Does anyone care? That is the real cause of this(my opinion)
This is the truth. I got my first start in radio at a commercial AM station. I remember as a kid listening to that station it could be heard clear as could be from it's 5KW transmitter site. When I went to work there when I started in radio the signal was degraded by 40-50% where I used to listen as a kid from noise and failure to properly maintain the transmitter site. New owner bought the station when I worked there and did work on the transmitter site. Improved it but still the noise unrelated to the transmitter site still degraded the signal. But not as much as it was with poorly maintained site.
Does anyone care? That is the real cause of this(my opinion)
I've seen that article before, the two things that jumped out at me most was:
"..There are rules relating to incidental radiation. In the present day, if you ask the typical FCC employee about this, they don’t even know what the hell it is..."
That's probably true, it's likely not the kind of thing most FCC employees have any knowledge about. Anyone here probaly knows more about subject than the average FCC employee will ever know.
One thing that's clear is the FCC has always maintained seeking out interference and remedying it is not part of their job.. they've been saying that for 80 years. Ever since the beginning the FCC has stressed that that responsibility falls on the users and manufactures. Yes there have been exceptions, but that has been the general policy all along.
The other thing that stuck out to me:
...The FCC took more listeners from AM by giving AM stations low-powered FM’s... ..You know what that does — it sends listeners to FM and further decimates the AM band..."
I agree, you cant fix the AM band by giving those broadcasters a simulcast FM broadcast - because now those FM translators has become those stations primary concern since FM gets the primary listening audience, they could care less about their AM signal now, they would prefer to shut their AM down entirely it they could (as is also pointed out in the article.
HOWEVER, as I've mentioned before, those FM translators also resulted as an unexpected advantage to part 15 AM broadcasters because ever since the FM translator rules went into effect all AM NOUOs has compleatly ceased! (ts is significant when you consider there were a consistent average of 5-7 NOUOs issued per year, every year since about 1999, but there hasn't been a single NOUO that I know of cited in the last 6 years or so. That's because complaints about our little p15AM stations have ceased because not even the licenced AM stations owners care about their AM, signal anymore, their FM translators is all that matters, so they dont even notice when an unlicensed station springs up on AM anymore, so they don't complain to the FCC.. extend your ground leads people, no one cares anymore!