idea called "powerside", because all the
power was in one sideband. The concept was that you could pack more stations
into
the spectrum, since each one would only use on side of the channel. I think
it was a
bonehead idea, myself.

not as boneheaded as an earlier U.S. government idea

to purposely assign all (and I mean all) broadcast stations in the entire
country to the exact same frequency.

which is exactly what they did.

You can just imagine the interference.

They were all AM mode.