Finally, some good news regarding AM radio

[radiotvnut]

I was scanning the radio dial and found radio station WJRD (1150) out of Tuscaloosa, AL. This station is playing oldies from the '60's through the '80's. They are currently playing "The Fool On The Hill" by Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66. I did a web search and they used to be a talk format. It's rare to have a talk station flip to (decent) music. I'll admit the music is pretty common; but, it's better than anything else we have. Oh, here's comes "Alfie" by Dionne Warwick. Maybe the music selection is a little more obscure. I never heard that song on any FM oldies station. Anyway, I'm located about 95 miles (Meridian, MS) away from the station and it fades in and out; but, is listenable. I may have to put up an outside antenna and find a good AM radio with an RF stage. I know I'm happy at the moment....

[Scorpion8]

[Bigyank]

Ever check this site out?

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin...sort=freq&sid=

Not one for AM myself!


Yank

[radiotvnut]

The main reason I'm into AM is because I collect tube radios and most of mine don't have FM. I usually end up repairing my radios and then sitting them on the shelf, only turning them on every five years to make sure they still work, because there is nothing decent to listen to in my area. Now, I may get motivated to fix and use more old radios since I've found a decent music station.

[radiotvnut]

I'll add that AM sounds much better to me on a tube radio than on most modern consumer grade stuff. It seems that most of the newer stuff is designed just to pass a signal on AM and that's about it. Even the AM section in my mid '70's Kenwood receiver has poor sensitivity and fidelity. A basic 5 tube radio from the '60's has better fidelity and sensitivity than my Kenwood receiver. I was listening this afternoon on a '50's Zenith Bakelite case AM/FM with good results. The AM sounds almost as good as the FM on that radio.

[Celt]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

I'll add that AM sounds much better to me on a tube radio than on most modern consumer grade stuff. It seems that most of the newer stuff is designed just to pass a signal on AM and that's about it. Even the AM section in my mid '70's Kenwood receiver has poor sensitivity and fidelity. A basic 5 tube radio from the '60's has better fidelity and sensitivity than my Kenwood receiver. I was listening this afternoon on a '50's Zenith Bakelite case AM/FM with good results. The AM sounds almost as good as the FM on that radio.

The older sets had wider bandwidth because the AM band wasn't as crowded when they were made. As the band filled up with more and more stations, manufacturers had to narrow the bandwith and increase selectivity to seperate closely spaced stations, thus reducing overall fidelity. A few sets have selectable bandwidth to take advantage of better fidelity, but usually only can be used for strong local stations or clear channel stations, which there are few of these days.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Celt

The older sets had wider bandwidth because the AM band wasn't as crowded when they were made. As the band filled up with more and more stations, manufacturers had to narrow the bandwith and increase selectivity to seperate closely spaced stations, thus reducing overall fidelity. A few sets have selectable bandwidth to take advantage of better fidelity, but usually only can be used for strong local stations or clear channel stations, which there are few of these days.

A point of interest: The days of clear channels, where only one or, at most, two stations occupied the frequency after local sunset, are a thing of the past. There are no more "clear channel" AM stations these days, due to an FCC ruling about 20 years ago which abolished that classification. Today, these former "clear" channels (a few of which are 700-760, 800, 1100, 1110-1130, 1160, 1190, et al.) are used by former daytime-only stations, which operate at lower nighttime power and often with directional signal patterns. The change was made so that the small towns/rural/suburban areas served by these stations would have local radio 24/7, rather than the local station (which in many very small towns and rural areas miles away from any large city may well be the area's only strong radio signal) signing off at sundown.

