In response to the Leslie Stimson article of Jan. 12, “Report Explores Message Service for Analog AMs”:
After decades of enduring all the engineering attempts devised to improve AM radio, I think I have discovered a simple solution. It is perfect for small-market stations and costs no money at all. Installation is simple and does not require referring to a manual or a consulting engineer. Suddenly, your station’s fidelity will double. Your signal will sound deep-bodied, full and musical. Even balding gray-haired guys in baseball hats (like myself) will notice the difference!
What could this new solution be? Certainly nothing could be as wonderful as HD Radio. Isn’t it amazing how one technology could improve on something as innovative as AM stereo and inspire America to buy all-new radios to hear hundreds of new channels imported from other markets or spewing out music like an iTunes Shuffle? (While we are on the subject, can you tell me where I can get an AM HD Radio?)
I know! I know! Maybe it’s the new FASTROAD QPSK/BPSK data system! (Radios don’t reproduce audio under 550 Hz anyway!) Considering AM radio’s current fidelity, I might actually need a digital display to remind me I’m listening to Rush Limbaugh. Unfortunately, it’s just another fast road off a cliff in the plummeting demise of AM radio.
My friends, there is hope. Remember when you would pull out a button on your car radio and push it back in to create a preset? That time has come again!
Let me rally America’s station owners to a new day of freedom and autonomy: “Pull-Out Friday.”
On Friday, July 1, 2011, let’s celebrate our independence from the corporate machine that corrupts and dirties the band we grew up on.
AM station owners: Remove your NRSC filters, C-QUAM and IBOC encoders, narrow pass-band filters and heavy processing. Let AM radio sound just as wideband beautiful as you remember it as a kid!
Paraphrasing the old spiritual: “Go down, AM, way down in radio land, tell old Struble, let my radio go!”
Karl Zuk
Katonah, N.Y.
