[BC] BUREAU ADOPTS ORDER TO MODIFY FM DIGITAL

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

In the past, one could play with the dial on an AM car radio during nighttime travels and always find something interesting. I used to fly to faraway places in the nighttime and listen to the radio on my ADF receiver.

Things have changed radically. Now the ADF receiver just picks up power-line noise as the needle points to the nearest city. There is so much corona noise that the AGC reduces the sensitivity to that of a crystal set. The same problems exist with automobile radios --except they are now made with such poor sensitivity that they do not appear to have any AGC at all.

I used to hear the slow beats as distant stations would heterodyne. Now, when I can hear anything, I hear audible tones of all frequencies, some because of the international 9 kHz spacing and some because they are just off frequency by a whole lot.

Then, when Clear Channel bought almost the whole spectrum, there was not anything new or different to hear anymore. The same program runs coast-to-coast with each city's transmitter being simply a RCO (remote communications outlet) so you might as well hit the XM button.

The technical problems could be fixed by some enforcement, both in the US and internationally. There are plenty of regulations. Many are just being ignored.

The programming problem will not go away. To have interesting programming that attracts listeners requires more than a "Mister Moto" machine playing CDs. Most listeners already have CD players and boxes of music.

Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Broadcast List USER" <Broadcast at fetrow.org>

More to the point, we have a lot of AMs in trouble.  Young people  
don't know what the AM button is use for, and they don't care.  They  
are not hearing anything compelling to them, so they just don't care.   
They are gone and won't be back.  Once we die off, it's over.

[Snipped...]