk shows during the day, when I have the time. 

Because the greater amount of successful programming on AM is conservative, Democratic administrations in the US have been increasingly imposing regulations in an effort to take stations and programs off the air. The attempts during the Clinton years, and later during the early Obama administration, at reimposing the "Fairness Doctrine" on broadcasters is but one example. AM radio will eventually die a slow death due to aging demographics and technology, but it isn't fast enough for some of those on the left.


----------



## RevWC

Rush Limbaugh saved AM over 20 years ago. I like it for the power when the sun goes down and your driving across country..Wolfman Jack!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## LincTex

I *clearly* remember Wolfman Jack!!!


----------



## Tweto

Justaguy987 said:


> Coast to coast am. I wish Art Bell was still on. I have not listened to it much since he left.


Art just made a deal with Sirius radio, he will be back on the air. However, it will be satellite radio. Heard this just this week!artydance:

I'm a huge Art Bell fan, no so much the current Coast to Coast announcers.


----------



## kappydell

crystal radios require NO batteries and pick up AM stations. What survivalist could ask for more? AM stations are traditionally the ones used by the FCC for the 'emergency broadcasting system' as it is more reliable and farther-reaching than FM. 

And yes, I like my manual typewriter, and hectograph (home-made mimeograph)! I will be writing the local newspaper by candlelight, after tuning in the national news on my crystal radio! Long live low-tech!


----------



## VoorTrekker

Justaguy987 said:


> Coast to coast am. I wish Art Bell was still on. I have not listened to it much since he left.


XM radio channel 104 Indie at 19:00 hours Pacific time.


----------



## tugboats

We all are concerned about post SHTF. AM is easier to broadcast, brodcasts over a greater area and is very low tech. It will work.

For boaters, pilots and LD navigators what will they navigate by other than a compass? Years and years ago we would navigate by RDF especially on cloudy nights. AM and RDF were made for each other. Prior to SatNav and even before Loran on long cruises we could triangulate our position by Radio Direction Finder. Grab 3 stations (indicated on marine charts) plot your bearing and by magic or vodoo you knew where you were.

Post SHTF AM broadcasts will be extremely important, not only for content, but for location determination. I still have an old battery powered RDF on our boat. We often will use it as a training aid on cloudy nights. It is truly amazing how many boaters rely solely on GPS to navigate. No sextant, no RDF and no spare compass. 

With Glenn, Rush, Shaun and Mark on AM I never programmed my FM buttons on my truck.

Tugs


----------



## stanb999

Am radio is great once you remove the constant buzz and errant noises AM always has. It's good in a car if it isn't running.

The tech is changed... For the better. Now I can listen to the local talk radio program on the radio(fm) or online crystal clear.


----------



## cowboyhermit

kappydell said:


> crystal radios require NO batteries and pick up AM stations. What survivalist could ask for more? AM stations are traditionally the ones used by the FCC for the 'emergency broadcasting system' as it is more reliable and farther-reaching than FM.
> 
> And yes, I like my manual typewriter, and hectograph (home-made mimeograph)! I will be writing the local newspaper by candlelight, after tuning in the national news on my crystal radio! Long live low-tech!


Crystal radios are awesome:cheers:


----------



## LincTex

kappydell said:


> crystal radios require NO batteries and pick up AM stations. What survivalist could ask for more?


Though you do need a really good antenna with lots of gain, and a really good ground. All the same, this feat cannot be duplicated on FM.


----------



## Fn/Form

Commercial AM radio is the spare tire for mass communication. It's the one method where everyone has a radio or knows someone close by that does. AM can be 1000x more effective with a single power source than a single, local-only FM station.

Sirius and others still rely on relatively few terrestrial uplink stations. Easily targeted....

I hope wisdom prevails and AM is preserved. That, or if SHTF, ham radios are going to be rare and valuable. I guarantee some will be transmitting on AM bands.


----------



## LincTex

Fn/Form said:


> That, or if SHTF, ham radios are going to be rare and valuable. I guarantee some will be transmitting on AM bands.


I tend to agree....


----------



## LincTex

Not much power.... good for practicing and learning though

AllAmericanFiveRadio AM Transmitter


----------



## Tweto

I agree with other posters that AM will be the emergency radio communications if everything goes to crap. Most if not all AM stations have generators and their signals can travel all over the country at night.

I was in New Mexico driving down the interstate at 2 in the morning and couldn't pick up any radio stations except for one. I started listening and thought, man this station sounds like KFAB in Omaha. When I heard the call sign and it said KFAB, I was surprised to be getting a perfectly understandable signal from 1000 miles away. It faded out after about 15 mins. In an emergency that maybe all that it takes to get vital information.

KFAB is a 50,000 watt AM station (1110).


----------



## GaryS

When I was a teen in North Dakota...far too many years ago...our favorite AM stations while cruising the loop or parked with a girlfriend, were KOMA in Oklahoma City and another (don't recall the call sign), in Del Rio, TX. Their transmitter was in Mexico and had enough power to blow out speakers where we lived not far from the Canadian border! That must be close to 2,000 miles.


----------



## LincTex

GaryS said:


> .... and another (don't recall the call sign), in Del Rio, TX. Their transmitter was in Mexico and had enough power to blow out speakers where we lived not far from the Canadian border!


XERF!!

You probably remember the Wolfman, too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XERF-AM 250,000 watts

In 1965, Wolfman Jack moved to XERB (1090 AM)
http://uncasnetworks.com/xerb/pages/xerb.shtml


----------



## GaryS

The Wolfman wasn't there yet when I was a teen, but after I got back from Germany in '63 I sometimes listened to him. By then, the world was changing and working 10-12 hours a day, six days a week, meant I usually crashed by 10, just about the time the best music was on AM. 

My most memorable AM days were when I was stationed in Denver in 1959. Young...seeing the world for the first time...wonderful music...a beautiful girl friend...great days...great times that I'll never forget! One of my favorite DJs at top-40 KIMN was Johnny Williams, who then went by the name of "Dapper Dan the all night man". When I was writing my novel, I learned that he had retired to Hawaii and I was fortunate to be able to contact him by email. I wanted to verify the accuracy of an on-air scene I had written in the book. He was kind and pleasant, and really helped me recall the time when AM radio was at its peak.


----------

