AM Radios

[MarioMania]

I love Transistor Radios, I'm starting to collect transistor AM Radios

I'm bought General Electric P2790

What's the best AM Transistor Radios for DXing

[bob91343]

Communications receivers, such as the Kenwood R-100 etc.

[WISCOJIM]

http://antiqueradios.com/forums/view...p?f=4&t=256717

[MarioMania]

AM Only

I made a accout there

[WISCOJIM]

The thread I linked has posts describing the best "AM only" radios.

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[Sandy G]

I'm thinking that, for the MOST part, AM only transistor sets were designed strictly to be as small & light as possible, & easy on batteries. They were designed to be only sensitive enuf to pick up the local one, two or three stations. Any REAL "DXing" ability was likely accidental, as was sound quality.

[jr_tech]

There were some larger (arm stretcher heavy) AM only analog radios that were quite decent DX machines... The GE P780, IMHO was one of the best:
http://radiojayallen.com/ge-p780/

Perhaps a better link here: http://www.radiointel.com/nrge.htm

jr

[Sandy G]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

There were some larger (arm stretcher heavy) AM only analog radios that were quite decent DX machines... The GE P780, IMHO was one of the best:
http://radiojayallen.com/ge-p780/

jr

Very interesting article... But Lexington Law, or whoever those bilious bastards are who HAD to put their money-grubbing feckin' shyster ads in EVERY photo, simply RUINED it for me...Stick w/Ambulance Chasing, you gotdam Lowlifes...

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Very interesting article... But Lexington Law, or whoever those bilious bastards are who HAD to put their money-grubbing feckin' shyster ads in EVERY photo, simply RUINED it for me...Stick w/Ambulance Chasing, you gotdam Lowlifes...

Sorry! hopefully this is a better link:
http://www.radiointel.com/nrge.htm
jr
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[Sandy G]

Danke Schoen ! ONE ad is two too many, but one on EVERY picture ?!? REALLY ?!? And PLEASE understand I WASN'T grousing about YOU, just the stoopit ads..

[WISCOJIM]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Danke Schoen ! ONE ad is two too many, but one on EVERY picture ?!? REALLY ?!? And PLEASE understand I WASN'T grousing about YOU, just the stoopit ads..

I didn't see any ads on any of the links. Don't you have any adblockers installed on your computer? If not, you certainly should.

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[Sandy G]

Yeah, I have adblockers, but for whatever reason, it DIDN'T get them. And I still despise Chortle-They run their ads on TV EVERY time the shows break for ads-And its always either that smarmy metrosexual, or the gal in that dopey blue dress-PLUS the annoying "Too School for Cool "electronic" piano background music.. At least it ain't a gotdam ukulele, some idiot whistling, or that smarmy "Synth-Clapping" crapola the Mad Men currently think denotes "homey, cheery" to the Great Unwashed masses they're trying to shill to..

[Jeffhs]

AM DXing is almost pointless, except for the thrill of hearing stations hundreds of miles away from one's home. Who wants to hear the same syndicated talk shows they can get on a local station from a station 500+ miles distant? That's what AM radio has become--the same old talk programs on almost every station on the dial. There are some very rare exceptions, such as low-power oldies music stations in small towns and religious broadcasters, to say nothing of the big all-news stations in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. For the most part, IMHO, the AM broadcast band isn't worth listening to anymore. Most music stations are now on FM.

I see a day coming in the not-too-distant future when the AM broadcast band will be reassigned to other services, not unlike the reassignment of analog TV channels. The programs now on AM stations will likely move to FM or to the Internet, if they haven't done so already. I understand there are many places in Canada where there are no more AM stations; most AM programming has been moved to FM, although there are still a few AM talk stations, such as CKLW in Windsor. But even that one may eventually abandon its 800 kHz AM dial position and move to FM as well. Sounds like something that should have been done in the U. S. a long time ago.

[MarioMania]

So you want AM to be a wasteland? Nothing just static

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by MarioMania

So you want AM to be a wasteland?

No. I do not want AM radio in this country to be any kind of wasteland. I do feel, however, that since most music programming has migrated to FM, the AM broadcast band is all but useless for anything other than syndicated talk shows, repeated across the dial at different times of the day, religion, and sports. The few music stations left on AM are, as I mentioned in my last post, mostly low-power oldies and/or nostalgia stations located in small towns or suburbs of large cities.

Many of these AM stations are going silent for financial reasons, or because their owners feel there is more money to be made with the stations' programming on FM. There was a small, daytime-only station in a semi-rural town about ten miles south of me that went silent several years ago, the reason being that the company to which it was licensed also operated an FM station and the AM station didn't draw the listener base the licensee had hoped it would. The AM station was also literally falling apart (poorly anchored and tilting towers, etc.), using outdated studio gear, and so on. It went on the air in 1969 and tried no fewer than four formats, none of which generated the revenue the station needed to remain on the air. The last format the station tried, in 2004 or 2005 if memory serves, was a satellite-delivered sports format (no local live air personalities) from the Sporting News Radio network, but that one failed miserably; that was when the owners finally decided to pull the plug on it and send the license back to the FCC for cancellation. The station, WATJ on 1560 kHz in Chardon, Ohio was never heard from again.

The foregoing is, unfortunately, what is happening to many small, low-power AM stations in the US, and is already happening (has happened, in many cities) to AM radio in Canada. (Some Canadian cities, even large suburbs, have no AM stations whatsoever now because of this.) It is no one's fault; the stations are going silent because of dwindling listener bases. Fewer listeners means less advertising revenue, which in turn means less money to keep the stations on the air. The big 50kW talk and news-talk stations are surviving (and have survived for decades) because they are owned by the CBS and ABC radio networks; small one-lunger peanut-whistle stations in medium-size or downright small towns aren't that fortunate. That is, they will stay on the air as long as the businesses for which they advertise can stay in business, but one slip can and often does mean the business(es) will fail--and the radio station may go with it, if its survival depends in large part or totally on the advertising for the business(es) that had to close for good.

I sometimes wonder about the future of a small, 1kW AM station in the next town south of me. It was a full-service (music, news) AM local station for most of its existence since it went on the air 58 years ago, but it now (since about five years or so ago) is almost 100 percent automated, except for a live morning program. I am thinking that one of these days, because it is automated and depends on local ad revenue, and since it is located in a city that is not considered suburban Cleveland, it may have no choice but to leave the air permanently; that or else revert to being a daytime-only station, as it was when it first signed on in 1956.

A similar situation exists for a 0.5-kW station in a Cleveland suburb, but the chances of that station going silent are slim to none since it is a well-established suburban broadcaster. That station's call sign is WINT; it runs 0.5 kW daytime, 0.042kW (forty-two watts) directional nighttime on 1330 kHz, and has been on the air in eastern Lake County, Ohio since 1965. It was also once a full-service radio station, but its owners recently decided to convert it to automated, satellite-delivered talk.