As part of the FCC’s current study of localism, an effort’s afoot to lobby the agency to leaglize a form of low power AM radio service. Not only would LPAM be a good supplement to LPFM in general, but it might allow for placement of new community radio stations where congestion on the dial precluds new LPFMs.
Included in this month’s A1 is a supplement that summarizes the process for filing comments with the FCC’s Localism Task Force, and contains a list of recommended issues to emphasize.
Category: AM Radio
The Sound of Silence
It’s been nearly four years since the radio industry began feeding on itself, but it really didn’t hit home until just this month.
As a child, it seemed that WMAQ Radio (AM 670) was always on in my mother’s kitchen. The station had been around almost since radio broadcasting was born. WMAQ took to the air in Chicago in April of 1922. With 50,000 watts of power, WMAQ easily boomed through to southern Wisconsin, where I grew up.
WMAQ is probably best known for its firsts – it was the first station to broadcast a live transatlantic conversation; the first to do play-by-play of professional baseball games; it hosted the first educational radio program (FM radio broadcasting was still more than two decades away from reality). Continue reading “The Sound of Silence”