Is providing information about how to aquire sand bags in eastern Pasco County. Our tiny FM foot print covers the towns of San Antonio, Saint Leo, Dade City and parts of Zephyrhills. It's funny how I see posters here and over on other sites who claim that 5 watts will give you 20 miles coverage. Our station runs 85 watts with the antenna mounted 85 feet high on a hill thats 140 feet above sea level. 🙂
https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WLSL-FL
Looks like WLSL has some reach into several wildlife management areas.
Might be some listeners working as wildlife managers located amid the hills and trees.
Your footprint may be small but the sand bags are full sized.
This morning there is hopeful talk that Irma seems to be tilting toward the east, maybe just enough to leave Florida undamaged.
AM radio has a bleak future for the following reasons (IMO); lousy radio receiving circuits in car and home radio's; lousy programming (deregulation has killed AM Radio and is working on FM radio as well); the advent of the internet and audio streaming. The millenialls listening habits have drifted away from AM Radio and radio in general. AM (and FM) are envisioned down the road as secondary media services since it is anticipated that the internet and downloading music will be the wave of the future. The only way that AM Radio can survive is if they can offer the listening public something they cannot get anywhere else and improve the technical quality of the broadcast.
It's clear which is the winner and the future of "broadcast oriented" news and entertainment.
I'm thinking there are probably thousands of people in the path of hurricanes who wished they'd had a portable radio with fresh batteries, especially when the internet went down.
In the end, radio is the greatest invention of all time with railroads being second.
The internet and cellphone system cannot stand up to the forces of nature.
I talked to Jeff Station 8. He told me how a lot of FM stations were not even covering the hurricane itself but continue to play music and advertisements as normal.
I am really disappointed to hear the fact that no hobby radio station was in the news for covering storms while commercial AM stations and FM stations did not. I know for a fact that if radio had better receivers to the General Public that AM radio would be the way to go for hearing news about the storm.
Station eight also reported that the FM signals seem to drop in and out far worse than the am signals did during the hurricane. This is interesting to know because when it comes to news and information during severe weather it seems that AM radio does have a place.
If the broadcasters are going to give up am I think that the FCC should give part of the band to hobby radio operators. I'm not talking about ham I'm talking about Hobby DJ operators. Maybe just maybe doing this could save AM radio for many reasons.
I do not agree with allowing all these translators to come on to the FM band and spew the same programming that they have on am which isn't working for them on am so why do they think it should work on FM?
I will also say this again and again if they do expand the FM band or even think about expanding the FM band we need to be right in there fighting for a few hobby frequencies on FM. Mainly the 87.7 and 87.9 megahertz frequencies.
We will just have to see how that goes but another thing that hurts radio is the fact that not all cell phones can receive FM radio. The main reason for this is that the cell phone companies want to make money by forcing people to use the cellular data. There are consumer groups that are fighting to allow all smartphones to receive FM radio frequencies.
I have listen to FM radio on some smart phones that were capable of it. Some of them had remarkable reception on the FM radio chip.
Carl, that's very true. However a vast majority of radio stations are commercial and their goal is generate profits; it's one thing if they have enough profits to stay on the air, much less in times of emergencies remain on the air giving people the news and information they need to hear.
Herein lies the issue; most AM stations, except for most major market clear channels are really having a rough time remaining profitable and as such, when so many smaller AM's are turning in their licenses, It is anticipated that--in due time--many smaller FM's will follow suite since they are noticing a downtrend in their listener base, something the ad agencies are taking notice off as well and that means less advertising dollars to flow into station coffers.
Unless AM and FM radio come up with a plan to keep their listeners tuned into their radios, improve the technical quality of AM Radio, have better quality receiving circuits built into both car and home AM radio ciruits, AM & FM radio will be evolving into a seconday form of communication in this country. Aside from that, I'm not sure what the answer is; that'll be left up to the present generation as to what they want to hear and where they want to here it.
Unless a station owner is set with armored trucks filled with money I think what Gamewell WBXO said is dead on. That is, hits the nail on the head.
To make matters even less certain I would say that even given enough money to operate for a year or two at a loss, ANY format we might try to get the books into the black would be a gamble.
