AM Broadcast transmissions to stop?

Hello all,

I heard rumors that in a not too short time (some years from now) AM broadcast transmissions will stop in Europe, because no one (except us of course) is listening to these programs. In Europe, almost anyone uses FM reception.
Are there members that have information about this rumour?

Best Regards

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Hello Georges,

Despite these rumours the facts speaks for themselves. AM broadcast stations are in the decline, in some areas less, in other areas more, particularly those in the German speaking countries. We can be lucky, if we can receive only one station in our area anyway. The program choice is always poor. The little number of stations still broadcast are mostly news and information programs like Deutschlandfunk. In other countries like the UK, Spain, France and the Netherlands the situation is still better, but how long will this go on ?

Within the next years many stations will be converted to digital, leaving only a loud noise in our old radios, making them useless. On some frequencies DRM digital stations already operating, even Radio Luxembourg, the big 208, now broadcasts digital during daytime.

 

Best Regards

JR

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Dear Georges,

I don´t know whether you´re capable of reading German. There´s already an interesting thread dealing with this subject: http://www.radiomuseum.org/dsp_forum_post.cfm?thread_id=17330#post19986

It is said that the current modulation will be changed.

Cheers

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yes, herr KAMANN, I can read German.
Thank you for the link, indeed very interesting information

Best regards from Belgium

Georges

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For more about DRM see &

For stations on long- and medium wave broadcasting in DRM see V , click on "online edition"

 

Best Regards

JR

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En ce qui concerne la fin du AM et les modes digitaux, les francophones peuvent suivre les dernières nouvelles depuis un certain temps dans la revue "Radiofil" (Retro-Phonia et AEA).
 

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Digital radio is great for very local radio stations, but for a broad area like Europe, where everyone is on the move and everyone likes to tune in to the home country when on vacation, digitalization is a moronic idea!

For those that enjoy a chopped cell phone conversations that drop when the circuitry 'thinks' it can't receive a signal anymore, just imagine the insanity of listening to digital radio on the autobahn..........just when you are focused on listening to the news, the voice cuts out!

The individuals who are pushing hard for DRM, are forgetting that the information age was born when analog radio was at its prime!

There was a time when the Great 208 was the REAL "earthlink" with a million watts at midnight, hammering out all latest hits from Europe and America.........this is what brought "perestroika" and the tearing down of the wall....not any politician or arms race(amazing how the DJ's and station disappeared by 1991)!


Sure the Soviets spent millions on jamming "corruption" and sure Radio Moscow tried to compete with Joe Adamov and the rest, but to the Westerner, it was one big laugh.

DRM will come about. When it does, I wonder if there is a way a converter could be attached to the radio.

HDTV will become the standard in the United States in 2007. For those that don't want to buy a new television, they will have the option to add a converter to their present television.

To me, DRM is a solution to a problem that never existed!

I hope they just leave the medium waves alone.

Omer

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Hello, I am a new member. I am 41 now and remember a childhood of listening to Radio Luxemburg 208 with the 'Solid State' Hong Kong made tranny up against my ear with my head under the pillows, because I was supposed to be asleep. GREAT DAYS.

At the moment I am listening at 3:21 a.m. to BBC Radio 2 from my lovely Denon TU-alphaS10 custom made FM tuner (made in Germany) and the sound is beautiful, but still rather quiet due to the flat above me!

I think it is sad that AM is going for the reasons others have given. I live in Norfolk England and we would sometimes listen to Hilversum or NordDeutscherRundFunk on FM during the sporadic E season and even pick up on the lingo. Ofcourse with Medium Wave one only had to wait till night. I admit Luxemburg did use to 'flange' a bit, but that never hurt Jimi, did it?

Recently the BBC reported that listenership to the World Service was higher than ever, so perhaps Shortwave is safe for a while.

I think this RadioMuseum is great, when I pause collecting and repairing I will have to upload some of my stuff. Mainly microphones and recording stuff. I've got a few very old British mics which should please the rest of Europe and a Peiker not in the museum yet.

Michael

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Hello gentlemen. This is time to stop complaining and take some ACTION. Group together and write to your local politicians and radioi stations. AM will be shut down if they don't know that a LOT of people is still listening to them hours and hours a day. Here you can get an idea of what we're trying to do:

http://www.radiomuseum.org/forum/medium_waves_broadcasting_in_italy.html

Please join in.

Regards - Marco.

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I am fearing that our western economy system is one of the main reasons for this development. We all benefit from it, no question, but there is no system without disadvantages.
Omer said already : we get solutions offered which we don't need at all. Why ? Because this method is one of the most important supporting tools of our economy system, whether we welcome this or not. People shall buy things they do not need. Nearly nobody in Germany really needs a cross-country vehicle, except for forest rangers or farmers, but people buy them more and more without rational reasons. They got convinced of the advertising and of their own pursuit of personal importance.
And my opinion concerning HDTV : see above. Who needs HDTV ? Most people are casually watching TV and not because they are really interested in the programme or nice pictures. And the old technologies (NTSC, PAL, SECAM) are by far not as bad as discussed in public and advertisement. But persons responsible for broadcasting do not care because they are permanently besieged by the lobbyists. And the manufacturers want to sell new equipment.
No doubt - the digital solutions will appear sooner or later, but not primarily because of technical progress reasons. The only way to save part of the old technologies could be by mailing our complaints to the responsible politicians, as proposed by Marco.

Rolf

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