AM radio revitalization study

[corbintechboy]

Good points.

It does seem that the parents think it gets worse with every generation.

I read on some of the generations. Maybe they are all a good thing. More socially centered and caring, that cannot be a bad thing.

In my home tech is not really given to the kids much (seems the grandparents do to get under my skin though). They love music and radio is actually a thing that is played all the time (in the form of FM and the local country music station ). So maybe they will grow up with an appreciation for that at least.

 

[MTS2000des]

It's great that your kids are enjoying FM radio! One thing that many young people who are raised on the overly processed lossy compression media formats of MP3/AAC is an appreciation for full bandwidth 2 channel stereo sound.

Take someone who has ALWAYS heard a classic rock band such as Pink Floyd or Steely Dan from iTunes or Google Play MP3s, and has NEVER heard them on an MFSL vinyl record or CD. They will recognize the difference! They will hear what they have been missing.

FM radio as it is can be a very high fidelity medium, and when processing is done right in an air chain, it can be very pleasing. "Listener fatigue" is a proven fact with overly compressed and processed mediums. an FM or digital stream at a constant level with no dynamics and compressors driven constantly into clipping causes listeners to tune out and tire. Real, true unmolested full bandwidth audio is enjoyable for HOURS (provided the CONTENT is desirable!). Sad that a whole generation might not even know what they are missing.

Maybe that is why there is an slight uptick in vinyl, there is obviously enough commercial interest, turntables (albeit not very high quality ones) are still being made, and new vinyl is still being pressed, sold and traded.

AM radio as a big profit center is over with, and FM not far behind, at least along the way the big media conglomerates are doing it. I call it the RadioShack syndrome. RadioShack is about to be history, not because a store full of electronic parts cannot be profitable. It can- look at Fry's Electronics, but not at the level of hundreds of stores.

Likewise, AM radio can be fruitful for a small business person or non-profit in many places IF they have CONTENT and an audience. Same for FM radio. Local radio can do well when it's programmed right. WLNG-FM on Long Island comes to mind. These guys didn't start transmitting in FM stereo until 2011!

WLNG - Home

Content, and a connection with the audience. Something corporate casters gave up on about 20 years ago, cutting local staff, cookie cutter voice tracking and automation, and stale corporate programming. No one wants that when they can get whatever they want on their phone/tablet for free.

No technology improvements or revamping is going to save radio on the scale it is at right now the same way new fancy commercials will get people to shop at Radio Shack. The market won't support it.

 

[kb2hpw]

Indeed we are evolving. Mike and the Mechanics a favorite on my High School soundtrack thanks

I always remark that a band today is only going to sound as good as the ear buds it's played through. Now granted there are some really great earbuds. But even a 1984 grad like me wanted really good car stereo speakers, or a good speaker system at home. I never really bought headphones til much later on. Ranging from rock to classical, music was played on good speakers to the fullest.

I have to laugh a bit when a smartphone user is playing music thru its built in tinny speaker. Fairly decent sound for the size when you think of it, but that is no different than bopping around with a transistor radio you couldn't wait to save enough money to buy something with bigger speakers!

In terms of radio and television comms in many ways my dad and I probably grew up similar. When he got home from the Korean war in mid 50's he told me how Grandpa was the first to buy a TV set (b&w of course) on that city block in Troy. Of course they had AM radio before then, newspaper, moviess, etc. For me a 84 grad i grew up with 3 TV channels, AM AND FM radio, newspaper, movies, etc. Life was different in 1984 than 1950 for sure, but by contrast to today, not that much different. Socialization between people really wasn't that much different. You mailed letters to each other, you left a message on the other guys answering machine at home, you rented that VHS movie and watched it at his place with friends rather than actually going to the movies. A little different than dad's experience, but not that much.

FM radio didn't kill AM radio back when it hit the streets. Because it was still radio! AM still had the coverage, the markets, the pros over FM (and vice versa). But the newer technologies put challenge to all the long range radio tech. Some of the threat is technical advances, digital and less/no noise, more channels and choices, and finally 2-way communication. But it's not free, so every person on the receiving end of new tech is a customer, not an audience anymore. Yes as someone else mentioned it is the corporate interests that do drive this trend. Plus the social aspect of "2-way" comm aspect.

