I was around plenty long before smart phones, and remember well the original brick mobile phones. But so what? Technology advances and that’s a wonderful thing.
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The Future - AM + Streaming only (no FM & HD)
- Thread starter kfbkfb
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We all have memories of "ancient times". This thread triggered my recollections of having to do weekly maintenance on my 4 AM stations in the 60's where readings on tubes had to be checked, declining tubes were rotated from modulation to RF, fans had to be checked, lubricated and cleaned (and replaced if they were getting noisy) and even the low-power tubes checked and the whole "box" vacuumed and relay contacts cleaned.
Now, you can put an FM in that market on a mountaintop and visit it a couple of times a year and that's it!
I find progress rather liberating in many respects.
Would need some PSAs (pre-roll ads on YouTube and also legacy media) to explain to people what to do when (a large part of) the cell network is (likely) to be down for an extended period of time.
An Earthquake would be a type of natural disaster that doesn't (yet) have a reliable warning system and can cause severe destruction of cell towers, power systems and roads, listening to an AM radio broadcast in a (undamaged) but unusable (due to road damage) vehicle might be the only way to get info (early in the disaster).
Kirk Bayne
This article cites people who are clearly uninformed on the subject.^^^
Officials sound alarm on carmakers dropping AM radio in new vehicles: 'Meant for emergencies'
Lawmakers and law enforcement have challenged the move from several carmakers to drop AM radio in new vehicles, citing its vital role during times of emergency.www.foxnews.com
...pointing to the role AM radio played during Superstorm Sandy in 2012
AM Radio was nearly totally off the air in NYC and environs during Sandy, and so it could not have been vital to emergency responders.
Essentially all the stations which transmit from the Meadowlands in north Jersey were knocked off the air. To wit: 1010 WINS, WMCA 570, WNYC-AM 820, WNYM 970, WLIB 1190, and several ethnic stations were all off the air during the storm. WOR was on the air but lost its studio and had to simulcast TV audio. Newsradio WCBS and WFAN were off the air for several hours even though they don't broadcast from the Meadowlands.
The FMs at Empire State remained on the air, although some had trouble at their studio or getting audio to Empire. At some point, CBS Radio began to air 1010 WINS on 92.3, and Newsradio WCBS on WCBS-FM.
Contemporary coverage from Scott Fybush's NE Radio Watch lists lots of other call signs with storm damage
On the contrary: in your plan, losing 750 WSB would remove EAS service from much of the Southeast, whereas losing one cell tower might remove Wireless Emergency Alert service from a few square miles.
The cell network has a certain amount of redundancy built in. Just because the one tower nearest you is damaged from an earthquake, hurricane, flood or tornado doesn't mean you won't be able to get limited service from the next furthest tower.
But not AM towers?
No, the storm would ignore the AM towers because they're so old.
Of course, but distant AM signals would still be receivable, cell phone system damage could disable a large number of cell phone towers instead of one or just or a few.
Kirk Bayne
But, if the terrestrial noise floor is so high that you can barely hear local stations, how do you propose to hear one many miles away?
That depends. What if the closest AM station was more than 100 miles away? And because it's so far away, it's just running syndicated or recorded programming? What good would would that do?
Until the mid 1990s every transmitter I had ever seen stood on the floor. Then I saw one of the small solid state ones, to which I remarked "that's not an AM transmitter, that's a CB!"
I miss my Drake TX4B/R4B twins for ham radio but time marches on
Something like that already exists Kirk. It's called EAS. That's assuming the local emergency management groups bother activating it. History has shown most are on the ground concentrating on taking care of folks and evaluating the situation, not making announcements on radio via some scratchy bucket brigade communications system.
No, really, April Fools is over. This, um, gag has long since become ludicrous.
This thread is like Ground Hog Day. Every day I wake up and it's like, lets re invent a system. It already exists. FEMA has hardened several 50KW AM stations. Even some FM stations. It's up to government entities to activate and use it.
There are even channels to send alerts to cell phones through various means. The weakest link, the humans that activate it and receive it.
How do we fix these humans that have been around longer than AM radio.
There are even channels to send alerts to cell phones through various means. The weakest link, the humans that activate it and receive it.
How do we fix these humans that have been around longer than AM radio.
Do you really think most people, especially most people under 45, would even know the next nearest AM signal that was receivable? We know that because we're radio people. Out of market AM signals rarely even get the minimum number of mentions to be listed where I live. So, the casual listener either doesn’t know or doesn’t care. If I tried to explain a system like that to my oldest niece (19), she'd look at me like I was from another planet.
Yeah, you could promote a system like that on YouTube and TikTok, but do you really think most people would remember that or even pay attention?
You're trying to reinvent the wheel. A system that failed 60 years ago isn’t going to work today either. If you want to find an effective solution to emergency alerts, you have to use the technology people are using today. That’s not AM radio.
I agree with Xmtrland that this thread is becoming like Groundhog Day. Unless there is something to say that is practical and doable today, I will close it or delete further messages.
That means "No additional suggestions of the use of AM radio".
That means "No additional suggestions of the use of AM radio".
Smartphones could have little icon - a Horse & Buggy + a Cathedral Style AM Radio (when the cell signal is off for some predetermined time) with advice to go use a car radio, select AM radio mode and try to find an AM station broadcasting info about the situation.
I really do think that in the foreseeable future, cell phone system based streaming of all content now on Radio and TV will be the only way content is distributed (it makes economic sense, no big expensive broadcasting towers to maintain, just stream your content using a small portion of the cell phone system bandwidth).
Kirk Bayne
I really do think that in the foreseeable future, cell phone system based streaming of all content now on Radio and TV will be the only way content is distributed (it makes economic sense, no big expensive broadcasting towers to maintain, just stream your content using a small portion of the cell phone system bandwidth).
Kirk Bayne
That's it. Thread closed.
Note: It's been said before that AM can not be incorporated in smartphones.
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