"AM didn't always sound like crud, nor does it have to. Blame the recievers and deregulation, not the band."
I've posted in the past on this subject....The hydro(A/C power) is the source of all the noise and what makes AM unlistenable in most homes. Those bulbs they want us to use are a big cause of it plus everything else on the power grid that never was there in the past. Just wait for a power outage....then see how good AM is. Why doesn't the FCC do anything about this? 'cause they, and not too many people care except a few people on this forum who want to broadcast AM.
Sad but true.
Mark
I'm using two sound cards one for the Internet Radio stream to process and the other for the Transmitter. I could try using VSTHost and maybe the plugins you talk about and try and set the EQ up. I already have compression built in my NextKast automation program. But that was made for FM and Internet Radio in mind. The dude that I helped develop the software wrote it with the high end audiophile in mind. So I'd have to somehow see if I could pipe everything through VSTHost and then to the AM Transmitter. Now let me bring the issue of Range and AM where I live. The Noise Level is a 5 out of 5 on my Grundig 450 Radio. That is an extremely high noise level. Some days its so bad you can't hardly hear any stations except the powerful Country station @ 1240 AM and the God Caster @ 560 Khz. I hear a few other stations trying to get above the noise level. At times at night its actually lower. Another reason we need more power for part 15 AM is because it is nothing but loud buzzing and static. You'd have to purchase a $500 receiver with a notch filter to only pick up the stations you want to listen to in order to pick up my station beyond 300 feet. Its one reason I can't even get my Stepson to test my station. He says AM gives him a headache. I can't even listen to Shortwave or even pick up any CB stuff with the Radio because the noise level is HUGE. So in my case FM (even legal) will get me more range than AM unless I run a 4 watt AM transmitter into a 10 foot antenna and we know that would get you busted quick. Even if I were to run 200 mW Just a little past part 15 I still probably won't get that mile. I'd have to have a strong enough carrier to block the hydro for that mile. Your talking some wattage now. So from experience AM is far from the Holy Grail here for part 15. Yet another reason I am vigorously trying to get some Range for FM. I've just got to do something and putting any real money into AM with that noise level that high won't get listeners. I don't know how to wire up a carrier current system otherwise I'd maybe run 15 watts carrier current and that would cover that noise level. It really is that bad.
The only two plans the FCC and others talk about to "revitalize" AM will do little more than stall the blight.
Moving AM stations to FM is NOT revitalizing AM, it is turning AM into FM.
The AM stations left behind by FM translators will continue their slump while stations discover that translators are nothing more than Part15_Plus, dinky transmitters with small "contours."
The other revitalization plan is IBOC, which is failing in advance of being mandated.
AM stations have one choice, if they can afford it. They could put large competent staffs of air talent on the air with super-active news bureaus or show grabbing Disc Jockeys -- maybe both -- on the air 'round the clock.
Forget locker-room jokesters, bathroom humor, laughing over trifles, and the pathetic styles now employed by what little live staff turns up usually during drive-times and not during other parts of the day.
As a radio consultant I have all the tools... a yellow legal pad and a sharpened pencil. Sorry I don't do station visits, I can help you only through remote viewing.
I thought about that too, AMs scrambling for little translators, to use in the areas they already are covering. I thought translator service was for stations to service other areas, like the other side of a large city or over a mountain where an audience might be interested in a station's local content, but arean't getting a good signal.
It seems like a whole new class of station has been created and it might be better to call it something else, not a translator, and it's not taking the AM's feed off of the air, so what is it translating?
I've heard a couple of the AMs with a translator, and they always ID the FM, and the imaging is for the FM station right out in front too, with the AM secondary. Maybe it's just status with advertisers, we're on FM! (and AM).
What is amazing is that the FCC won't consider 250 watts for LPFM but will license 250 watt translators for AM radio? Go figure.
I've said why. Money equals getting what you want. Have enough money and you could bribe a bishop. It started to really get bad around 2001-2002. Now its only going to get worse.