Not just cars: Where does AM radio go from here?
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- čas přidán 26. 06. 2024
- Joe and Jeff Geerling discuss AM radio station ownership, emergency use, rural listeners, and more.
Mentioned in this video:
- Homemade radio (with a toilet paper tube): • Homemade Radio
- AM Radio Tower Power: • am radio tower power
- Hawaii PEP EMP-hardened Broadcast Studio: • Prepared for anything:...
- XKCD Devotion to Duty: xkcd.com/705/
- Grid Studio iPhone 4S display: gridstudio.cc/products/grid®4s
Support me on Patreon: / geerlingguy
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Merch: redshirtjeff.com
2nd Channel: / geerlingengineering
#AM #Radio
Contents:
00:00 - Tesla, Ford, and AM radio in cars
02:12 - Can emergency use save AM?
05:48 - Rural use and wide area coverage
06:52 - Ownership
08:18 - Old people vs free airwaves
09:19 - Local coverage
10:25 - Rising costs, fried frogs
12:12 - Trains are still here
13:38 - NRSC and the future of AM radio
15:00 - Father's Day gift time! - Věda a technologie
Even though I don’t own a car or have a driver’s license I think it’s bonkers to charge for access to hardware you’ve already paid for.
Did they state you would get it when you bought the car? No, then you have no right for a free extra functionality.
It's everywhere in automotive and isn't even new. I bought a 12 year old BMW motorcycle and half the display wasn't working including the gear indicator and mpg readout. As it turns out, that section of the display was a $300 option and my bike just didn't have it. Luckily it's old enough for someone to have an unlocker tool to re-enable the missing functionality so now it works correctly. That said, this bike has driven for over a decade without these quality of life features it fully supported just because BMW charges $300 for about six values in a config file.
If you have to pay a subscription, then you do not own it. Ask Louis Rossman
@@rj7855 🙄This mentality is why the MAC OS (ew) exists and why Windows is now an an advertising platform. Not everyone shares this way of thinking of being satisfied with not actually owning what they paid for.
@@nordic-chanthank god that you can still buy bikes with electronics that wouldn’t have been out of place in the 80s. I get that bikes with lots of doohickeys are more comfortable/brake better/don’t lose traction as easily but it just defeats the independence that motorcycle ownership is supposed to bring.
As the Joni Mitchell song says "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone".
I love AM radio. I'm in Australia where we have a LOT of empty space. AM radio is a very efficient way to get information to many. During the Great South Australia Blackout of 2016 my city was without power for almost three days. Internet and cellphone coverage was non existent. I was at home with my battery powered amateur radio station listening to AM radio, staying informed. I was also able to use HF radio to get messages out to friends and family..
Yes ... That is why I am looking into buying a radio transmitter / receiver for 1 - 30 mhz or so (good for long distance) for emergency use. I am not going to get the HAM licence for it because I have no interest in that , it will only be used for emergency. Also HAM radios has blocked out the maritime channels making it not good for emergency use.
Hi from Puerto Rico!!!
We are a US territory. I remember in Hurricane María (2017) all cell phone, FM and television communications went silent. My family and I stay informed thanks to a small AM radio. this shows that AM is very important and not dead.
Same in Nova Scotia Canada after the September 2022 hurricane. Thankyou CBC 1140AM out of Sydney Nova Scotia.
Questo dimostra ancora una volta che se si spegne la vecchia radio AM, lo prendiamo nel culo bene...
Qui in Italia, nazione nota per stare su un territorio in cui ne succedono tutti gli anni di tutti i colori (vulcani, fiumi, torrenti,
terremoti, acqua alta a Venezia, acqua bassa nei grandi laghi
e fiiumi a secco, invasioni di omini verdi e animali geneticamente modficati) non c'è più niente in AM, se succede
qualcosa di grosso (tipo l'Estrusione del Marsili a Napoli che
farà sprofondare mezza Italia) ci attacchiamo al tram...
To me the greatest things about AM radio is not only the huge distance it covers but also the DIY Aspect of it, when you build your own radio. Either from DIY kits with Semiconductor parts or just the simple Crystal radio style (which can become SERIOUSLY complex projects too). This technology is so old and yet STILL sooo super useful and it just works. And without any licensed or patented proprietary technology.
Sadly, today's youth generally isn't interested in such things. I remember building a crystal set myself when I was young, although I didn't really understand what I was doing at the time. Still, it was neat to put a bunch of parts together and hear radio signals crackle out of the uncomfortable crystal earpiece.
@@grayrabbit2211 the reason kids today aren't interested is because nobody is there to push them to do things like that. Where's the science kits being sold in stores? It's rarely in the same place as toys.
@@SonicBoone56 No one was there to push me either. By all accounts, I raised myself. At the same time, there wasn't much around the house I didn't take apart and try to figure out how it worked. Lots of exploration and trial-and-error. Plenty of smoke and sparks too. Lots of asking neighbors how to do things. Then again, so much of what we did as kids back then would get you arrested today. Between that and modern schools which punish curiosity, no wonder kids aren't exploring.
@@grayrabbit2211 hey im interested in that
a simple radio receiver is cool as heck
but not much information on old technology unless u really dig back
but then again i guess u dont really got internet back in the days to find information about those stuff either
it s just like vacuum tubes, literally no textbooks will cover them nowadays
youth today only know, and are fed the new stuff
and u know with most places on earth cutting off am, it s pretty hard to justify, i mean i could make an am radio, but i probably wont receive anything where i live
Fantastic! I worked as a transmitter engineer at a small radio station during high school in the late 50's and early 60's so i know a lot about what your dad was doing. The station was omnidirectional during daytime hours but went directional at sundown. The fcc rules required an onsite engineer to monitor (log readings) during directional hours only (remote logging was permitted during the day). The studio was located a few miles away in town. I got to spend 3-4 hours a night at $1.15/hour doing my homework. Cat whisker. It's been years since I've heard that word relating to radio. At age 11, my dad brought home some wire, a cat whisker, a variable capacitor (it was called a condenser in those days), and a speck of galena. With that and an oatmeal box and a few other misc. parts we had a working am radio. No batteries required! It was responsible for my love of electronics, getting my ham radio license two years later and eventually getting a BSEE and securing a career in computers. Love your channel. Thanks to you both for the trip into time.