I think it's safe to say that yes, every older generation sees the new generation move ahead of where the old folks were. But I don't think it was the expectation of the older generation to see the new generation completely toss out any remnants of the old generation.

I do see AM, FM and even OTA DTV soon to start finding difficulties existing. Because they have audiences, not all are paying customers like the new tech. Not necessarily a good thing I think in the long run. Paying to see/hear exactly what you want to see/hear and tuning out any other viewpoint...is that progressive? Not sure it is...

 

[DaveNF2G]

In the political sense, it most certainly is "progressive." That is what the political and economic Progressives have been building toward for the past 50 or 60 years.

 

[corbintechboy]

I was a Duran Duran fan myself .

I remember my first music experience that was mine. It was a little record player and that was followed by a portable 8-track player. My first radio was a boombox I got one year for Christmas. I would sit in my room and get the faintest station I could hear on FM and would drive my father nuts running out of the room and telling him. It was a little Magnavox and it would pull in the stations on FM.

It just seems the things that propelled me as a child are blah now to these kids. I tinkered with everything. I took televisions apart and "fixed them" and tore into radios and was always under the hood of the car with my dad.

These kids today just don't seem motivated by much of anything. They would rather veg in front of the TV and getting them to go outside is like pulling teeth. Responsibility, huh, good luck with that one. No matter how much I try, I feel like a remote controlling little feet. They are impressed by nothing so it seems as well.

It is good we do the FM radio thing here. I am from Ohio and my wife is southern Kentucky born. So she is country music and I am a mix of about everything with classic rock being my genre of choice.

I hope radio as we know it does not change much. I fear it will however. Scanner type listening in my area is gone. Everything went encrypted and that was a sad day. Years of enjoyment out the window.

Guess we gotta roll with the changes. Sad though. Much enjoyment has been provided to me over the years from these mediums. I will surely miss them if they go.

Such is life I guess .

 

[kb2hpw]

Similar upbringing, fixing tv's and cars. You learn how things function by working on both. Recording music off the radio onto cassette tapes was a big deal. Now you can listen to any song (or watch any movie or TV show anywhere, anytime). We didn't have much instant gratification, so you had to figure out creative ways to solve the problem. Or do something else, discover something else. Sorry to lead into another thread, but that's why Radio Shack was a big deal too. I think a lot of iconic things of our "ancient past" (1980s?) have the "Radio Shack Disease" someone mentioned earlier.

So we're dinosaurs? I don't think so. I worked under an old WW2 era engineer (retired but did p/t work) when I was in my 20's (mid90's), my early gigs as an electronics tech. I found that although he was a top notch slide rule guy, he was also very proficient on his Mac doing drawings in Claris Cad! I really got to appreciate working with this old timer, got to bridge both old and new technologies. But of course, you can't innovate and make something new, if you don't know how the old tech works, and where it needs to be improved. Simply cutting loose the past out of arrogance only sends people on Fool's Errands.

As far as AM radio goes, I don't think the answer is to "compete" with 3G/4G/Broadband/etc as in Digital Radio type attempt. Why would people invest in something that is "Smartphone Lite" when they can just go for the real thing? Rather, the long range aspect should be promoted, giving an alternative. Also it never hurts to play up the obvious Free (no monthly bill). I still think AM's demise is not so much that it's outdated technology but rather the shift into more "me-centric" devices plugged into Social Culture. I guess I still understand the distinction between "tools and toys", both are great but very different. I think that's why many of us "old timers" have and appreciate both. You can very much appreciate Pandora and Youtube on a Smartphone, how cool would that have been in 1972 to watch "TV" on something the size of deck of cards under the blankets at night! It's cool for sure, but are we really better off because we can watch a movie on the school bus ride home?

I actually have old AM car radios (60's and early 70's). I have the one out of a '67 Chevelle in my hamshack now. At night I find that to be more fun than HF or SWL sometimes. Just a longwire on it to the outside. I also have an AM radio out of a mid-60's Dodge, which is an odd ball since dad was a die hard Chevy car and truck guy. Not your usual knob/shaft spacing, these are close together and the whole thing mounts in a rectangle hole in the dash. This thing was in our basement for years and since it never fit anything we drove it stayed in a box. That too with a long wire in the hamshack is an amazing receiver. Cincinnati, Toronto, Baltimore, Virginia Beach, Pittsburgh, Bangor, great fun tuning into stations several hundred miles away. Too bad generation today refuse to find that kind of fun. Perhaps when I'm finally gone and AM is dead too, the kids will tell the grandkids what they were...but there will be nothing to listen to?