Granted, a very fun gamble as long as it lasts. I might do it if it wasn't my money.
I'm not sure what the reference to 'improving the technical quality of AM' means.
AM CAN sound pretty good. I listen to AM a lot, and do hear a lot of stations that have muddy audio. But there's a station that I listen to regularly (TSN1040 - sports) that has great audio, with lots of dynamic range. It's not FM, but there are plenty of formats, including the talk of this one, that sound just fine with GOOD AM audio processing.
I even had a station for a while that could compare to the big boys. It was a Rangemaster, with outboard processing by a Symetrix 421, and then run through an Inovonics 222. I certainly didn't notice any difference between my audio, and the best licensed station that I could find.
So you can do AM right. Even with Part 15. It's the programming that matters the most. If it's interesting, people will listen (or, at least, the interesting people will listen - there're obviously a lot that will listen to crap, as evidenced by the programming of the big boys, and the fact that they continue to exist).
Booster and translator stations are rampant these days and it's interesting to read about them.
AM & FM Booster Translator Stations
Most part 15 AM Transmitters are not too bad; it's the receivers that make or break the overall sound (not including audio processing). I own a couple of AM Wide Band receivers and you'd be amazed at how good an AM stereo station (even Mono) can sound on them.
The trick is getting the manufacturers of car radio's and home stereo's to build them with wide band receiving circuits so they sound half way decent. For music AM stations audio processing can enhance the stations presence over the air; that combined with good quality programing that doesn't mirror every other FM station out there can make a big difference in your listening audience.
I am not sure how many manufacturers of wide band AM radio's there are if any since it's been years since I bought mine. I have a couple of SONY SRF A-100 portable receivers, along with a Sanyo "boom box" which sounds reasonably good as well and finally an old narrow band radio shack stereo receiver, that while narrow band, still sounds reasonably well for its receiving circuit. Might be a good project to go online and find out who, if anyone, is still making them. Just my two-cents.
Finding radios that sound good is one problem as you've said.
Another problem I've had with three modern vintage radios with analog tuning instead of digital tuning is drift.
The Grundig FR-200, now discontinued, is a nifty dial tuned AM, FM, SW radio which never stays long on a station. It detunes. On all bands.
The other one is a construction zone radio that looks like a yellow gas meter... Sangean U1 with a great sounding 5-Watt amplifier, but again, it drifts off frequency and drives me insane when I'm out doing yard work.
Thirdly, C.Crane very briefly had yet another re-incarnation of the famous RCA SupeRadio, but it hates being tuned. Stations jump away from attempts to tune them in. The AFC switch doesn't matter. It's horrible.
If I didn't love radio I'd hate it.
Yes, good radios help. But good radios can't help already crappy audio. AM CAN sound decent, and with good programming, it can compete with FM stations (particularly those that have horrible programming, as many have).
The only FM station that I listen to occasionally is a classical station in Seattle. Other than that, the FM dial where I live is a wasteland of Top 40 and Classic Rock.
I listen to AM a lot more, some talk radio and sports radio. There is (or I should say, was) a station that played oldies, but I couldn't listen to it because of the muddy audio (even though I wanted to). They've since become a sports talk station, and I still can't listen to it, as obviously the broadcast engineers stayed constant during the genre switchover, and it still sounds muddy.
Give people good and interesting programming, with at the very least, decent sound, and they'll come.
That's my opinion, anyway.
for 48 hours here in Florida.
I heard of a technology that might save AM. If I am listening to a station and it fades away because of distance the receiver would drop and would pick up the internet and my station i am listening to would still be there probably useing wifi at a cell tower. I heard of other ways as well useing narrow bandwidth which would help out to stream left and right to compete with FM. but mostly I think the guy is right on this article. The FCC have to deregulate laws rather than create new ones that make it harder for broadcasters to exist, and the content would follow with a bettermint to the band for operators whom exist at the entertainment level creating better content simply because the FM is becomeing overcrouded and limited to a few that is allowed to exist there, and the diversity would be more broad in nature and there would be more jobs available in the field. advance the technology and see what happens on the AM band.