Dumbed down consumer electronics: Adding DTV channels

Alaska, Texas and California have a larger land area than Finland, as expected. However, I did not expect Montana to be also slightly larger.

FM started here in the early 1950's and only a few people relied on AM in the 1960's. In the 1990's medium wave AM was used to send news to Finnish speaking emigrants in Sweden and to the Finnish speaking minority in NE Russia.

Since those days, only hobby based low power (0.1 kW) AM transmitters have been used during some selected weekends, mainly to support DX-listeners.

To me, it is a surprise that medium wave AM is still actually used for commercial broadcasting.

The total area of the US is 3,537,441 sq. miles, approximately the same area as Europe... 27X the size of Finland.

AM radio is a big financial deal in the US, with annual revenues in excess of $2 billion. ...Jim Thompson

Excuse my looseness... that's $2 billion in "rated markets", so a good deal more than that overall. ...Jim Thompson

On long drives I listen to AM a lot. The reason is quite simple. The US is such a large country and there are long stretches of land with very sparse population. IOW not enough market for FM stations with their low range. You can always find this or that local station but if their programming is boring, well, then you must switch to the AM band. Also, the smaller FM station tend to drift into the noise after only a few country songs while AM stations usually stay around for hundreds of miles.

That's why I like satellite radio. The stretch of I8 from Gila Bend to Yuma is devoid of FM and has only Mexican AM... although some of their oom-pah-pah bands can be pretty entertaining... and their ads are hilarious... all that shrieking, hooting and hollering ;-) ...Jim Thompson

Since we switched to DISH Network, our TV consumption hasn't gone down (the end of the world wouldn't do that), but our frustration level has skyrocketed. The city is proposing a venture into the cable TV and Internet market (the network would be useful to the power company) and as much as I don't like such things, I'm leaning towards it.

Too bad it didn't happen last year. They could have named them the "Byrd Towers" and had the taxpayers fork over for them. Maybe they could slide it in the appropriations bill for NIST, between WWV and WWVB.

Didn't think country would be your style.

Ahora escuchen YUMAAAAAH! Ven al partido de futiboooooool EL DOMINGOOOOO!

OK. You have that down-pat. I'll see if I can get you an announcing job with KPAZ ;-) ...Jim Thompson

Isn't KPAZ a religious station? Can't recall any Espanol on there but it's been a while.

KPAZ is _the_ major Hispanic station in Phoenix. ...Jim Thompson

That's your option. I can watch some programs that aren't even broadcast in my area, but they are delayed a few weeks or months. Like the new 'Stargate Universe'.

They should have insurance to pay for the replacements. After all, their last tower claim was in 1936. :)

Up to 50 KW AM transmitters are quite common. At one time WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio ran 500 KW on 700 KHz.

Not some. Most. Some stations run both services, some are strictly AM or FM.

You may be able to access the FCC website from outside the US, but I doubt it. It lists every radio & TV station in the US.

Here are pictures of some of your local radio stations:

Particularly bothersome if you have to change the antenna direction to get some of the stations. No way to get them all, even if they're all good, but in different directions.

$40 for the radio & $160 for three union members to install it.

channel, then back,

Another case of a 'Poorly Locked Loop'? ;-)