Re: AM Radio proposal - FCC relief?

Local community focus might be the best, it's something networks, satellite, most stations and the net don't offer right now. There's nothing like a station right in your community, tuned in to what's going on and ready to broadcast it.

Daytimers do seem to not be the greatest thing for the AM band, and they seemed to be important at one time when people couldn't get enough radio, and some of them made money and influenced music by playing new sounds. Some of them are probably still valuable to their communities, especially in rural areas as full service stations.

I thought of a restructuring idea a long time ago where station frequencies would be changed to 20 khz spacing, and in some cases 30 khz. A frequency map could be designed so that no one could be 10 khz away for some long distance, so you wouldn't have problems like KDKA/WBZ with 50kw signals interfering over large areas, I'd even make those 30 khz. There'd be a lot less 10 kc beat, and sideband interference, then receiver bandpasses could be widened for good C-QUAM stereo.

It seems dramatic to change lots of frequencies, but it's been done before, and maybe we need something dramatic.

How do you feel about directional arrays, lots of those are harder to put stereo on.

I do think broadcasters should be tougher about what's happening in their band, and go to work to try and make some of the rules and decisions, say hey, this is what I want. When the NRSC put into force 10 khz audio bandwidth on AM, down from 15 khz, there was barely a peep from broadcasters, according to what I heard, and read in Radio World.

All AM stations effectively lost a third of their real estate on the dial, and they just took it, probably because the slow introduction didn't shock anyone, and they'd constantly been fed a mantra that 10 khz audio was better and would help to save the band.

Boomer