Hi,

If you feel strongly about something, don't hold back!!

Just kidding

Seriously, I think AM used to be a lot better!!

73's

Howard #3, W A 9 Y B W

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Thurman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2011 4:18 PM
Subject: Re: A Bit of Radio History


> ok I don'tknwo how that happened  that was very weird  this stuff is =
> facinating and makes more sense than the waste of taxpayer money we have =
> today. why do they need to redesign a system when the old system worked =
> perfectly well   although sad to ay I can't listen to wsm even here in =
> Raleigh without getting crap from other waste of time stations.   the =
> old days of am should have stayed that way it's disghusting how wasteful =
> it is to have the same crap on all the stations and waste the resource =
> of long distance coverage.  if tey tok half the trash off am  it wold =
> make far mroe sense  thanks fcc for screwing us overa nd over and over =
> again    i remember wen am dxing was awesome  but now it's a waste of =
> time unless you happen to be out int he middle of nowhere and can't get =
> anythign else   is it jus tme or has am reception gotten MUCH MUCh worse =
> in the last 7 or so years? i seem to remember it being much better when =
> I moved here than it is now
>
> and it was actually very good out west in Idaho and Utah
> and you should hear am radio as it was back int he late 80s when you =
> were 50 miles from the closest transmitter and had no noise and no =
> neighbor closer than a quarter mile  I used to get ksl out of salt lake =
> like I was in salt lake city up in Island park  by yellowstone  same for =
> the other am stations too  am ruled up there  fm was too distorted by =
> multipath unless you used a very directional antenna, and then it was =
> only the same crap you got in town unles syou plled it from the park
> 73 kb7la
> On Dec 7, 2011, at 5:10 PM, Michael Thurman wrote:
>
>> Concerning the 1 KHz tone, I seem to remember that there was 1 =3D=
>
>> 100 hertz modulation tone associated with it.
>>=20
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Martin McCormick <[log in to unmask]>
>> To:  [log in to unmask]
>> Date: Monday, Nov 14, 2011 09:32:14
>> Subject: Re: A Bit of Radio History
>>=20
>>> =3D20
>>> =3D20
>>> I do remember the CONELRAD tests.
>>> =3D20
>>> Radio and television stations would broadcast an
>>> introductory message as to what was about to happen. The carrier
>>> would go down for 15 seconds. Then, it would come back up for
>>> another 15 seconds. It was down for yet another 15 seconds and
>>> when it came back up, there was a 1 KHZ tone for maybe another
>>> 15 seconds. CONELRAD receivers had to detect the two drops in
>>> carrier plus the tone and that initiated the CONELRAD condition.
>>> =3D20
>>> My father was a science teacher at a school in Tulsa,
>>> Oklahoma at the time and had gone in to the teachers' lounge or
>>> maybe the school office for something and turned on the radio.
>>> He first thought the radio was broken because there were only
>>> two signals on the air. Then, he was reminded of the test which
>>> went for half an hour or so and then all other stations came
>>> back on and things were normal.
>>> =3D20
>>> I think the test was done every year for a while. I
>>> don't remember the first test, but the one in 1957 or 1958
>>> featured a talk by our state's governor at the time.=3D20
>>> =3D20
>>> I bet the station engineers loved this test if their
>>> station was one of the CONELRAD stations because they had to run
>>> all this stuff that you couldn't test any other time and it had
>>> to work perfectly this one day and, of course, be ready to
>>> switch in on a moment's notice.
>>> =3D20
>>> Tulsa had a 50,000-watt station KVOO at 1170 which was
>>> one of the CONELRAD stations so they had to electrically chop
>>> off part of their antenna to tune it up on 1240. I am sure this
>>> was accomplished by large contactors which are just huge relays,
>>> but still, when else could you make sure it worked?
>>> =3D20
>>> The other 50,000-watt station in Tulsa was KRMG at 740.
>>> I have no idea, for sure if they were the 640 CONELRAD station,
>>> but they would have had to add some electronic length to their
>>> masts to reach 640.
>>> =3D20
>>> It did work, however, so it just shows you what people
>>> do when they need to.
>>> =3D20
>>> Something else you might find interesting during those
>>> days was a plan to use AM broadcast transmitters as data links
>>> for RTTY and Morse.
>>> =3D20
>>> There was an article in "QST" several years ago about
>>> WSM 650 in Nashville TN. They actually had a FSK encoder on
>>> their 50-KW transmitter which shifted the carrier maybe 50 HZ
>>> and would have let them send RTTY to suitable decoders. An
>>> average citizen listening to WSM would have noticed nothing
>>> unusual. The article described the test transmission as a loop
>>> sending the call letters and the word "test."
>>> =3D20
>>> Lloyd Rasmussen writes:
>>>> I don't remember hearing any of those celebrity PSA's, but they =3D
>> aren't=3D20
>>>> very
>>>> different from what FEMA tells us today at ready.gov or other =3D
>> websites.