However, selectable bandwidth on some older radios could and often does improve the fidelity of local signals, as you noted. Many communications receivers designed for amateur radio have crystal filters with selectable bandwidths; the receiver (Hallicrafters SX-101A) in my first amateur radio station had a switchable crystal filter which could, at its narrowest setting, reduce the audio bandwidth to as little as 500 hertz. This is considered an optimal bandwidth for CW (Morse code) reception in the high-frequency (HF) amateur bands. My current HF amateur radio transceiver (Icom IC-725) has a fixed plug-in optional CW crystal filter, also 500 Hz if I remember correctly.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

I'll add that AM sounds much better to me on a tube radio than on most modern consumer grade stuff. It seems that most of the newer stuff is designed just to pass a signal on AM and that's about it. Even the AM section in my mid '70's Kenwood receiver has poor sensitivity and fidelity. A basic 5 tube radio from the '60's has better fidelity and sensitivity than my Kenwood receiver. I was listening this afternoon on a '50's Zenith Bakelite case AM/FM with good results. The AM sounds almost as good as the FM on that radio.

Zenith's AM/FM radios from the early '60s sound better than today's sets as well. I have a Zenith C845 with eight tubes and an eight-inch speaker, plus a 5" tweeter, that sounds much, much better than most modern radios, even on AM. My Zenith K731 also beats today's Japanese/Korean rebadged stuff by a mile, probably because of the Zenith's 5x7 oval main speaker and a 3" electrostatic tweeter. Both the '731 and the '845 are in real wood cabinets, which I'm sure improves the sound as well.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

I'll add that AM sounds much better to me on a tube radio than on most modern consumer grade stuff. It seems that most of the newer stuff is designed just to pass a signal on AM and that's about it. Even the AM section in my mid '70's Kenwood receiver has poor sensitivity and fidelity. A basic 5 tube radio from the '60's has better fidelity and sensitivity than my Kenwood receiver. I was listening this afternoon on a '50's Zenith Bakelite case AM/FM with good results. The AM sounds almost as good as the FM on that radio.

I had a Zenith integrated stereo system in the early '80s that had about the worst AM tuner I have ever heard. No kidding--mine was so bad I was getting short wave on the AM broadcast band after sundown. (The AM reception in my area at that time, near-suburban Cleveland east of town, wasn't all that great either; I think if I had held on to that system when I moved to where I live now, a small NE Ohio town some 40 miles from Cleveland stations, it would have been a setup for one heck of a letdown--in other words, the AM section of this system was good for near-suburban reception, but get out much further than 15 miles from the stations and the AM performance drops like a stone.) The irony was that the FM reception was very good, typical Zenith. That system must have had an AM tuner section designed as you said; just well enough to pass a signal--nothing more, nothing less. The fact that the AM tuner in my system was picking up shortwave stations on the broadcast band at night leads me to believe that the tuner was extremely poorly designed and usable, as I said, only in strong signal areas.

The AM tuner in my present stereo system, an Aiwa NSX-A888 mini system bought new in 1999, has problems as well--I think. There is a 1kW AM station on 1460 kHz in my area that comes in at two points on the digital AM tuner, 560 and 1460 kHz, 900 kHz apart. If this station were a big 50kW bruiser I would suspect it was overloading the front end of my tuner, but this particular station is only 1kW days and 0.5kW (500 watts) nights. Since my apartment is some five miles (more or less) from the station's transmitter, I don't think I'm getting any huge amount of signal on that particular station. That leaves only one thing--the design of the tuner itself. Again, it goes back to what you said about the slap-dash manner in which AM tuner sections of even expensive stereo receivers are built, especially models of the last 30-35 years or so. Like yourself, I have vintage table radios that sound better on AM than even my bookshelf system; lately I've been listening to my Zenith MJ1035, an early FM stereo receiver from the 1960s. Except for some hum in the sound and not a heck of a lot of audio level (but enough to get decent listening volume), this radio sounds better than any modern radio I own, except perhaps for my 1958 Zenith C-845.