The switching systems for the transmitters to handle that transition are fascinating in their own right!
As a kid in the 50's, I used to build those cat whisker sets. Still have some of the pieces in a junk box somewhere. I wonder if kids can even find them these days.
I miss the crystal radio sets. Terribly uncomfortable earpiece, but amazing that you could put together a radio with relative ease and actually hear something.
Crystal Radios were a blast. Amazing how something so simple could pick up radio shows. I had one that could hear some of the clear channel stations at night. It even heard some shortwave as well. Fun times.
My story mirrors yours almost exactly, sir. Worked at a 1 kW that was directional at night, so my hours were sunset to sunrise. That was during my college years. And I, too, played with cat's whisker radios, got my ham license, and acquired my BSEE as well. But my career has been focused equally on hardware and firmware (embedded systems). Picked up my first soldering gun at age 5, lol!
Dad is spot on in his warning, which is being repeated by other CZcamsrs like Louis Rossmann and Steve Lento. These weaselly car manufacturers are slowly implementing their heinous "subscription" model where you have to pay monthly or annually to use hardware that is already been built into the car. Want to use your heated seats? Pay a fee. Want to use your heated steering wheel? Pay a fee. Want to use your remote state? Pay a fee. There will be no limit.
This has been corporate America's plan for decades. Now the technology is here (thanks to the wireless oligopoly) to make it happen. Make everything and everyone a subscriber. You'll own nothing and gladly pay for the privilege to use something you pay for. Aside from the increasing noise floor on the AM band, the big downer is lack of compelling programming. The bottom line is terrestrial radio and TV will go away, free to air will be a thing of the past, as the corporate overlords who own this country will have their way. Change my mind.
Rip the thing out and fit a proper radio.
@@SorinOltean77brake*, braking*
Blame Tesla, who started the trend, and the Tesla cultists who are too zombified to realize they're being taken advantage of. They turned the infotainment system into a subscription profit center, and now the rest of the industry is following them, removing the radio and having no support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, so you have to pay a monthly fee to Tesla if you want to listen to music.
@@G1ZQCArtworknon authorized part detected! Car access disabled
The joy of ham radio is just about anyone with a license can operate right out of the house…unless the neighbors or the HOC or your city says you can’t have that antenna on your roof or in your yard.
Even so, a lot of ordinances make allowances for at least a certain size antenna :)
@SuperNostalgia. WTF does god and jesus have to do with Ham Radio???
Check federal law on your ability of a licensed ham operator to erect a 60-foot tower and antenna. Federal law trumps local law or HOA rules any day!
There is always a way to get on the aire , even if the snooty hoa won't allow it.
@@voiceofjeff Ha, love the name btw...
AM radio is used all over the roads for road information, extreme weather conditions, etc... It is important for driving.
That is even going away in favor of programmable message boards which, are a better solution because it requires no tuning in on the part of the driver.
Jeff. When you were a little tyke you used to tag along with dad while he worked?
We have KCJJ AM 1630 broadcasting with 10,000 watts during the day and 1,000 watts at night. It can be heard throughout Eastern Iowa during the day and in many states in the central and eastern United States at night! It's locally owned and operated, unlike iHeart radio. During the flood of 2008, KCJJ's broadcast location in coralville Iowa was flooded out. They still manage to maintain a broadcast via temporary location and equipment, broadcasting 24 hours a day needed flood information to the community ♥️
From a safety standpoint I feel like immediate action needs to be taken on automakers to prevent them from blocking free radio. I’m surprised broadcasters haven’t lobbied lawmakers harder over this yet.
Atsc 3.0 already has provisions for paid drm and is already deployed. I'm honestly afraid that the stations will do more for auto makers to do this, that is if they're getting royalties.
The car makers will argue that they can activate the radios for everyone in the event of an emergency while keeping them subscription only the rest of the time. They can make every radio automatically turn on and tune to the PEP station when there's an emergency.
I'm in my 30's and primarily listen to AM radio. I hope Ford and the other auto manufacturers stick to it and keep AM around.
I also love how I can take a 100 year old piece of equipment and make it still function, try doing that to a TV in a few decades... We already can't with the DTV transition.
Of course, with the intersection of these interests, I got my ham license about 5 years ago. Welcome to the fraternity! 73!
I have an HDTV that's 21 years old and still produces a beautiful picture unlike my 90s Quasar television which got dimmer and dimmer every year after I bought it.
@SuperNostalgia. Who made you post this?
I totally agree with you, I have a 1942 AM radio. there’s something about being able to still use a piece of communications equipment that was around during one of the worlds most defining moments.
After the DTV transition I could never pick up TV and never tried again.
@@DJPhantomRage Then you're outside of the stations' markets.
We have an excellent station in Tucson Arizona KDRI AM 830 staff 5 AM til 11pm wonderful people that play great music and keep us informed. It’s still so nice and convenient to listen to them for traffic or weather or major events. I’m 27 years old and I’d absolutely be devastated if the amazing petiole I listen to were taken away from me. I like that they operate a translator on fm for local around town, but that full power AM is amazing for around Arizona. Thank you for your time in making this video it means a lot to me to see everyone fighting to keep what I love alive.
I've never heard of that station before
I have been listening to AM radio since I was a kid and still listen to it daily. I love that at night I can tune in stations from hundreds of miles away. I really miss listening to Art Bell on coast to coast. I sure hope and prey that AM will always be alive.
In NJ I use to listen to AM from New Orleans up to CKLW in Canada. Being on a high point there also was a station from UK I could receive.
Jeff all I want to say is cherish every minute you have with your dad. My dad passed a few years back and I miss him dearly. You and your dad create great content and I hope you both continue to do so. 🙏
I just lost both my mom and dad a day apart. I can't begin to explain the pain I feel.
Back in the 1950's and 60's all AM radio dials were required to have 2 Conalrad/civil defence icons on 640 khz and 1240 khz.