 

[corbintechboy]

I think if AM vanished it would be re-purposed for something else. I am not a amateur radio operator (may be someday) but imagine how fun DX would be in the MW band. I think that would be a blast. I would have fun listening for sure.

Imagine utility stations operating there and your pirates with old surplus equipment from today popping in and out. Chasing them would be fun.

Car stereos can make great DX machines. Back in the day I did that with a old Blaupunkt out of some sort of old car hooked up in that manner. It was a blast.

You are right, new technology is amazing. Remembering the local BBS and 9600 baud, I still find myself amazed from time to time. I look at my phone and think who ever thought one would carry a computer in the pocket? Who ever imagined the internet would become the hub of entertainment it has? You can find anything online. That is amazing.

My best friend is a 76 year old engineer from WW2. He is a very interesting guy and he knows more about computers then many people today. That is awesome.

 

[WB4CS]

I think if AM vanished it would be re-purposed for something else. I am not a amateur radio operator (may be someday) but imagine how fun DX would be in the MW band. I think that would be a blast. I would have fun listening for sure.

The Amateur 160 Meter band starts just above the AM broadcast band. DX'ing on 160 Meters can be done, but you need a LOT of real estate for either a very long wire antenna or a tower that's loaded up as a vertical antenna.

I imagine if AM BC went away that the spectrum would be reallocated, but not sure if Amateur's would get it. It would be nice though.

 

[KF5YDR]

This digital AM idea is great on paper, but: who's going to buy a brand-new AM radio? The AM radio market isn't dying because of the audio quality, its dying because no one listens to the radio anymore. It's beyond me how even FM stations stay in business. No one my age owns a radio receiver that isn't attached to a car, and we only use those as a conduit to stream music from our phones.

Listening to pre-chosen songs I can't skip and hours of commercials makes no sense when I can choose what I want to listen to when I want it, with no commercials, on my phone.
.

 

[ridgescan]

Zombies. All of 'em
J/K
My stepson took one look at my sx-88 back in the 90s, and told his mom I should throw it away because it was an old eyesore that takes up way too much room on a table.
I remember asking him on one occasion if he'd like a radio for a gift since he didn't have even a hint of one anywhere but in his car. You'd think I insulted him.
I am clear on the fact that I am the lone radio enthusiast aroun these parts. It truly is a lonely hobby.
Right now I am listening to the VOA out of South Africa on 15580kHz playing the Bellemy Bros "Let Your Love Grow". Africa. Not here. Not one of my fav songs but nonetheless I digress.
MW radio should stay , if for nobody else, at least for old farts like me and the others here who still give a crap about it-and for the truckers and folks out on the desolate highways across America to keep 'em awake.

 

[Boombox]

I don't mean to veer off topic but I had a taste of the new way of listening to radio vs. the old way on Sunday afternoon. I wanted to listen to the Pittsburgh Steelers game.

As I recently got Tune-In on my tablet, I decided to tune to some sports stations, either Pittsburgh stations or the Westwood One network stations that run the play by play on Sunday night Football games. I wanted to hear the game the new way -- you know, internet radio streaming. It's the future, right?

Well, the Pittsburgh sports stations ignored the game -- they were all running sports talk shows. They sounded like replays from shows earlier in the day. The Westwood One stations I found were the same -- streaming other programs -- no football game.

I finally got it on the AM band from the neighboring city (Portland, KXTG 750), until a closer Westwood One affiliate ditched their post-game Seahawks coverage and went to the Pittsburgh game.

It took me a bit of research on the internet afterwards to figure out why the game wasn't streamed. The NFL doesn't allow streaming of games unless it's from its own special streaming service.

Welcome to the world of pay for play radio. I was able to hear the game for free only on OTA AM radio.

If I wanted to hear the game streamed -- I would have to pay the NFL. So the above comments about how radio may end up more and more 'pay for play' may be pretty accurate.

But I've found internet radio listening -- streaming stations from overseas, and other parts of the country in FM quality audio to be pretty cool, though.

