Why? AM might as well be in a sub zero freezer in Phoenix. Everything on the first page of this thread (with the exception of the last item) has happened in the Valley of the Overcrowded Frequencies.
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Signs of the AM Apocalypse
- Thread starter DrAkbar
- Start date
Why? AM might as well be in a sub zero freezer in Phoenix. Everything on the first page of this thread (with the exception of the last item) has happened in the Valley of the Overcrowded Frequencies.
This is exactly why I had to listen to a stream of a baseball game tonight. I was listening on a local station sounded just fine, then the sun goes down and it seemed like I could hear every "790" west of the rockies. I could hear them, but I couldn't listen to any of them.
Having run a garbage frequency AM... there's nothing like flipping on the air monitor in your own studio and barely being able to hear your own station.
Or in some places, you can't hear it at all. When I ran 1230 in Phoenix, the studios were maybe 10 miles from the transmitter, but I could hear every 1230 in the region under our own signal after dark.
If the FCC wants to actually help the AM band, they should have told stations like KOY to turn off the AM when they got the translator. The first step to improving Ancient Modulation is for fewer stations to use it.
I get why people are downgrading AM stations for the sake of licensing a translator to accompany it. But since the whole purpose is to get the FM, why not let them just turn in the license on the AM and call it a day?
That might not be possible, because of the continuing rule that you can't originate programming on a translator. If you buy an existing translator, you have to claim the AM station that will be primary. If you got your translator under the revitalization rules, the translator and its primary AM station are forever locked together. One can't be sold without the other.
In both cases, if the AM goes down (or is intentionally turned off) for a certain length of time, the translator eventually has to be turned off as well. This is not the same as having a daytimer, where the translator can continue to operate overnight.
There's early wording where the FCC makes clear their intent is not to turn translators into FM stations that happen to be simulcasting an AM station. It may look that way, but you can't treat them as such.
I understand the rules.
My point is that the FCC dropped the ball when it amended the translator rules in the name of "AM revitalization." Other countries who are trying to clean up the band shut down the AM when they move to FM. In the US, we move them to FM and force the AM to continue to operate, which is a waste of spectrum. Frequencies like 1310, 1440, and 1230 are spaced roughly 75 miles apart. If you want to fix those frequencies, you need to start turning some of those off. But everybody wants the other guys that are interfering with them to be the ones to shut down. So we do nothing to really fix the problem.
So you'd suggest having the government to use eminent domain to shut these stations down? How do we go about doing this, given our laws are different from those in other countries?
I'm not advocating eminent domain. I am saying that if part of the deal for applying for a translator was that you shut down your graveyard AM, that's a trade that a lot of people would take.
With the exception of Canada and Mexico, in the Western Hemisphere we have not seen a massive or significant migration of AM to FM and very few cases of an AM being traded for a new FM with the condition of turning in the AM.
Canada has a several-decade-long system of allowing AM stations to migrate to FM, with the AM going silent; some of the AM frequencies turn up again with more specific special audience targeting. Canada had never licensed excessive AM or FM facilities, so they could use available spectrum for the new FMs as the band was not "full".
Mexico, in part, redefined "full". They changed the separation for stations in the same city and market, so more fit on the dial. They were able to allow about 2/3 of all AMs to move to new FMs. Most turned in the AM license as a condition, but some with extensive coverage on AM got their FM but had to keep the AM on the air "until such time as the rural service area has radio coverage". Of course, a big part of the push came from Mexico's legislative body declaring AM no longer viable and stating that the jobs and investments should be preserved.
In most of the rest of the Hemisphere, there have long been too many FMs. When the tipping point came where some AM-onlys could no longer stay viable, the owners had missed the chance to get an FM as the band was packed nearly everywhere. So some AMs were sold to religious groups, mostly evangelical, and others went off for good.
No place with free, commercial radio of significance has shut down AM. And in the places where they are trying to move everything to digital (mostly nations where the state broadcaster is dominant) they have found that the timetable has to be vastly extended.
Because the US is nearly unique in licensing so many highly inferior AM stations (daytimers, local channels, stations with 500 watts at 1600 into 6 towers), it does make sense to try to cleanse those mistakes by letting stations eliminate the AM if the translator they get is adequate. A great incentive to making this happen would be to allow, if technically doable, up to 1 kw on translators if a substandard AM license was tendered for cancellation.
The FCC is trying to revitalize failing stations. They should also be trying to make up for past mistakes by thinning the heard.
Do you have to be a "failing station" to qualify for a translator? If so what are the criteria?
"Thinning the heard" means deleting licenses, and I imagine the FCC isn't interested in doing that. Fewer licenses mean less revenue.
Is the FCC's primary goal to make money?
Since the Reagan administration, basically yes.
Maybe not "primary goal," but its funding is based on the ability to raise money, in fines, fees, and other costs.
One of the great revenue producers for the FCC is the sale of spectrum to telecom companies. This is not unlike the Interior Department selling or leasing government land for grazing or mineral rights. That's the for-profit side of the government.
If you ever wonder why the role of the FCC changed so much between the 60s and now, this is partly why.
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The original "250 mile" waiver was for class C & D stations. Then...
Filing Window #1 - Class C and Class D licenses not listed as a "primary station" of a "250 mile" application in 2016
Filing Window #2 - any station not listed as a "primary station" of a "250 mile" application in 2016 (so class A and B could apply)
So the majority of the translators are for class C and D. Class C are the 'local' stations spaced closely together (250w - 1kw). Class D are the daytimers, 250 watts or less, some now allowed to operate at night at under 100 watts.
These signals barely cover the metro during the day and even less at night, which is why they got first crack at a translator.
No Phoenix ancient modulation station covers the entire metro at night. Even KFYI and KTAR have trouble in east Mesa and Gilbert. I have to take my radio outside to hear anything at all other than KTAR, and it's weak indoors. That, of course, is due to the stucco/chicken wire-encrusted houses, like mine, that have been pretty much everything that's been built since the mid or late 1980s.
Try listening to Ancient Modulation at the Buckeye Media Hut. Stucco, chicken wire, and live chickens roaming the halls. YIKES!
So hard to wrap our fezzes around what Vic Michael is doing with KPHX. 640 watts day, 25 watts night @ 14~Eighty. What the hell is the point.. other than to feed his 3 watt translator? https://fccdata.org/?facid=202643 (sfx - thump. Was that a frog hitting the roof?)
I'm surprised no one at the FCC has advanced the idea to allow AMs that operate FM translators to voluntarily turn off the AM at night. The night-time facilities of the AM would continue to be protected until such point a consensus is reached to make the translator facility primary status, at which point the AM would be deleted.
That's when frogs fly! (or fry....is that's how they cook up frog legs?)
That's when frogs fly! (or fry....is that's how they cook up frog legs?)
Because they'd have to come up with a different name than AM revitalization.
I can't think of any reason to run that facility other than to have a translator.
Exactly. Some revitalization, huh?
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