Aussie here, while I hardly listen to AM radio myself, I know its still very popular with a lot of old people, even in the capital cities, furthermore much like the US, we have a lot of rural and remote communities where FM can't reach, and the only radio stations available are AM. That alone is sufficient reason to keep AM alive, not to mention how essential it is in a SHTF situation (such as our recent floods and bushfires) where the grid goes down. It should be mandatory to keep at least AM radio in cars as a standard feature.
Agree. As a West Aussie, you need AM while driving in the country. First to find out where the bushfires are, and second to listen to the cricket. 😁
@@dano4700 Between 2010/2011 I spent 6 months out at Longreach. No FM out there, and I highly doubt there would be any now.
The USA should take up DAB+ radio that runs on VHF Band 3 just like what we have in our major cities here in Australia. It’s CD stereo sound quality. The UK and NZ and other countries use this digital radio technology.
@@davidshepherd265 Believe it or not there is! West FM in Longreach has been up for years now.
I have a relative in TN that used to work for an AM equipment design and manufacturer. It was always fun to hear his stories about some of his work. Hopefully AM has a long long life.
Hi. The issue with AM radio in EVs is the considerable noise produced by the electronics in these vehicles. An EV passed my QTH yesterday and it nearly obliterated a QSO I was having on 2 meters. Imagine the problem with AM & FM radio.
AM is critical to public safety on a local, regional and national level. AM needs to be prioritized, even subsidized if necessary to keep it reliable.
Thanks for your channel
Here in the UK, Absolute Radio just shutdown their AM transmitters early and received a fine from Ofcom. Such a shame AM is dying. Hopefully our HAM comuunity can bring it back to life. It would require a combined effort from us all worldwide. Thanks for the video to highlight this issue Jeff and Dad. 73 from Ireland.
"73's from Ireland" You stated "here in the UK"? Dont understand?
I think the UK has not experienced anything like the Atlantic Hurricane Season in North America? From Florida up the Atlantic Coast to Canada's Atlantic Provinces we have a climate from August to the end of October that is best served by AM Radio.
I can't imagine we'd be able to rely on DAB radio in the UK if we had a national emergency. It's barely reliable for listening compared to AM & FM.
@@Sheffield_Steve Yeah Steve it's rubbish! And that's coming from a HAM radio operator.
I always love listening to your Dad speaking. His great knowledge and the way he delivers it is very open and inclusive.
Thanks both.
I am a systems engineer and just recently joined my local ham radio club. When you're making content with your Dad absolutely love it. All the content all these years and now learning that we have very similar interests. Love to tinker, obsession with Raspberry, open source and radio.
I am an Extra Class HAM it’s an awesome hobby and I did enjoy being a volunteer broadcast engineer for our university TV and radio station….I’m glad your dad shared his knowledge…it’s critical because radio still is a vital technology….A.M. I still like for news sometimes…National, State, and County…or City…Trains are growing in some areas and I bet A.M. radio will grow for specific purposes…
Online SDRs brought a life back to AM radio for me personally. Not only listening to AM stations nationally but all over the world.
I miss the HD on WCCO 830 before it was sold by CBS. They moved the HD to the FM dial for WCCO and continue to broadcast on AM. However, the sound of HD when it was on their AM signal was much better than it is now on their FM channel.
I keep hoping they reconsider and bring back the HD to AM.
I miss the AM stereo. When I lived in the country, the sound of listening to a rural station playing country music on AM stereo was a treat. I think it was either KXRB 1000 out of Sioux Falls or KLOH 1050 in Pipestone. That over 25 years ago.
I remember growing up in the country listening to WCCO at my grandparents house and now as an adult in my mid 40's I listen to it regularly with my wife. Even my teenage son listens to it when they broadcast the major league sports. That was another thing about AM is it is able to reach a large sports fan base from a single broadcast location. They tried moving it to FM, but that didn't work out well and a couple years the Twins moved back to WCCO.
Kudos to the engineers who keep AM going. The sound quality from a well tuned AM broadcast sounds better than FM even if there is static every once in a while. It sounds so much more natural on AM than FM to me.
Great video guys! I still listen to AM even though our network is comprised of all FM. For over a decade I maintained a number of AM sites and had a lot of fun doing it. Keep the videos coming Jeff!
I think the point of these cars having so much interference that it kills the radio is a red flag to their not being compliant with Part 15 of the FCC rules. I have emailed a number of Senators regarding the AM radios being yanked from some cars, asking that they also consider investing more $$ into the FCC field personnel to allow them to go after other causes of interference to AM, and other communications. There are so many products in violation of Part 15 that the initial fines themselves would pay for the additional FCC personnel, and they are way past the need to do this!
Regarding the AM revitalization efforts, I have long been a proponent of allocating TV channels 5 and 6 to radio, expanding the existing FM band. (I presented this idea at the beginning to Ajit Pai over and over, but I was talking to a brick wall!) We could then take the existing AM broadcasters and migrate them there, providing FM spectrum to even the playing field in sound quality and HD operation. As you know, Joe, HD radio was supposed to be capable of use by EVERY AM broadcaster, but the technology didn't allow for that in the hybrid mode, so many AMs have turned it off. Not to mention there are licensing fees associated with HD, which in the beginning of its creation (and as you know, I know this firsthandedly), that was not supposed to be the case... I digress 🙂... After some years of dual operations, allowing radios to come into the market, reallocate the AM channels to local municipalities in order for them to really be able to be heard and thus be useful to the public; and also required to maintain the EAS.
Adding to what you said, Joe, about how AM owners are operating their stations more and more in unattended modes; this has put NOAA as the primary place to monitor, with TV second, then radio. TV stations have become way more hardened and capable of getting local information on the air quickly, while radio has not spent the money to have ENG equipment ready on the fly, or to have helicopters and ENG vehicles in the field as a norm. AM operators have, as Jeff eluded, taken the cheap route to putting on national conservative and other talk radio shows. As I am currently with a company that produces 24/7 programming and provide support for our satellite services, I can tell you firsthand how many AM stations are operated on the cheap. Neglected, operating in variance of the rules, and lacking of personnel. ...especially personnel knowlegable of radio the business. This has made things much worse, and greatly weakens the arguement that AM must be preseved for EAS, as you also stated. I believe we need to use this opportunity to educate our Representatives with all of the facts that are driving car and other manufacturers to make these decisions. Hell, we can go back to the 70's when AM radio receivers started limiting the bandwidth to 2.5kHz! AM stereo did help bring about some better quality receivers, but it's short lived existance put us back to getting the muffled sounding radios again.