 

[kb2hpw]

Tune-In is pretty cool, I have it on one of my gadgets too. Good story on how the sports "industry" regulates that. My wife likes Red Sox baseball, but believe it or not our area (Albany, NY) is in the "black out" zone or some such thing (Red Sox zone in a Yankees zone, who-da-thunkit!) . It's been a while but we once got a MLB subscription, and streamed the audio from the PC speakers (I think that was the least expensive option. Because she didn't want to be tethered to the PC I patched the audio into a Ramsey kit FM XMTR so she could carry an FM radio around the house/yard to hear games ). But what I ended up doing later is rigging up my HF rcvr (and sometimes one of those AM car radios) to my 80m dipole and tuning in an AM radio station for the game audio, and doing that audio patch to the FM transmitter in the house. At night this works great, afternoons a bit tougher obviously to find that really strong AM station.

Yeah I'm sure the corporate interests in the Sports "industry" that get their revenue stream from subscriptions like that, really don't like us "radio guys" for getting it for free. We're not even "hackers", just takes a little know-how and some really old technology

I don't think AM radio will vanish over-night, 20 yrs from now well that could be a different story. The Pirate Radio thing someone mentioned, I bet that would fill the vacuum. It's human nature to try and get something for free/cheap...especially if you are being forced to pay for something that was once free. I know the "selfie generation" doesn't always give me a lot of hope but there's always that segment of the population that is pretty clever and capable. Heck someone might even stumble upon these Radio forums one day and realize those old farts actually had some good ideas that's what I mean about the new generations "discovering" things like wireless comms (AM radio to the masses for free). Every generation thinks they've discovered fire first!

 

[gmclam]

I finally got it on the AM band from the neighboring city (Portland, KXTG 750), until a closer Westwood One affiliate ditched their post-game Seahawks coverage and went to the Pittsburgh game.

It has always amazed me that sports leagues think the only people interested in a game are those local to the home area of the team. I run multiple TV antennas in order to pick up distant stations when my team is not available on a local channel. DX of broadcast AM or FM often suits this purpose as well.

 

[DaveNF2G]

Don't give the leagues any new ideas. Their logical answer to your point is to decide not to broadcast games at all unless they are sold out.

 

[KG4NEL]

These kids today just don't seem motivated by much of anything. They would rather veg in front of the TV and getting them to go outside is like pulling teeth. Responsibility, huh, good luck with that one. No matter how much I try, I feel like a remote controlling little feet. They are impressed by nothing so it seems as well.

Says every generation ever.

It has two fundamental problems common to terrestrial radio:

1)-a lack of compelling LOCAL CONTENT. AM,FM, HD...doesn't matter, if nothing attracts people to WANT to tune in, they won't. It isn't 1979. We now have an abundance of media on tap thanks to mobile Internet. Corporate radio is stagnant, dull, unoriginal, and irrelevant to most people today.

The content is out there. The problem is, it's far too tempting to sell the reins to ESPN when they come calling.

Outside of four noncommercial FM stations, I couldn't tell you what's on local radio around here.

 

[KG4NEL]

Don't give the leagues any new ideas. Their logical answer to your point is to decide not to broadcast games at all unless they are sold out.

IIRC, these rules have been relaxed, so teams won't have to completely sell out in order to avoid a blackout.

Granted, at the rate that news is breaking on the NFL, even having a league next year would be impressive :twisted:

 

[Zaratsu]

Zombies. All of 'em
J/K
My stepson took one look at my sx-88 back in the 90s, and told his mom I should throw it away because it was an old eyesore that takes up way too much room on a table.
I remember asking him on one occasion if he'd like a radio for a gift since he didn't have even a hint of one anywhere but in his car. You'd think I insulted him.
I am clear on the fact that I am the lone radio enthusiast aroun these parts. It truly is a lonely hobby.
Right now I am listening to the VOA out of South Africa on 15580kHz playing the Bellemy Bros "Let Your Love Grow". Africa. Not here. Not one of my fav songs but nonetheless I digress.
MW radio should stay , if for nobody else, at least for old farts like me and the others here who still give a crap about it-and for the truckers and folks out on the desolate highways across America to keep 'em awake.

Let Your Love Flow....

And the Bellamy Brothers had a huge following in ZA during their heyday of late 70's early 80's "Kentucky Sound" country music......


