Goodbye AM radio, says Ford, Tesla

https://www.radioworld.com/columns-...s/did-am-radio-just-get-hit-by-lightning

I understand why this is a trend.

But as one who heard stories from my grandfather
about building his first “crystal” AM radio from a kit and listening to KDKA in the early 1920s
it is a sad milestone.

India is switching to “static free” AM radio using the no fee DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) transmission type.
In the USA only 2 AM stations are using the “static free” 100% digital private USA company Ubiquity “Hybrid Digital” or HD AM transmission.

I am not against either FM radio or streaming.

It is sad that when it gets dark you cannot turn on your AM radio and get “static free” AM stations from 2000 miles away for free.
Stations like
650 WSM, 820 WBAP, 840 WHAS, 1020 KDKA and more
could be heard nightly static free and at FM like quality in every vehicle in the lower 48 states
if DRM had been adopted in the USA like is being done in India.

I remember back in the '70s in SoCal listening to a station in TX one night.
The phrase I heard from the guy who was showing me that was that "the skip is in".
I think it was an AM station.
I haven't listened to AM in a LONG time, but I agree that there's a sadness to losing the old things.

Yes sad news. I can remember back in '69 in my '69 RR in SW PA just southeast of Pittsburgh finding a parking spot on a high hilltop listening to an underground AM radio station from Chicago and other AM stations even farther west on most evenings. Not so much from the east of the Burgh I always guessed because of the Appalachians but maybe some other reason? My AM radio antenna at full tilt in southwestern PA. KDKA was way to easy being a Pittsburgh AM station.

back in the early, early 60's, i would tune in WLS, WOWO, and several others very late at night while dozing off to sleep, listening to my "pocket" size [so many "crystals", but i forget just how many] radio via ear phones.[the grandfather of "ear buds"]

Guess the days of Wolfman Jack and "I heard it on the X" are going by the wayside. I listened to AM radio last week, caught some of the NFL game because I was getting tired of Country AM radio. I don't have unlimited cell phone or sticks with my favorite music on it, so I still listen to AM and FM while driving across the country. Luckily I don't have too long to live as I am turning 65 in the next few weeks...

Love the Am radio. My A100 has the original Am radio and I’m glad it still works

I can't remember the last time I listened to AM radio. I was installing FM converters in the mid 70s in everything I bought (or would swap it from the last car).

These days, neither my coupe nor my truck even have any form of music, and the coupe has been our long distance ride for the last 12 years (about 90,000 miles on it alone). My wife and I actually talk with each other when we are riding in the coupe or the truck!

Through years of hearing abuse (factories, grinders & metal working equipment, loud cars, dirt track racing, and loud music, don't need no stinking hearing protection said that younger me), I can't hear most radios in a vehicle with the windows down, and I like to dive with the window down as much as possible through the warmer months. If you can't hear the radio, not much sense in wasting effort or money on it.
As I get older, I'm considering adding AC to the truck, then a radio may be considered, but it wouldn't be an AM radio.

Long, long gone. Like 35-40 years gone.

WBZ, Boston. Larry Glick. How are you? Lemme check...not bad.

Art Bell had serious issues switching from AM to digital, #1 I think was people downloading the show, deleting all the ads and then putting it up on youtube by 7am next morning, it was enough of an issue he flat out quit. More people were listening to the bootleg steams than his actual live show (that was done in the middle of the night)

The recent passing of Jim Bohannon silenced one of the best late night conversationalists.

When I was a kid growing up in northern Wyoming in the '60's the only station to listen to was 1520 KOMA out of Oklahoma City.

Funny this came up. The FM went out with the factory radio is my 96 Ram about 6 months ago. Been listening to AM since. However, I don't drive the truck much anymore.

Nothing better on a summer night than sitting on the back patio, sipping a beer, listening to Cardinals baseball on KMOX's 50,000 watts on a transistor radio.

I still listen to AM radio on my drive to an from work.

I listen to AM radio almost every work day. A local AM station has some good talk shows.

I thought you would be retired by now???

ahhh............. you got lots of years left on your clock, youngster.......

Is the first human that will live to be 150 years old already alive?

sample quote

When the researchers looked at normal signs of aging in the animals that had undergone the treatment, they found that the mice, in many ways, resembled younger animals. In both the kidneys and skin, the epigenetics of treated animals more closely resembled epigenetic patterns seen in younger animals. When injured, the skin cells of treated animals had a greater ability to proliferate and were less likely to form permanent scars—older animals usually show less skin cell proliferation and more scarring. Moreover, metabolic molecules in the blood of treated animals did not show normal age-related changes.