If I were still in the St. Louis market, I would have the Ham Radio club I started either operating a station, or closely connected with one! Up north here, we have a few clubs that have facilities in some of the local EOCs. Some of those Hams are in the TV and Radio business, so there's some good tie-ins with a few stations, but that needs to grow everywhere.
Expanding FM to VHF channels 5 and 6 (76 to 88Mhz) is a great idea to address the filled up FM band in many cities. Also there are many cars out there today with FM tuners that can support this band with a simple firmware update. This is because many FM tuner on chip modules will come with support for the Japan FM band (76 to 95Mhz) if you look at their spec sheets. They are just disabled in software from tuning below 87.7Mhz in North America.
As far as HD Radio goes, its just not robust enough to be reliable in an emergency in my opinion. Its been around for nearly 20 years now and it seems to be getting less and less popular on AM every year. Lightning discharge will cause an HD signal on AM to temporarily drop, imagine trying to listen for weather alerts during a thunderstorm.
Great to hear from you Scott. You deeply understand a lot of what is going on! I remember taking KMOX to HD and the cost and manpower was incredible. Then I realized that was a non-d single tower station and there are so many multi tower arrays that would need a lot of work to go AM HD. I am just getting connected to the local ham community and they seem pretty active in the emergency services.
One thought I have had for a long time is there needs to be a focus on making AM relevant in the future. Probably the only real way it would continue. May also have too many big AMs with current owners who overpaid. Keep up the good work and don’t retire any time soon!
Brazil already started the AM station migration using the space made available by TV channels 5 and 6. Auto-stereos cover 76-108MHz for all new cars since 2019 or so.
@@radijoe No retirement plans yet, though I am hoping my next move is the last. So I guess that means I'll be in Chicago a while longer.
I think we use this opportunity to contact all the representitives in Washington while we have their attention. I have mixed feelings about a law forcing a business to do something that won't make as big of difference in the overall situation. To me this seems like a knee-scrape got noticed by a stranger and they feel compelled to put a bandaid on it for you. Forcing the car manufacturers to keep the AM radios in the cars doesn't fix the primary reason they made the decision or had the thought to yank them. It may help reduce the interference caused by the devices on the cars, as that is really the only proper way to fix self-induced interference, but that won't change the driver's opinion of the poor sound, bad programming, and the 1,000's of other man-made and natural noises AM is subjected to. My 2013 Lincoln MKZ Hybrid had a Microsoft Sync system in it. The radio was HD and the AM had a syncrhonous tuner! I could drive under the EL tracks downtown among the skyscrapers and still here more of the radio station than the EL. Hell, even the gas powered CTA busses have some nasty RFI beaming out of them, but that tuner was great. Even between channels you didn't get loud static, it would actually get quiet and have smoother white noise sound, not a bunch of squeeking and buzzing.
So, where do we go from here... I say we enlighten our representatives about better manufacturing of the receivers, as we know that can be done. Ask them to get behind the FCC in a true effort to seek out and remedy the Part 15 violations, and set standards for consumer receivers that would provide us better sound and reception than what we've experienced since we began putting radios in cars. Further, as we've seen technology evolve and most every technical company except for radio get to improve from it, we need the FCC to help evolve the AM dial with a real technilogical advancement, not doling out LPFM and translators that only add to the already crowded FM band. You can't get much water out of a rock and I think we've squeezed as much as we can out of the AM spectrum. 10kHz is very limiting, despite HD, DRM, Etc. In the development of HD, our sights were high but the Commission refused to set, or choose any HD standards. Thus the chicken and egg factor drug on for years, shaking the confidence of the receiver manufacturers as well as the broadcasters. Then came the licensing fee's on top of the expense of not only the equipment to transmit HD, but the work on the antenna systems to pass it. And, not all could or would. Plus, I pointed out internally to our group that the DA's would not perform as they should 10kHz up and down from the carrier, so we're spraying HD beyond some station's limits. But then thinking it through in more detail, we were actually adding first-adjacent stations on both sides or our main, so there were a whole new set of rules to deal with. Yet, the FCC allowed it kind of using the translator rules approach. If they complain, then we or you will have to do something. That's not a great warm and fuzzy when you're spending investing all that money into the uknown.
I just think it's important for Washington to finally understand the entire scope of the AM issues and really take action on a plan that addresses everyone's concerns and to stop thinking we can defy physics. Nothing done within the constraints of the existing AM spectrum will ever compete with the FM HD or streaming quality. You see, FM is already on the chopping block, too! I've been driving a "connected" vehicle for 30 years, so I know how easy it is to listen to what I want in my car. This is real competition and using EAS as a scare tactic, if it works at all, will only work for a short amount of time. Wireless data is the place where it is and is going to all happen. Radio and TV are starting to sniff a lot of fumes, though the AM's of the radio world are just about on life-support already.
Despite the fact I feel we're WAY late in the game of getting the attention of Washington, I say we take advantage of it and see what we can do.
Cars-as-a-service is fine as long as you aren't expected to buy the car too. Who wants to buy a new car, and then rent it on top of that? Maybe that's why I keep driving my 16 year old pickup.
As for radio, I think that it's better left a matter of personal responsibility, rather than having unmotivated people pushing the burden onto institutions to do the work and take the blame when few participate. Back in the '80s I purchased a couple of tiny AM-only tuners that ran on coin cells, and tucked them into my tool box just in case I ever needed them as backup. I never did, in no small part because none of my primary tools ever failed. I never said "Ford, save me when I won't save myself."
Does AM (MW, regardless of modulation) radio deserve to be saved? I don't know, but it seems that the unique propagation at that wavelength is a tool that I'd rather have than not. Perhaps if the same mental disorder that has people drooling over gramophone records today could be leveraged to make restoring old transistor radios part of that fad.