The makers of stereo receivers over the last three decades or so have probably decided to concentrate their efforts on the FM tuners and just put in an AM section that isn't much better than a crystal set. There isn't that much worth listening to on AM anymore anyway (except for stations such as Toronto's AM 740 and possibly other small U.S. stations), most of it being talk, sports or other non-music programming, so there is really no need for wide bandwidth in the AM tuner these days. I don't know if very many people who own these stereo receivers even listen to them on AM (you are apparently one of those few who do); after all, when one spends a large amount of money on a stereo system, he/she will almost certainly be listening to the FM tuner and running their turntables, cassette decks, CD systems, etc. through the amplifier. AM radio was never meant to be a high-fidelity music medium in the first place; but then again, the music played by stations such as AM 740 was never hi-fi stuff either (remember, those songs are anywhere from 30 to 80 years old or more, some possibly even predating electric phonographs and having been digitally remastered).

AM stereo, which was supposed to improve the sound of AM radio, went bust in the early 1980s, as did quadraphonic sound. I'll never forget how an article in a late-sixties issue of the (now defunct) Electronics Experimenter magazine began: "It's fantastic! It's colossal! ... and it is also A BOMB!"

Quad sound was a bomb, all right. It lasted through the 70s and the very early eighties, but it died long about 1983; the same thing happened with Dolby FM, though Dolby has made a comeback as it is now used extensively in home-theater audio systems. I don't know to this day if there were any FM stations in the northeastern Ohio area that broadcast Dolby-encoded signals. I have a Radio Shack SCT-11 cassette tape deck which has Dolby capability for both tape and FM, but I cannot seem to notice much of a difference in the sound when I use the Dolby decoder with my commercially-recorded (Time-Life Music Service) cassettes, almost all of which have been recorded using Dolby noise reduction.

I don't know that the sound of AM radio will ever even come close to the full fidelity of a good FM stereo signal. The reason is the difference in modes and, as I said, the fact that AM by its very nature is not a high-fidelity music medium. I don't care how much processing goes into the signal at the station; if the receiver is of poor or mediocre design, the audio will sound not much better than a table radio, and that's being kind.

[Randy Bassham]

There are just some days that I wish I'd never heard anything better than a Bakelite 5 tube AM set, especially during the last 1/2 of the 50's and the 60's. I know I enjoyed it more then.

[Nolan Woodbury]

Interesting discussion.

Jeff, the deregulation you mention falls right in the time period when the AM mega-stations pretty much disappeared in Phoenix. Being so close to Mexico, unregulated signals from south of the border absolutely blowtorch the airwaves here after sundown. Except for a few sports/talk stations, quality AM listening has pretty much vanished...for music anyway.

Good luck and long listening with your new favorite station radiotvnut. Although we're lucky to have some quality FM stations locally, I've occasionally been very disappointed with various programming aspects. Most of us who love radios love listening to them too. It can be tough.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Nolan Woodbury

Interesting discussion.

Jeff, the deregulation you mention falls right in the time period when the AM mega-stations pretty much disappeared in Phoenix. Being so close to Mexico, unregulated signals from south of the border absolutely blowtorch the airwaves here after sundown. Except for a few sports/talk stations, quality AM listening has pretty much vanished...for music anyway.

Nolan, I live within perhaps a mile of the south shore of Lake Erie in northern Ohio, so I hear quite a few Canadian AM stations (CKLW-800 Windsor, CFCO-630 Chatham, plus several Toronto stations including CHWO-AM 740), not to mention many Canadian FMs when the band opens up in the spring, summer and early fall. However, I have never noticed these Canadian AMs taking over the airwaves in this area at night as you say the Mexican stations do in the Phoenix area. What's the difference? I know there are quite a few superpower stations in Mexico, but around here the Canadians pretty much stick with 50kW or less. I have never had one bit of trouble with any Canadian AM station overloading my radios. Those Mexican stations across from Arizona must be running well over 50kW if you say they "blowtorch" the air in the Phoenix area after dark. Are these stations even licensed, or are they pirates, on the air strictly to jam the Phoenix stations? Since you say the Mexican stations are unregulated, I would think they are unlicensed pirates, just out to cause no end of trouble for the legitimate stations in Phoenix and elsewhere in Arizona.