This youthfulness was observed in the animals treated for seven or 10 months with the Yamanaka factors, but not the animals treated for just one month. What's more, when the treated animals were analyzed midway through their treatment, the effects were not yet as evident. This suggests that the treatment is not simply pausing aging, but actively turning it backwards—although more research is needed to differentiate between the two.

end quote

from

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-cellular-rejuvenation-therapy-safely-reverses.html

he77, i'm already a guinea pig for the medical community........... i guess i might as well try that too !

More reasons not to buy new Fords or Teslas.

As if you needed more

Around here they pulled the last music station off AM years ago and it's all news talk radio stuff now which I don't listen to so it wouldn't affect me in the least.

700 wlw has an fm station simulcast and strangely I’ve heard static on the fm one right in downtown.

700 WLW has perhaps the most varied history of experimenting with radio broadcasts, high power levels, simulcasting, etc

WLW used to really kick a s s.....

In January 1934, WLW began broadcasting with 500,000 watts after midnight under the experimental call sign W8XO. In April 1934 the station was authorized to operate at 500,000 watts during regular hours using the WLW call letters. On May 2, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ceremonially pressed the same golden telegraph key that Wilson had used to open the Panama Canal, officially launching WLW's 500-kilowatt signal.

As the first station in the world to broadcast at this strength, WLW received numerous complaints from around the United States and Canada that it was interfering with other stations, most notably from CFRB, then on 690 kHz, in Toronto, Ontario. In December 1934, WLW was instructed to cut back to 50 kilowatts at night until it had eliminated the interference.[36] The station began construction of two shorter towers 1,850 feet (560 m) southwest from the main tower in order to create a directional antenna, which successfully reduced the signal broadcast towards Canada. With these antenna towers in place, full-time broadcasting at 500 kilowatts resumed in early 1935. However, WLW was continuing to operate under special temporary authority that had to be renewed every six months; each renewal brought complaints about interference, and undue domination of the market by the high-powered station.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLW

There are still a few “WHOPPER” power AM stations on Earth:

https://mwcircle.org/most-powerful-mw-am-stations/

Earlier last year there was an annoying “heterodyne whistle” on 890 WLS Chicago.
It was caused by a high power AM station in the desert of Algeria.

When I was a kid in central Illinois when the weather was just right I could listen to KDKA in Pittsburgh.

WLS was the king of radio back then too.

In all seriousness, i don't think I have listened to AM in 20 years.

I only listen to AM. News, traffic, weather. Then watch the people listening to rap stuck in traffic jams.

I listen to AM on long rental car trips. The FM stations fade in and out once you get away from the larger towns so you find yourself pressing the seek button all the time. When your really really way out there the AM stations are the only ones that come thru clear enough to listen to.

AM should have been condemned as soon as FM came along. It's like watching a black and white TV compared to color(for the youngsters reading this there was such a thing)
There is still FM but it's useless because they don't put on any good programing(unless you like to hear bad songs over and over again). Back in the 80's i had a car stereo that had "AM stereo". There was very few stations broadcasting it but it was more like noise/static in stereo.

FM initially had its limits and there were fewer desirable stations available especially sports radio stations like even the daily baseball broadcasts. Most of the FM stations back in the day were either classical or underground and "pirate" rock stations. Also the range and higher priced FM receivers were not that popular. Most home and portable radios were AM. As you said about black and white TVs they also didn't go away for a long time as the color TVs were much, much more expensive originally.


Pros and Cons of AM vs. FM

The advantages of AM radio are that it is relatively easy to detect with simple equipment, even if the signal is not very strong. The other advantage is that it has a narrower bandwidth than FM, and wider coverage compared with FM radio. The major disadvantage of AM is that the signal is affected by electrical storms and other radio frequency interference. Also, although the radio transmitters can transmit sound waves of frequency up to 15 kHz, most receivers are able to reproduce frequencies only up to 5kHz or less. Wideband FM was invented to specifically overcome the interference disadvantage of AM radio.

A distinct advantage that FM has over AM is that FM radio has better sound quality than AM radio. The disadvantage of FM signal is that it is more local and cannot be transmitted over long distance. Thus, it may take more FM radio stations to cover a large area. Moreover, the presence of tall buildings or land masses may limit the coverage and quality of FM. Thirdly, FM requires a fairly more complicated receiver and transmitter than an AM signal does.

Yeah but, watching black and white on old Zenith has it's alluring moments and excitement especially the older shows lol.

Not surprised. In my area it sounds like Mexican radio! lol

Monday Wall Street Journal newspaper article:

“Sadness and Static as AM Stations Fade”

Sample Quote from last line of article:

“But I once heard Long John Nebel
(former WMCA late night host)
muse about how radio waves never fully disappear, they’re out there somewhere for all time”

end quote

if there is one good thing to say about this, it is one less item people will have to screw around with on the "infotainment" system.
not that "distracted drivers" cause any ills in society............