Subjective experience is a mental disorder? No one can be completely objective, even those of you who worship measurements above all else. BTW this LP fan finds that old transistor radios sound dreadful.
I love listening to your Dad talk about all things AM radio
I'm a ham and about to live in rural Texas. AM radio is nice when driving around since I can get most of the 50kw stations broadcast in Texas at night and into the early morning, and reasonably well during the day for the closest station too. Since I'm in a low radio noise area too I can pull in a lot of stations at night from Louisiana, Oklahoma, and even WGN out of Illinois as well as plenty of Mexican stations. Once I get some time I want to build a KAZ antenna here so I can pull from even further away like South America.
I’m glad you clarified PEP. I was thinking peak envelope power! I do listen to AM WRVA in Richmond, VA. I won’t pay for radio. I’ll go without first. KE4MAP
This is a quite interesting video. In The Netherlands (A small country in Europe) we don't have any big radio stations on AM and only some small, local stations. And I also can't get that much stations from other countries on AM. The Netherlands is smaller than most US states I think so I should easily be able to pickup lot's of stations from other countries if AM was still a big thing in Europe. So I guess AM is almost dead in Europe now. I even heard that in some Scandinavian countries they want to get rid of FM radio and focus on DAB+ radio (DAB+ radio is a popular digital radio system but I believe it's not that popular in the USA).
I lived through the Northridge earthquake and listened to our relatively low power local AM station, KBET at the time, that suspended all advertising and programming and broadcast news about where you could get food, water, medical information, road information, and much more. It was invaluable. We had no power, no telephone, no water, my house roof had a hole in it where the chimney fell through. If it wasn't for KBET and that little battery powered radio, life would have been much more difficult. Even the road to and from my house was blocked by erosion from a water main breakage
We listened to WLS back when it was a clear channel station on a regular basis. The New Year's musical countdown was a must!
I used to love listening to that, also. I had a Sony boom box with AM Stereo, and could actually hear it in stereo.
Of course, AM radio works in electric and hybrid cars. The Ford Escape hybrid loaned to me while my old van was in the shop had AM and it was super sensitive. Drove all over Pinellas County listening to Radio Enciclopedia, 530 kHz in Havana, Cuba, coming in very clear all day long, 350 miles away. Just for fun, I fed audio into my HP 3312A Function Gen and put my own AM station on the air (within my office) and it sounded pretty good...HP quality, you know.
In the winter, Radio Enciclopedia is a regular here in Idaho. They have a very strong signal on a nearly clear frequency.
I own a Ford Fusion Energi and the AM works just fine in electric mode.
@@akshonclipApparently The 21st century "God" known as Elon Musk is unaware of this. Maybe he has some more vaporware to sell.
How did you feed audio into your HP
I thought that only has an RF input for reference
There's an input for modulating the amplitude and just used that.
in the early '80s I worked for the parent company of WBT 1110, a 50KW AM station in Charlotte. By coincidence I took an apartment about 1/4 mile from the tower farm. No antenna needed to hear them... just hold up a line-in patch cord on your stereo! Once I took home one of the original IBM personal computers to do some work. Just holding my hands over the keyboard made random characters appear on the screen. Had to put on shorts and put the keyboard on my bare knees to get anything done. Ah, the old days....
I'm from the Philippines and AM radio is still alive and well mainly for news and the political commentary for the drama. We still have radio dramas and some of them receive infamy as memes at least in my region. On a serious note, the country is a hotbed for regular natural disasters so I don't think AM radio would be gone here as far too many instances post natural disaster people only rely on radio for information as our internet and telco infrastructures are mostly unusable.
Firstly, absolutely love the knowledge, passion and commitment you both have for this technology.
Secondly, we've got to get schools at all years/levels involved. Education is absolutely key!
I grew up with AM radio, travelling around Europe and listening to the BBC World Service. When I was at high school studying all the European languages I would tune into a different European rzdio station every night and fall asleep listening to the broadcasts; I still do that to this day!
schools only teach how to mutilate bodies, drug up and furnicate
The radio media is still relevant in 2023, even though more of what we are doing is digital. In many European countries, radio is still very popular. Surprisingly many young people listen to radio, although they grew up with smartphones, etc.
As mentioned in the video, it's all about content. It's the same reason why podcasts and CZcams videos are popular. Radio just needs to evolve and not just do the same thing over and over again.
I've been working with radio for the last 4 years on commercial local radio stations in Denmark. It's amazing that a country with 5.5 million citizens can still have local radio stations that are financially viable and have listeners. Shows how relevant the media still is. I must also admit that I think it's nice that you don't have to deal with the music yourself when you're out and driving. And at the same time, there is a radio host who takes you through the day, with good mood, etc.
AM radio is the basis and least complex of all RF communication in existence. Such a technology always has merit.
Do you still have AM radio station? In Italy they are almost all on FM and are pushing to DAB
sometimes the simplest way is the best. It is the most robust way to send information, especially at night, when a lot of stations can send much farther.
Nice interesting interview and overview. I built a crystal radio when I was 7 in 1957. A couple of years later, I made one in a small plastic box (fixed cap, tunable coil) and a piezoelectric earpiece from Lafayette Radio, so I could listen in bed after "bedtime". The problem was that all the crystal radios required a 50 or 100 foot wire on the roof for an antenna and a ground wire to a waterpipe. I realized that the "hot" side of the AC power outlet made a pretty good "long wire" antenna (the electrical wiring throughout the house), so I had a wall plug with 1 wire to my radio. "Boy genius" that I was, I had figured out why birds don't get electrocuted happily sitting on power lines. I wasn't worried because there was nothing grounded anywhere in my room that I could touch. The only issue left was having a ground to increase the sensitivity and loudness. I discovered that putting a wire into a bucket of water worked wonders as a ground. So... I put the insulated antenna wire and capacitively coupled it to a large body of water: me. It worked great! I do not recommend doing this for anyone else, but I did this for over 10 years and am 73 and just fine.
Just wondering, what you did for a living in between. Electronics?
