Bob wrote:
A few decades back there was an "all channel radio bill" introduced in
Congress that would have mandated that all radios over $15 be FM
capable. Did that ever get off the ground?

Y'know, I don't know!

Of course, today there are a lot of radios out there that *only* get FM.
(usually not very well...)

I'm inclined to think the relative extra cost of adding NOAA to an
inexpensive AM/FM portable today would be considerably greater to that
of adding FM to a early-1970s AM set. You'd need an alphanumeric
display and enough buttons to handle programming. Either that, or you'd
put in a NOAA receiver that simply opens up whenever it detects modem
tones, without bothering to decode the data. I suspect most customers
wouldn't stand for that. The addition of FM to an AM set simply
involved adding an AM/FM switch and inscribing a few more numbers on the
existing dial.

And then, there's the question of battery life.

--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

In article lid writes:

I'm inclined to think the relative extra cost of adding NOAA to an
inexpensive AM/FM portable today would be considerably greater to that
of adding FM to a early-1970s AM set. You'd need an alphanumeric
display and enough buttons to handle programming. Either that, or you'd
put in a NOAA receiver that simply opens up whenever it detects modem
tones, without bothering to decode the data. I suspect most customers
wouldn't stand for that. The addition of FM to an AM set simply
involved adding an AM/FM switch and inscribing a few more numbers on the
existing dial.

Huh? The addition of FM involved a VHF front end, a different mixer
oscillator operating in the VHF range, different mixers, a different
detector, and in those days, AFC functions to deal with the problem
that the local oscillator drifted.

So, aside for the audio amp and the speaker, not much was common.

A NOAA receiver would need to find a NOAA signal to listen to ---
probably automatically, since most users would not bother to find one
locally, especially if they were traveling (think of the radio in a
car). It probably could be fixed on simple alert tones, but still,
would need the ability to find, tune, detect, and process the 162 MHz
narrow band FM signals. Not trivial, and of very limited value when
that radio is not in use.

If you live in tornado country, you probably want to keep a NOAA radio on
listening for alert tones all the time. When I was in Kansas last month,
my relatives there had one. A radio that is turned off most of the time
would not do the job.

Of course, in the San Francisco Bay area we are more likely to have
earthquakes than a tornado; earthquakes come with their own alerting system.

Alan

Alan wrote:
Huh? The addition of FM involved a VHF front end, a different mixer
oscillator operating in the VHF range, different mixers, a different
detector, and in those days, AFC functions to deal with the problem
that the local oscillator drifted.

No, I mean in terms of user interface.

'Course, I suppose in those days (early-mid 70s?) "internals" weren't
nearly as cheap as they are today.

Of course, in the San Francisco Bay area we are more likely to have
earthquakes than a tornado; earthquakes come with their own alerting system.

True enough. Though apparently you do occasionally get the same kind of
emergencies the rest of us do. One day, driving near Meridian,
Mississippi, I heard the EAS tones go off. Skies in Mississippi were
clear, with not a hint of severe weather. Announcer came on and said
"The National Weather Service has issued a severe thunderstorm warning
for...


Marin and Sonoma Counties in Northern California."


(it was a satellite-fed translator of a San Francisco station...)

--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

In article ,
(Alan) wrote:

Huh? The addition of FM involved a VHF front end, a different mixer
oscillator operating in the VHF range, different mixers, a different
detector, and in those days, AFC functions to deal with the problem
that the local oscillator drifted.

Not to mention another IF strip. And in those days, VHF was literally
magic. When I was a kid, I built the Heathkit AM and FM tuners. The AM
tuner worked at power up. A couple of tweaks and it was ready for
action. The FM was stone dead when it came to output. I ended up taking
it down the street to an older kid's house (he was a ham) and he bench
aligned it for me; no other "repairs" were required. FM was touchy in
those days.

Now, VHF is practically DC.

--
John Higdon
+1 408 266 4400

Doug Smith W9WI wrote:


True enough. Though apparently you do occasionally get the same kind of
emergencies the rest of us do. One day, driving near Meridian,
Mississippi, I heard the EAS tones go off. Skies in Mississippi were
clear, with not a hint of severe weather. Announcer came on and said
"The National Weather Service has issued a severe thunderstorm warning
for...


Marin and Sonoma Counties in Northern California."


(it was a satellite-fed translator of a San Francisco station...)


Gee, I wonder who that would have been? Stares at feet.

JT

--








----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

David wrote:

This is a failure of the EAS, not Clear Channel's business plan.
There ahould mechanisms in place to allow the local authorities to
override the regular programming when a time sensitive local emergency
warrants.

its worse than that. people actually DIED as a result of Clear Channels
Business model.had they implemented EAS properly in those stations in
Minot, folks would have had actual information in a real emergency.

The problem here is that all the broadcasters are seeking to the bottom
line, when they should be thinking of the communities that they serve. It
may take a few more deaths, but there is some rumor afoot to make
installation of EAS type equipment mandatory in all stations and in all
facilities transmitting over the air. sure, it may cost a little and the
broadcasting companies (read that as big content) will surely complain
bitterly. However, they should be looking at the problem this way: will it
cost more to install the equipment, or get sued out of existence because
they didn't and someone died as a result?

Doug Smith W9WI wrote:

David wrote:
This is a failure of the EAS, not Clear Channel's business plan.
There ahould mechanisms in place to allow the local authorities to
override the regular programming when a time sensitive local emergency
warrants.