This is an odd thread. I don't like hearing a bunch of old people think my generation is letting them down. This is the same generation that has thousands making huge sacrifices fighting for their country in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is also the same generation that will be finding the medical advances that will be keeping the generations ahead of us alive long enough to complain about us. And calling us "progressive" isn't exactly true either. It might be 50% true, and only because the generation doing the complaining was full of progressivism themselves. Politics aside, we will be the generation who engineers viable 100mpg automobiles, brings a return to cheap power, and electrical self-sufficiency, as well as a return to manufacturing in the USA (Something our previous generation sold my generation out on....). Nothing is more ridiculous sounding than disparaging my generation for perceived productivity or ingenuity failures.

As far as AM broadcast radio......the previous generations didn't really do anything with it, is it any wonder we don't know exactly where it fits in in our world of high bandwidth communication? AM radio has it's place, but if you start changing it so that new receivers are required, it will fall on it's face. AM radio will probably decline, as it probably should as it's relevancy in media continues to diminish. However, it still has it's place and I still use it daily.

Ultimately, AM radio's future will come down to content, or software over hardware. Changing it's broadcast method or technology would spell it's demise. It's all a business, so keep it accessible and easy, and it will have the potential to grow unless the money follows other media distribution methods.

 

[Zaratsu]

I don't think AM radio will vanish over-night, 20 yrs from now well that could be a different story. The Pirate Radio thing someone mentioned, I bet that would fill the vacuum. It's human nature to try and get something for free/cheap...especially if you are being forced to pay for something that was once free. I know the "selfie generation" doesn't always give me a lot of hope but there's always that segment of the population that is pretty clever and capable. Heck someone might even stumble upon these Radio forums one day and realize those old farts actually had some good ideas that's what I mean about the new generations "discovering" things like wireless comms (AM radio to the masses for free). Every generation thinks they've discovered fire first!

Low power community stations would probably be fairly successful depending on the community. While AM might not be the ideal modulation for city or even regional broadcast plan, it would give the opportunities for other communities to discover each other from a distance away. This would be like the old LPFM stations, but more powerful, so that cities on the other side of the state, or in adjoining states could hear locally generated content from 25-100 miles away or so (instead of LPFM's few miles at most).

This would give the ability for new content to be generated and creativity to reign, and possibly saving or revitalizing the band and formats.

However, most of us know what happened to LPFM and other lower power community stations......Regulations, lack of support, and pressure from the big broadcasters and station owning groups pretty much caused the programs to wither on the vine instead of being offered any incentives to grow what would ultimately become the next generation of fresh content for the big boys. Now the Clear Channels of this world need to hope they find their next generation of national talent by either hoping someone in the TV News networks loses favor and takes a career step backwards to radio, or mine their dwindling ranks of FM morning commute jocks.

 

[RC286]

I used to listen to AM stations all the time. The problem now seems to be lack of decent programming.
We have one station worth listening to CJOB, a talk radio station. Lots of interesting stuff, and they also do a reboradcast of coast to coast AM which is a great show, but because it starts so late at night, the only listeners are likely retired people, and people who work nights. I like it, but I am rarely awake to listen.
Here in Winnipeg we used to have an awesome oldies station. I cant remember its original frequency but it moved to 1290Khz in the late 90's early 2000's and their license was retired and the frequency taken by sports radio in the past few years. The pathetic part is that CJOB has better sports coverage than that station. A small city about 40Km from Winnipeg has a great country station on 680Khz CFRY. Aside from sundays and the 5 o'clock weekly switch over to religious programming (which I cannot stand) it plays better music than the local FM country station. Though its hard to pick up here. Need my longwire antenna to get it. And one of my old westinghouse tube sets is sensitive enough to pick it out of the noise.

I would like to have a couple good AM stations to tune into on my antique radios. The band is full of carriers, but they are all carrying crap.

 

[Jimru]

I listen to AM these days only to catch DX.
When I used to listen to news, when I lived in New York City, I listened to CBS AM nearly every day (and for Yankees games), but I really don't bother with "the news" any more.
It's going to be very interesting to see how AM radio survives over the coming decades.
Having said that, if there were a civil emergency in my area and internet connection/cable was out, the portable AM radio would be on, in addition to the scanners and ham gear!