I understand you well - when I was about 11 I connected my headphones to tube radio supplied from AC without transformer. - music was nice untill I tried to improve connection to grounding. Hopefully it wasn't serious .and learning by practice is good thing. Buy way - even chassis of radios with transformers have some AC voltage to ground. Of course cristal radios realy do not match the AC - they were developed for area without electricity . I used long copper wire in garden. Stil miss their wonderfull sounding, after I made even transistor direct amplification just to get higher quality of listening
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 Yup! Electrical Engineer designing audio and video products.
@@Mikexception Transformer leakage and RFI bypass capacitor. As a teen, fixed Guitar Amplifiers, which could really "kick" you. Ask an old guitar player.
@@shazam6274 I learn since 60 years and my old radio which is now 84 years old sparks to ground through that RFI filtering capacitors.
But forgive it all because is unparallel in quality and sensitivity. In old days they even hadn't idea how to make cheap bad radios in favour of small size. Customers dreamed about small and portable enough to receive local station and such were sold.
Great video, and I just recently found 3 new in the package 90's era Lenoxx Sound AM/FM pocket Sports radios at my local Goodwill, which I snagged them for emergencies, and they all work great on both bands, so yeah I hope AM stays around for a long time to come, as the FM dial is just far too crowded with big corp nonsense, and I ain't paying for streaming beyond the YT Music included with my YT Premium account, nor will I ever pay for satellite radio.
So yeah we need to make it law that automakers have AM/FM radios in all cars for the foreseeable future at no extra cost to the consumer!!
Unless I'm mistaken, car radios have ALWAYS been "overbuilt" to deal with internally-generated interference??? For most people, the car stereo was by far the best radio they ever owned!
Your timing is on point, lol. I just got my hands on a TFT EAS911 EAS ENDEC (positively ancient now) and just added the three sources for my area, one AM source, one FM source, and one Weather source. I don't have a transmitter, so the ENDEC's output is just terminated. I wanted to get ahold of a SAGE ENDEC for the network capability, but wasn't lucky in that regard. The EAS system is a lot more complex than most people give it credit for. Most people just think about the annoying tone, (sidenote: it was engineered to be annoying to get people to pay attention to the alert!) but the blasts of 'static' contain a lot of information.
It was engineered to be annoying? How does one engineer an FSK modem to be more or less annoying? It's just a data burst.
Great video! I grew up listening to one of those small town AM stations you were talking about.
Hope AM radio survives , really was a shame that AM stereo didn't take off in a bigger way
One of the many ham-handed decisions made by the Reagan FCC (Including Docket 80-90 and the suspension of the Fairness Doctrine) was letting consumers attempt to decide which AM Stereo system to use because every system proponent was fighting over it (namely Mr. Kahn.) Consumers are smart. But they don't know how stereo radio transmissions work or want to figure out which station was using what system. They just wanted it to all work when they turned the thing on like FM Stereo radio.
And it was worse on the broadcaster end; Most stations avoided AM Stereo altogether until the system war was over.. And even when Motorola was selected in 1993, those stereo plans were long forgotten
There should have been a system FCC selected, like the Zenith system was picked for FM Stereo in 1961.
@@LarryWaldbillig We're still paying for SO MANY of Reagan's stupid policies.
@@LarryWaldbillig To be honest, consumers never wanted AM stereo. By that time most music had moved to FM because of the increased fidelity.
AM stereo wasn't as interesting as wide-bandwidth AM. We were able to bench-test one of our standby AM transmitters without the bandwidth filters in place, so audio probably extended up to ~12KHz or so, maybe higher. Wow did it sound beautiful. It was an extremely warm sound. Reminds me of a cheap, nasty, vacuum tube amp, but in a good way. Highs weren't shrill crispy like over-processed FM can sound but instead were present and pleasant. Also probably helped that we were feeding a CD player straight into it with no processing.
I''ve been an avid AM radio listener since got my first "transistor radio" in my early teens. No boot up, no buffering, no data connection needed. It's "instant on" and instant tune-in from one station to another.
KMOX comes in clear most evenings here in the Chicago burbs, but I'm also a fan of KZRG when I can hear it.
Thanks for all you do!
You guys are great, can't wait for the ham video and the tour of the AM station!
The thing I always thought why AM analog radio was always indispensable due to its ability to easily cover great areas. No dead line of sight required so if you are stuck in a valley you still get some sort of reception.
I used to live in the immediate vicinity of a 20KV am broadcast tower for over 20 years. Hearing the radio come through whilst welding didn't happen very often but it did happen. Also the tower was always worth watching during a Thunder storm. The first two lightening strikes always looked amazing. The first would blow all the dust and debris off of the glass isolators for the tower so there would be huge showers of sparks. If there was a second that was a rare event but looked amazing. The glass balls looked like a second sun and light up the surrounding area with blue light. It would glow for a couple of seconds, quite eerie. In 20 years I have seen it happen 3 times during the night and once during the day.
Excellent video and info! Thanks for sharing!
Interference is huge. Solar inverters, LED lights and alike. Spectrum Regulators don't want to enforce interference too much so their life will be easier if AM dies. Of course AM makes SSB shortwave look dead and obselete.
The lower you go in the frequency spectrum the more noise. Long Wave and Medium Wave had their day before FM and DAB were getting widespread.
I listen to AM now and then but mostly for nostalgia like Radio Caroline or to check if there is long-distance propagation across the Pond.
In Norway where I live they have shut down LW and MW now. The last transmitter operational is located in Longyearbyen, Svalbard.
In the 1970-80s, I used to listen to Radio Luxembourg on 1440. It was pretty magical as a kid to have an old tube radio glowing in the dark and listen to some great music fading in and sometimes interfered briefly by other stations :)
Excellent video, very informative and clearly stated. I look forward to future videos. Thanks!
I always listen to AM radio in the barn. At night I like to see how many stations I can receive from other states. It is fun listening to a baseball game in another state. I don't listen to the local station FM because when we have weather emergency they just kept playing music. I found the AM much more useful.
Same in my garage when I'm working, also my area thankfully has one really good AM station with good local morning, and afternoon shows that also broadcast on FM which is about the only thing I use FM for when I can't get their AM signal. I also have a weather radio in my home, and I think everyone should have one of those as well that runs on backup 9V battery power.
