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Bruce Portzer writes:
"An interesting idea but it would be hard finding enough
usable channels in the larger metro areas."
I recall reading somewhere, when LP-FM was proposed that
there was no way that an LP station could be assigned to the Dallas-Fort Worth
market. Since that time, there have been several rim shotters move closer to
DFW, both on FM & AM.
The NAB quote "interference generated by power lines,
computers, traffic signals sensors, electric motors, fluorescent lighting, RF
from cable TV lines, and certain kinds of medical equipment often disrupt the
strength and clarity of AM radio signals" strikes me as the height of hypocrisy,
considering NAB's stand on IBOC. Trash I hear on 610, 630, 760, 780, 1070, 1090,
1150, 1170, 1300, 1320, tops the trash I hear from the noisiest rural
powerline.
IBOC might work when all analog transmissions cease and
hundreds of millions of radios are obsolete and have to be junked. But if the
tree falls in the forest and nobody's around to hear it, does it really make a
sound?
The pernicious punster from Manawhozis Key may have the
most accurate forecast of the medium wave broadcast band's future. (I hesitate
to use the term "AM" since my increasingly feeble brain embraces the concept
that the amplitude will no longer be modulated.) Newton Minow's famed reference
to the vast wasteland may apply to medium wave, at least for those of us who
won't find the programming to be a sufficient enticement to replace our junked
radios.
Power lines, computers, traffic signals sensors,
fluroescent lighting, RF from cable TV lines and certain kinds of medical
equipment ? not to mention garage door openers and touch-tone lamps ? even today
make listening to AM radio the equivalent of walking through a briar patch.
In the background as I type, my television sound system is
relaying XM Track No. 4, featuring big band sounds from the '30s and '40s ... I
get all the XM music channels through my DIRECT-TV dish, and I find the
playlists on this channel and Frank's Place to be considerably larger than, say,
that of Music of Your Life. Right now, I'm hearing "Don't Sit Under the Apple
Tree With Anyone Else But Me" by the Andrews Sisters. Heaven, it is! When's the
last time you've heard the Andrews Sisters on FM?
My goodness ... "Rubbly-ubb-dub, the Boogie Woogie Washer
Woman" ... I can hear all this music without worrying about where the troops
from Japan and Germany are located ... heaven! I'll even put up with the
occasional Guy Lumbago piece. Or even Lawrence Whelp.
And yet ... and yet ... I sympathize with the broadcasters
who are trying to salvage something from BCB. But the Canadians and the
Europeans have the better idea ... phase out medium wave! Couple that
with the opening of a new UHF band with enough channels to fill the
metropolitan area's market for all the niche formats that we now get for a
moderate fee via satellite and broadcast might yet survive.
Since only us geezers are interested in local news anymore
and we can still read our newspapers, the demise of local news on radio ain't
that bad. We can all monitor the two-meter ham band for severe weather
data, until all the hams die off.
BCB's passing will be mourned only by a handful of us
DX'ers.
Now y'all know why I am:
The Krumudgeon
John Callarman, Krum, Texas
(Seeking forgiveness for the above.)
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