EAS is that mechanism. My understanding is that the local authorities
failed to activate it, or failed to activate an alternative local plan
that, if activated properly, would have alerted personnel who *were* on
duty at the Clear Channel stations and resulted in the broadcast of an
alert.

small problem, NO ONE was answering the phones at those stations.
We have a couple of clear channel stations located in smaller communities
here in Arizona and 90% of the time, they are "robot" stations (unmanned
unless something breaks).


In any case, how much good would it have done if an alert had been
broadcast over Clear Channel's stations? They may have a 95% *share* of
the listening audience at 2am, but how many people are actually
listening to the radio in Minot, North Dakota at 2am?

thats a strawman argument...


The right place for this type of alert is NOAA Weather Radio.
Inexpensive radios are available that can be left on while sleeping,
that can be used to awaken the owner when something like this happens.
(you're not going to leave KZPR "Power 105" on all night every night in
case there's a disaster - the disaster will be when you try to function
in the morning without sleep!)

uh yeah.... it would be helpful of those were built into a standard alarm
clock+radio. a stand alone unit folks simply aren't interested in.


While we're at it, the EAS (and this should happen at the state level)
should be modified to stop running alerts over excessively large areas.
For example, several recent Amber Alerts issued *statewide* in
Tennessee in the early-morning hours. A Memphis resident can do nothing
about a child abduction in Bristol 400 miles away at 3am; if you keep
waking them up for this kind of alert, they're just going to turn off
their NOAA radio. (and next time there's a chemical spill in Memphis...)

there is a reason for statewide alerts man. how far do you think someone in
a car can travel in a couple of hours? try about 120 miles (at speed
limit). now, say that amber alert was delayed by an hour because no one
knew the child in question was missing for that hour, that suddenly makes
the search area an additional 60 miles or so (you can figure out the area
inside a search radius thats 180 miles from center). in any case, it
wouldn't take the perpetrator long to make the 400 miles (especially if
he/she were driving at greater than speed limit).

the purpose of the amber alert system is to have the most pairs of eyes
looking out over the largest practicable area (such as here in Arizona). We
have had would-be kidnapers try and take kids "south of the border here" in
less than 5 hours from time of abduction to time they were caught. the only
reason they were caught was the alert went state wide (and Arizona is a big
place compared to the likes of Tennessee). 6 hours. thats not a lot of
time.....

consider these points next time your kid goes missing and you called for
a "local only" amber alert and it turned out the kidnapper was already
outside of that zone....

On Jan 29, 6:03 am, David wrote:
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 05:32:07 GMT, Doug Smith W9WI





wrote:
Bob wrote:
A few decades back there was an "all channel radio bill" introduced in
Congress that would have mandated that all radios over $15 be FM
capable. Did that ever get off the ground?

Y'know, I don't know!

Of course, today there are a lot of radios out there that *only* get FM.
(usually not very well...)

I'm inclined to think the relative extra cost of adding NOAA to an
inexpensive AM/FM portable today would be considerably greater to that
of adding FM to a early-1970s AM set. You'd need an alphanumeric
display and enough buttons to handle programming. Either that, or you'd
put in a NOAA receiver that simply opens up whenever it detects modem
tones, without bothering to decode the data. I suspect most customers
wouldn't stand for that. The addition of FM to an AM set simply
involved adding an AM/FM switch and inscribing a few more numbers on the
existing dial.

And then, there's the question of battery life.


- If people don't bother to get an All Hazards radio, screw 'em.

DaviD - We need a Federal Grovernment program to buy
each and every poor resident of the USA their own NOAA
Weather Alert Radio to ensure that they are Safe. Every
Illegal Alien needs a Weather Radio when they are crossing
the Border so that they can Safely {Illegally} Enter the
Country. Why NOAA Weather Radios are a basic universal
Human Right. ~ RHF

On Jan 28, 2:42 am, Tester wrote:
Is Clear Channel qualified to run all six non-religious commercial
stations in Minot, SD? Is any single company?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/ma...IdeaLab.t.html

In the early morning of Jan. 18, 2002, a Canadian Pacific Railway
train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed just outside Minot, N.D.,
spilling roughly 240,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia into a woodsy
neighborhood on the outskirts of town. The resulting toxic cloud grew
to some five miles long, two and a half miles wide and 350 feet high,
enveloping the homes of approximately 15,000 people. Confused and
afraid, thousands of Minot residents turned on their radios to get
public warnings and instructions on how to stay safe.

Yet no such information was available. Minot's six nonreligious
commercial stations, all of which were owned and operated by the
nation's largest radio company, Clear Channel Communications, were
broadcasting prerecorded programs engineered in remote studios. Police
dispatchers couldn't reach anyone in Clear Channel's local offices:
the town's new emergency-communications system failed to automatically
issue an alert, and no one answered the phones at the stations. What
ensued was horrific: as one man died and hundreds became ill from
inhaling the poisonous gas, the airwaves were filled with canned music
and smooth-talking D.J.'s.
[...]

So... 'local' Police and Fire Deparments have NO Responsibility
and only Radio can get the job done - Not !

Gee Wow I was Asleep - Did I Miss Something ?

what we have here is a failure to communicate ~ RHF

On 29 Jan 2007 19:04:01 -0800, "RHF"
wrote:


- If people don't bother to get an All Hazards radio, screw 'em.

DaviD - We need a Federal Grovernment program to buy
each and every poor resident of the USA their own NOAA
Weather Alert Radio to ensure that they are Safe. Every
Illegal Alien needs a Weather Radio when they are crossing
the Border so that they can Safely {Illegally} Enter the
Country. Why NOAA Weather Radios are a basic universal
Human Right. ~ RHF
**** the doomed...