@@CommodoreFan64 I'm in hurricane country, so perhaps my view is jaded, but weather radios are useless here. Everything is read by the computer, even during emergencies. Not exactly helpful. Now, a battery operated AM/FM radio with long battery life IS a good idea. Make sure you keep the batteries out of it but nearby. The last thing you want to deal with is cleaning out battery corrosion when you need to use the radio.
So great! This shows a situation which is no daily reality to many (me included). We have no mobile dead spots or AM-radio, but as the Geerlings may know the Netherlands is (are?) tiny. Thank you for sharing.
If more car manufacturers start charging for receiving AM/FM signals, radio and broadcast stations need to start charging them somehow. It's not right that someone comes in and charges for a freely available service.
😅 Have you asked TurboTax about that....? 🤔✌️😎
Very interesting interview! Seeing over the air TV broadcasts changing in some of the same ways as well - especially the encroachment of subscription content.
That 386 (i think) board art piece you made for your dad is awesome! And i also built one of those little "DIY AM radio science kits" as a kid.
770 WABC in New York City is the only station I listen to and need to get all the real information I need. It's a unique station. I'm def not old either. AM radio sounds great on a good tuner connected to a nice system. If they kill off AM radio, we are in trouble. The real beginning of the end.
The downside of AM is that you can get a lot of interference. Where as FM does not get as much.
But if there is not much interference you can get stations from further away.
Here in nz the furtherest away i have received an AM station is radio hellas from Melbourne on 1422.
I can also sometimes get one from Feji if conditions are good.
In terms of local radio i will listen to newstalk zb which is a talkback radio station, rnz national, and also the bbc world service which is rebroadcasted on 810AM in Auckland.
Nothing sounds better than a big old properly adjusted RCA Ampliphase transmitter, I think that if the AM stations got those again, people will WANT to listen !!
Loved this video. I'm a general class ham myself and very young at only 61 years. I remember picking up WGN out of Chicago late at night and listening to great rock and roll down in Kimberling city, MO back in the 70's. AM was amazing in it's ability to reach a larger audience.
I think you may be referring to WLS, another Superstition in Chicago. I'm about your age and grew up in Chicago. WLS was where it was at in the 70's. At least as far as top 40 was concerned. Bob Records Landecker, Larry Landeker...
In the Philippines, AM Radio is still quite common there especially it is intended mostly for news and information consumption. Many people out here uses AM Radio as their go to source of information in case there's calamities or in areas without access to television and lacking of electricity. Most of Prominent Radio Stations out here are DZMM (Now DWPM), DZBB, DZRH.
You "Had Me"@ "RADIO" - said the crusty old "Ramsey Elctronics Hobby Kit" Fan Boy! 🙂
I think many of us got our start building a little radio circuit and discovering the magic of building something out of a few components that could magically tune into a signal many miles away.
Long live AM. I even miss the days when analog TV was still common. I think in Central Europe AM will survive longer than in Western Europe or North America. In Hungary we have the strongest AM transmitter in Europe, Transmitter Solt. It's a 304 meteer tall 540 KHz 2 MW AM transmitter with around 12 kV voltage and 180 A current feeding the tower. It was modernized in 2017 but still has the original 1970s vacuum tube circuit there for backup. It is now considered a cultural heritage and its broadcast was heard even in Michigan and Kuala Lumpur.
I can hear KMOX from my bedroom every night. Clear channel stations are always heard at night. 50,000 watts will always get through no matter what the weather or propagation conditions are. No, AM radio will never die!!! Not as long as we cling to it and refuse to let it go.
The FCC should let anyone start an am station with no license but with actually inspect them often to see what is being broadcast. Lots of small AM stations run by people who are interested in it would be wonderful.
How interesting! Thank you.
Used to tune into AM stations at night to pick up stations hundreds of kilometres away. Could hear stations in New York City from Toronto!
Remember Art Bell?!?- THAT'S when I "rediscovered" AM Radio! - "We MISS YOU, Art!"
I still listen to KMOX sometimes at night, from our place two counties away from Canada! 🤠✌️😎
And back in late '60s/early '70s, here in the boonies where there wasn't an "underground radio" station, we got our cool music from KAAY Little Rock, after midnight! 📻 😎✌️
@@judsonleach5248 I love listening to Art Bell growing up, and he really helped save so many AM radio stations back in the day. Plus like him, or not, but the same can be said for Rush Limbaugh bringing people back to AM radio in the 80's, and 90's. We need more people like that who can draw, and hold and audience more than ever before on the AM waves, as 98% of FM is corpo trash music!!
I am a loyal listener to AM radio for many reasons. Foremost is the reliability factor despite propagation anomalies. I know where the 50kW clear channel stations are on the dial and know what programming I am going to receive.
I love listening to AM stereo. WION playing on my 1985 GM Delco Symphony Sound car radio!
I like tuning into 660 CFFR as I can get informed of what’s going on my area (news, traffic) every ten minutes. I place a lot more trust in them to get me my critical information when needed versus what the algorithms of the internet wants me to see.
I think commercial AM radio has the same fate as paper newspapers. When the older generations pass away, so will both of them. They could survive in certain niche markets, but not as mainstream media like they were in the 20th century.
It's the last summer to listen to the Test Match Cricket on Radio 4 Longwave (198KhZ) here in the UK.
It just feels appropriate to use long wave radio to listen to a sport with such a long history.
To be honest I'm surprised how long it's stayed on the airwaves. When you have smartphones, DAB radios, FM etc to listen to the same content.
Am radio in the big cities are used for sports and talk radio which are very popular you should mention that.
I really hope AM radio sticks around, if even just a niche. I think the one thing it has going for it is that, unlike analog TV prior to 2009, AM radio doesn't really take up a lot of bandwidth so there's less incentive for the FCC to make it mandatory to shut down.
As a retired broadcaster, I believe HD technology could help revitalize AM radio.
VHF AM (118 Mhz to 136 Mhz) is what aircraft uses when the aircraft flies over land. Single sideband HF is used on overseas flights. That's one example. 73 de ke4obe
Keep AM radio analog...Make something like DBX noise reduction standard...Bring back CQUAM (it sounded awesome)...and most importantly engage with and serve your communities, do programming that makes your station a "community hub", do not just let the automation buck 24/7 with $#!++y syndicated programming, weather updates that aren't updated, and impersonal presentation.