As far as FM radio goes, in my area the stations play mostly rock, oldies, active rock and classic rock, probably, even likely, because Cleveland is the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; the last of the easy-listening stations left the air about 18 years ago. Thank goodness for Internet radio stations, which still play a good variety of music, including easy listening. My favorite Internet station in the latter category is "The Breeze" from Crown Point, Indiana, near Chicago (www.thebreez.com), as I may have mentioned in an earlier post. I can also get easy listening and a wide variety of music on Time Warner digital cable. I don't know if you have digital cable at your house or if the cable company serving your area has converted to digital yet (TW did a complete digital conversion of all systems it owns in northern Ohio last year, including the system serving my small town), but if you do, I'd suggest running it through your Zenith console stereo (don't know if it has external audio inputs) or even your MJ-1035, which I seem to remember does have at least one auxiliary audio input. You won't be disappointed. When I had my cable box connected to my stereo, the sound was excellent. This cable service offers some 45 channels of commercial-free CD-quality digital music; there are absolutely no interruptions except an occasional Emergency Alert System test. There are no commercials and few other interruptions on The Breeze, except for recorded ID announcements every half hour or so.

[radiotvnut]

Another thing that could be done is to feed the audio output of the cable box into one of those small AM transmitters and then tune it in on your antique radio.

As far as our FM selection, we have: NPR, many religious stations, a current top 40 station, two modern country stations, one classic country station, two (c)rap stations, 1 R&B/Southern Soul station, 1 adult contemporary station, and 1 classic rock station. No oldies station anymore. That one is now a (c)rap station. I usually find myself going from the classic country station to the classic rock station to find something I want to hear. The oldies station got so it played only the same 20 songs over and over. That's probably why they went under - not enough variety.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

Another thing that could be done is to feed the audio output of the cable box into one of those small AM transmitters and then tune it in on your antique radio.

As far as our FM selection, we have: NPR, many religious stations, a current top 40 station, two modern country stations, one classic country station, two (c)rap stations, 1 R&B/Southern Soul station, 1 adult contemporary station, and 1 classic rock station. No oldies station anymore. That one is now a (c)rap station. I usually find myself going from the classic country station to the classic rock station to find something I want to hear. The oldies station got so it played only the same 20 songs over and over. That's probably why they went under - not enough variety.

One of the rock stations in this area went from adult-contemporary rock to oldies a couple months ago, exactly the reverse of the former oldies station in your area. Their adult contemporary format wasn't doing so well, I guess. I live between two cities (Cleveland and another lakefront city called Ashtabula), so my FM radio dial is always full of stations. (The AM dial is too, but much of the time there is too much noise to hear much of anything other than strong local stations in the daytime.) My Zenith C845 has an RF stage that works for both AM and FM, so this set is hotter than a firecracker when it comes to RF sensitivity. As I mentioned in my reply to Nolan Woodbury's post, this radio will pick up just about anything within 100 miles of here, just using its built-in antenna, when the FM band is wide open. I regularly hear stations from Erie, Pennsylvania and Youngstown, Ohio (the latter being some 90 miles southeast of me) during band openings, as well as the Canadian FMs I mentioned. I don't even want to think of what this set would pull in if I could hook it up to a good external FM rooftop antenna--the dial would probably be loaded with stations from one end of the dial to the other, with no dead spots whatsoever. I'd try just that, but I live in an apartment building, so cannot erect any kind of outdoor antenna. Speaking of unusually long-distance FM reception, I remember one summer, about 38 years ago, when I was listening to one of the local FMs (top-40 at the time; it's a rap station now) during a severe thunderstorm, and it suddenly was knocked off the air. Imagine my surprise when, a minute or so later, I heard a station from West Palm Beach, Florida, booming in as though it were the local station normally on the frequency. I was listening on a 17-transistor AM/FM/FM-stereo portable radio with just a telescoping whip antenna at the time.

[analog]

Living here in Southern California I remember the "border blasters" from Mexico. Back in the 60s Wolfman Jack was on XERB that transmitted at about 100KW if I remember right maybe more. You could listen to him pretty much from the border to Washington State and most of the western US at night. Other border blasters were XPRS an XETRA from Baja. Those were the days.