Total posts : 45366
Eletronic noise levels are way up in some
houses on my street. I realized this upon
going into friend’s houses to try to hear
my carrier current transmissions. Some
internet service connections are noisy –
I don’t want to say which ones.
So based on my limited experience,
I think EMI noise can be a problem.
As far as programming is concerned,
when I was growing up as a boy, the
local 50 kW AMer, 3 miles away, was always
playing on a radio on top of our refridgerator –
sometimes from the early morning to the late
evening.
It would never be that way today. Now, there are
too many things on that station that make me
almost physically ill when they are on. BUT that same
station has EXCELLENT coverage during emergencies.
There is a class D mom and pop operation that is
about 10 miles from me. (This station is one of
the few “home town” AM stations left around here.)
Their night time power is pretty low – I would
listen to them at night if I could – but they are
competing with other signals – skywave signals –
that render them useless at night.
AND somewhat related to that point
– when the LOCAL channel stations –
on 1230, 1240, 1340, 1400, 1450,
and 1490 kHz went from 250 watts at night
to 1000, I don’t know if it did any good or not.
Maybe one on you guys will have an opinion
on that one.
When I first heard about “HD radio,”
and what it was SUPPOSED to do –
I said to myself – if this class D
station (mentioned above) that I
love so much sounded
like FM and was in stereo, I would have
it playing on my radio most of the time.
How little I knew
then about the future REALITY of HD radio
on the AM band! Almost useless, and most
little class D stations would not be able to
afford it. Heck – doesn’t the license alone
cost about 30K dollars?
Some of the AM all news stations
serve a great purpose still. WCBS/
880 kHz/50 kW omni in New York
city is listened to by many people
in the Hartford, CT market. It shows
up in the rating book here sometimes.
I see AM radio for drivetime, news, and
talk (talk for some people, but not me.)
And maybe old music or old time radio
for fun. And some AMers still do these
last two things.
But I think this whole thing is very
very complicated. I really don’t
know what to make of it.
Bruce, Stone Soup Think(?) Tank and
the Dog Radio Group