Years ago there was a English project called DRM ( Digital Radio Midwave ) , the benefits were FM quality for AM range .
This whole deal of AM radio was hashed over in the 70s. The FCC told them they could not drop AM radio and the FCC was to set new quality standards.
Terrific explanation on what's happening to our industry.
Other than traffic reports, I haven't listened to AM radio in half a century-and those have moved to FM.
I wish the AM stations that are in my area played the music that I like. There was a station that did, but they changed their programming after only 2 years. Even though it isn't as good as FM, I enjoy the novelty of listening to my favorite songs on my old radios.
@@meow69696 I know it doesn't sound good, I just liked the novelty of turning on my old radios and having something to listen to.
I was happy to see that you and your dad both got your Ham Radio licenses!
In Sacramento, our powerhouse is KFBK, the loudest AM station in town. Their FM station however is barely audible, so if you want to hear that station, AM is it.
That's a BE FM transmitter PA module in the background (the long thing with all the cooling fins). Pre-FMi series.
AM radio covers wide areas. The future should be AM Stereo with manufacturers supporting this by incorporating C-Quam decoding circuitry in their receivers.
I love AM radio. That's all we had in the 70s. It had 5 top 40 music stations. Still have one music station today.
Jeff and Dad - great discussion, amazing question and answer. In my opinion there is a time to let things be replaced by better, newer things. A perfect example is the evolution of the PC CPU. Imagine where we would be if we were satisfied with the 8086 processor. This is not one of those times. It is obvious that AM has a place and many great technological advantages, even over satellite from a coverage perspective. As someone who really appreciates the quality of the sound I get in my car (I usually listen to HD radio now) I never appreciated the value of "radio." Thank you for the awesome explanation and discussion of AM!
I grew up listening to KMOX and still get it on clear night here in Charlotte, NC.
Yep. Of course, Charlotte had/has its own clear channel giant 1110 WBT.
Nice interview. Greetings from Europe. Here also the AM stations are shutting down one by one.
When I go on vacation every year, I travel at night to avoid what is a VERY congested route here in England.
The journey is about 300 miles and it follows a linear radio desert where for about 75% of the journey I just can’t pick up any digital or FM radio (I literally pass right by Stonehenge on the way). I have discovered that the only channel that I seem to pick up with some clarity is Radio Madrid (in Spain) broadcasting on AM. Madrid is approximately 750 miles from me and is the clearest channel at night in that part of England.
So, every year, I listen to Radio Madrid for about 3 hours solid in order to stay awake and am kinda forced to improve my Spanish. And I'll be doing that journey again tomorrow.
I'd like to see AM continue, however the proliferation of extremely crappy electronics, like switch mode supplies inside cheap LED light bulbs etc, makes it extremely hard in my area.
On the Ham/Amateur radio side (VK3TGX) I regularly see S9+ noise in my area, so HF is mostly dead to me.
My washer puts out an awful lot of RF interference.
Hi great informative video, in the Uk the major broadcasters are closing down MW transmitters, also a lot European stations are already closing and close down MW and Lw stations . Regards & 73s mark
The only good thing that the AM band has working for it is that cell phone carriers can't use it! If they could, I could see it being sold off. I have noticed that NY has stopped transmitting alerts on their short distance AM systems along the highways. I do wish the FCC would open up a decent amount of power for "personal" or small community AM radio, the band is not full around me and most of the AM stations also forced out community FM to put up translators. There aren't enough community owned/operated radio stations, the big corporate owners stomp out the possibilities.
My car is 13 years old. Thankfully it’s fairly low mileage, 60k miles. It has a CD player, satellite radio, AM, FM, and I can connect my phone.
It is absolutely insane in my opinion that modern cars don’t have CD players or AM/FM radio.
Just yesterday here in the Philadelphia PA area we got several EAS warnings for tornadoes via radio and television; Not on mobile phones.
The St. Louis area had KZQZ on 1430 from 2008 to 2020 playing Oldies music which had a perfect blend of 50's/60's/70's. Around this time, Oldies radio on FM had diminished into "late 70's/80's" songs and my area at the time did not have any FM stations playing legit Oldies music anymore. KZQZ put a good signal in the Springfield IL area when they became 50 kW directional signal during the day, and I listened/recorded the hell out of it because of the huge variety of music they played and recorded a lot of what they played. It got me into Software Defined Radios and pushed me into getting better equipment to improve reception/clarity of AM signals as well as uploading some of the footage.
AM radio could still succeed if:
1. There are stations producing local content filling a niche (just as mentioned in ownership). KZQZ at the time filled something that FM stations did not. I think today, WKFB out of Pittsburgh comes close to what KZQZ played as seen from a KiwiSDR.
2. AM stations usually follow the ~10 kHz cutoff frequency, but many AM radios in cars are limited to ~3-4 kHz with no bandwidth control. This just isn't enough for long-term listening. Make it at least 7.5 kHz or give the user control since this is largely software.
3. Allow more generous nighttime coverage for local AM stations. I'm not sure what's the best solution, but I mean I would have much preferred to listen to KZQZ run their 50 kW directional signal at night than hear a jumbled mess of generic programming from CBS Sports Radio out of Indianapolis, lol.
I'm a RHAM (rouge HAM) I don't own a license. I play on all bands. Used to run pirate FM radio with a 200W transmitter in the old days. Listen, I've got respect, but I'm also inquisitive. I climbed a local tower recently because I wanted to see the magic up close. It was a bucket list thing. I will take my license though, because there's really no excuse for me to not have one. I've been nervous to join a local club because HAMS go crazy when you have no license. I don't know how they'd view somebody using the airwaves for 20 years with no license.
AM is alive and well. Almost 5K U.S. stations are thriving. There are more FM stations but that's partly because of more limited range on that band and there needs to be more of them to cover the country to the level that AM does.
@Practical Engineering and @Geerling Engineering would be a great collab to address disaster scenario preparedness and what not...