FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai says it is time to rewrite rules for AM

[Laurence Glavin]

>----- Original Message -----
>From: Garrett Wollman
>Sent: 09/26/12 12:24 PM
>To: Kevin Vahey
>Subject: FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai says it is time to rewrite rules for AM

 <<On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:07:59 -0400, Kevin Vahey <kvahey@gmail.com> said: > http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0919/DOC-316374A1.pdf > He claims that only 20% of radio listening is from the AM band and for > teens it is 10% > He thinks anti-skywave antennas might be part of the solution which I > interpert as if installed a station can stay on daytime power and pattern. >Does he know anything about either physics or RF engineering? >-GAWollman 


 It's been a long time since LTAR was heard on WJIB-AM, but I dimly recall a discussion of a new AM antenna design
 that was supposed to reduce skywave. I don't recall that it was the same type of AM transmitting antenna that
 was being tried in Egypt (the country, not the village in North Scituate, MA) which apparently was designed to have a smaller
 footprint than the typical medium-wave tower. It's possible that if such a design existed, the current day economics
 of broadcasting just aren't conducive to building-out new facilities for AM stations from scratch. (The WSRO upgrade
 was accomplished with existing towers). In Brockton, two AM station owners have to install long-wire antennas for their
 outlets because the properties on which the exisitng towers sit were not part of the sale. And here we are late
 in the construction season, and Nashua's WSMN-AM 1590 for all I know is no closer to completion than it
 ever was.