Rich Wood wrote:
On 22 Aug 2003 14:48:14 GMT, "CAndersen (Kimba)"
wrote:
It prolly ties in with the idea that most people don't know that AM exists.


That's not our experience in New York. On 9/11 WINS had an AQH of more
than 900,000. I can't help it if they're too dumb to figure out how to
change bands on their radios. WCBS had an AQH of more than 300,000.
Both are awesome figures.

Might that be market-dependant?

NYC has no shortage of AM stations with adequate technical facilities to
provide good signals throughout the market. That can be very different
in other markets. For example, here in Nashville there are only two AMs
(WSM & WLAC) that have reliable coverage throughout the market at night
- and even WLAC can be flaky in places.

(it may not be a coincidence WLAC's news-talk and all-sports competitors
are both 100kw FM stations)
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

Are they supposed to? Your issue is with traffic. I recall lots of
Yonkers coverage when low income housing was proposed and the city
made lots of nimby noise.


My issue isn't with the traffic. My issue is the hazmat debris all over the
place. grin

My answer was a generic answer.

I listen to NYC stations for NYC or National topics.

I expect local issues and concerns to be aired on local stations, not
national satellite fed pabulum.

On 23 Aug 2003 20:08:38 GMT, (Mark Howell) wrote:

It would be more accurate to say that younger listeners don't know AM
exists -- especially teens. I have a young lady working in my
newsroom who claims never to have listened to AM radio, even up to
this day, and being aware of its existence only in the vaguest sense
before starting to work in radio. (She had also never seen a 45 RPM
record, and didn't know what they are until I showed her one that
happened to be lying around in one of the studios). She turns 19 in a
couple of months. I think she's probably typical of her age group,
judging from conversations I've had over the past few years.

Not long from now, probably within our lifetimes, the generation after
her won't know what FM or Satellite Radio is. When I was her age I had
never seen a 78 or an Edison cylinder until my grandfather showed me
his collection of them.

That's why the delivery system isn't important. Content is. While
delivery systems constantly (slowly) change, the formatting of the
content hasn't changed very much. It's a linear playing of a song or
two, some announce, commercials or fundraising "promo" more songs, ad
nauseam. Talk hasn't changed much, either. The most significant change
in talk has been the telephone.

You and I will sit on the porch in 2020 reminiscing with our
grandchildren about MP3, CDs, Minidisks and digital audio systems.

We can't forget to complain, even then, about consolidation and cookie
cutter radio. The kids will look at us with that "what planet is he
from" look. My family has long life genes. Unless we get hit by busses
we live into our late 90's, so I'll have plenty of time (I figure
2035) to educate uninterested kids.

Rich

"Rich Wood" wrote in message

Not long from now, probably within our lifetimes, the generation after
her won't know what FM or Satellite Radio is. When I was her age I had
never seen a 78 or an Edison cylinder until my grandfather showed me
his collection of them.

I'd say the term "Satellite Radio" will outlast the term "FM". Listeners
will always need to consider whether the programming they seek requires a
special outdoor antenna, oriented to the sky. They'll want to be aware of which
bands offer local weather and commercials, and which offer niche music. But
they won't care to know which component of a terrestrial signal was modulated to
represent the ones and zeros of digital data. Thus they're likely to say "local
radio" and "satellite radio," just as they refer to cable, satellite and local,
or "regular" TV.

As you note, content is what matters, and the term "satellite radio" conveys
crucial information about what content to expect and how to set about receiving
it. Terms like FM or the truly archaic UHF and VHF do not.

BTW, are you predicting the obsolescence of the terms or the technologies?
78's and Edisons are long out of production, a fate I don't hear you predicting
for satellite or FM radio.

Jerome

Rich Wood wrote:
On 23 Aug 2003 20:08:49 GMT, Doug Smith W9WI
wrote:
(it may not be a coincidence WLAC's news-talk and all-sports competitors
are both 100kw FM stations)
The only talk stations that have reasonable numbers are WWTN-FM (5.1)
and WLAC-AM (4.0) What's the other FM talk/sports station? Not Salem's
"Christian Talk" with a .8? Both WLAC and WWTN dropped in the Spring
book.

You may not have heard of it, as it was a VERY recent format change -
just last week IIRC. WGFX-104.5 (licensed to Gallatin) flipped from
classic hits to all-sports. There hasn't been a book since they
flipped, so I've no idea how they're doing.

(which station are they listing with Salem "Christian Talk"? I thought
Salem's only stations in the market were religious AC simulcast pair
WYYB/WRLG. But I work in TV so am not fully up to date on who owns what.)

(oh, I meant competitors strictly in the sense of offering similar
formats - not necessarily in the sense that they were having any
relative successgrin)

In Nashville you might be right. I'm amazed that WWTN has better
numbers than WLAC. WWTN's programming is weak (IMHO), compared to
WLAC. Looking at the lineups I would assume WLAC has a signal problem.

Up here north of town WLAC definitely has nighttime signal problems.
I've heard the Joliet, Illinois daytimer on the same frequency on the
car radio at sunset, while driving within 20 miles of the WLAC
transmitter. They are directional at night, though their nulls don't
fall into any extremely important areas. I suspect the high dial
position is the big problem. My personal impression is that, averaged
across the market, WWTN's signal is considerably better than WLAC's,
especially at night.

Too, by comparison to NYC, Nashville's FMs have considerably better
coverage. Less interference, more power, higher towers.
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

This is a fascinating discussion. I remember when AM transistor radios
had the little triangles on the dial denoting 640 and 1240, but that's
as far back as my memory goes on the subject.
There is a station in Fayetteville NC (WFNC) on 640 centrally located
amidst several military bases. Does anybody know if this station had
some sort of central role with CONELRAD back in the day?
For that matter, did the heritage AMs currently on 640 or 1240 fulltime
have any history with it?

GTT



Charles Gustafson wrote:
--------------010207050005070101080006
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I'm old enough to remember. At the class 1B clear channel station I
worked at our 10 kw auxiliary transmitter had a bunch of components that
had to be jumpered and/or added. We would test it into the dummy load
after we set it up on 1240. There was a large manual denoting the
changes that had to be made. There was also an area test where we would
get an alert from the Conelrad control point and we would have to set
the aux to 1240 and turn its control over the the control point and then
they would test for a half hour or so. On for 30-60 seconds and off for
3-4 minutes in a random pattern. I think this was the only exception to
the union contract that we could do anything except take meter readings
without a supervisor there. Of course we took about 100 meter readings
and then typed them into the official log every 1/2 hour.

Later at a EBS (what was it now CSPS??-1) main station we had a 35 kw
generator and 1500 gallons of diesel fuel, console, turntable, cart
machines, tape machines and at least 30 days of food at the transmitter
with walls 24 inches thick (8" block, 8" reinforced concrete, 8" block
sealed and air conditioned. We also had two way radios between us and
the State Police and the local County Sheriff/FEMA office. FCC (for
FEMA I believe) came out every so often to check out our EBS readiness.
Even the food and the other ends of the two way radios to be sure the
links worked. Everything was also (supposedly) protected from EMP.

I asked one day how much notice we would have to man the site in the
event of an attack and was told about 15 minutes and I said "Oh good!
It takes me 20 minutes to get there from the studios in an emergency".
The FEMA guy just shook his head and smiled.....