Week after week we read in the trades how the FCC and radio industry have proposals to "restore AM" to a status as a popular medium.
All of their ideas have been of a technical nature, with the rather uninspired and limited notion that incremental improvements to signal quality will attract listeners.
We here at Part15.us have already said the obvious, that content and programming will make the main difference, although signal improvements will help deliver the wonderful programming, but most stations today don't even know what "better" programming would be, and certainly don't want to invest in it, so we won't get it.
While all that is being hammered out I would like to present, on behalf of the Part 15 community, a strong recommendation to the FCC to open a section of the AM band for unlicensed low power radio stations under an EXPERIMENTAL class, allowing creative development by broadcasters who have an interest in delivering quality content to the dial.
Later, as the licensed stations eventually close down, the entire band should pass on to Part 15 use and we'll see an absolute recovery of radio's glory with listeners tuning in and sometimes JUMPING in by starting their own stations!
Did someone say digital? Let's not waste time with that. Skip the whole digital shift on AM radio. Why go through another expensive failure?
I agree 100%
Yep, Let's do it World Wide !!!!
Rob Veld
In business and in art, and what is radio but the business of art, the inclination is toward growth... to do more, to become larger, to expand coverage.
When growth is held back it is kept in a state of retardation, and that's largely the state of corporate licensed radio. The companies that run them are professional retardation specialists. A central reason for this backward condition is a disdain for art practiced as corporate policy. Without art radio has no business.
Part 15 fosters the integration of art and business within a hobby frame, and provides the incubator where radio will survive its extinction.
That's why I'm beginning to experiment with overnight programming made easy by streaming the programs of fellow part 15 stations.
To select stations for re-streaming we must choose stations whose programming does not require copyright licensing, and the first station appointing for this experiment is MRAM 1500 from Coyahoga Falls, Ohio.
The MRAM link printed above turned out to be his Cleveland NOA Weather Stream.
Tonight I'll repeat the test using the actual MRAM 1500 stream
The idea is to have a simple way of operating all night without the hassle of local scheduling.
We're not talking about Watts right now, but about a shot-in-the-arm popularity boost for AM radio. It has to do with allowed speech.
IF the prohibition on vulgar language were abolished, strange as it is, the mass public would FLOCK to AM radio to hear the words that talk show hosts try so hard to avoid.
The industry has been pushing in that direction for years... air personalities already skirt the edge of indecency with potty talk and slutty jokes, and we hear the expression "F_word" at regular intervals.
I thought of it today while airing a talk show from Australia, where the speech hangup must not exist, because I heard several straight out F-words... the whole word! I let it go, even though I am on AM radio in the U.S., because I don't really care. It's not one of the things that bothers me, and there are no content rules for Part 15 stations.
I do not intend to start cussing, cursing or swearing, because I never have and I don't admire it as a way of speaking, but public officials use nasty language steadilly to compensate for being otherwise poor orators, and as role models they leave a bad residue.
AM radio has lost all contact with taste and high culture so why not step all the way into the sludge?
Last night Worldround Radio KDX experimented by switching to MRAM 1500 from Coyahoga Falls, Ohio, to allow us to remain on the air later than usual, when no programmer is locally available. It worked very well, we heard an interesting radio drama about a deadly snack loose aboard an ocean-going ship.
Tonight it's over to Friday Harbor Tiny Radio for our program feed as this experiment continues.
Who will it be next time?
The two nights we are on the air all night with our own schedule are Friday and Sunday nights.
Friday night on KDX is "The Week in Repeat," while we re-play all the news programs from the entire week.
In Sunday to Monday we bring TUC Radio from a solar powered facility in Northern California and the exceptional radio programs of Maria Gilardin.
I love AM radio - as a listener
and DXer, that's just the way it
is for me. I have searched from my
receiving point, and have found some
good stations. I know probably all of
you guys have heard examples of what
I have come across. WCBS News Radio
50 kW on 880 in New York, for instance.
They are an all news station with just the
right amount of humor added in. I would miss
them if they were gone. In CT there are some full
service stations on AM that serve their communities.
I know of a class D station that works very hard at it.
And that station sells plenty of ads. But I know that
the small staff that keeps this 1150 afloat loves radio
as much as we do. That's why it works for them.
The 1980s C-QUAM HI FI stereo format - although not
sucessful - sounded very very good at least during the day.
If you go on YouTube you might find some recordings of
this format. I heard a recording of a C-QUAM station
from Japan(??) I think it sounded almost as good as
FM stereo radio here. (Not IBOC.)
It is my opinion that AM stereo in the 1980s failed
because the public didn't need it. FM stereo was already
here. And then there was the FCC - thanks a lot for
your help guys. AM radio can be HIFI. Broadcasters were
experimenting with that in the 1930s. 1500 kHz and up
was where those stations were, at least for a while.
Wide band AM stereo radios are hard to find these
days, but they do exist.
I guess things will go as they go.
Whatever happens, I'm sure there
will still be plenty of fun for radio
enthusasts - - Part 15ers and all the rest.
Bruce
P.S. HEY CARL I just saw your post about
using other Part 15 stations to supliment (sp)
your schedule. That's great. I wish I had
some programming to feed to you, and anybody
else who wanted it. Maybe someday.
Thank you Bruce for sharing your AM radio thoughts and experiences.
Yes, having the other Part 15 stations provide "after hours" programming has worked better than expected. That is because the programming is so excellent.
When I said that MRAM 1500 broadcast a radio drama in which a deadly snack was loose on an ocean liner, I meant a deadle SNAKE.
Last night Friday Harbor Tiny Radio was so good I lay awake from 2 AM to 4 AM absolutely entranced by the music. It was the best of the best of the best of the slow and dreamy moments carefully picked from classical music. Each piece was perfectly designed to enhance, not disturb, a night sleeper.
At daybreak Tiny Radio sent jingling bells that patiently coaxed the sleeper awake, followed by sounds from the depths of nature... birds, flowing water, frogs, quiet air.
It was me who broke the spell by starting my AND HERE'S WHAT'S WRONG NOW daily news shows.