Why is AM radio so crap compared to FM? Is there some fundamental difference that just has to ruin my appreciation of sport? Why cant AM be clened up? And yes, i'm drunk again...but the question still stands
Do you mean crap in terms of transmission quality, or crap in terms of content? There's a fundamental difference in the method for delivering the signal, by I won't go into that until I know that's what you're asking about.
Yeah, I'm trying to listen to the cricket on MW but every night, maybe the ionosphere is to blame, it is all crackly and basically, shit. The only clear signal is online..
How far away is the transmitter from where you live? That's usually the first thing to blame. I have annoying 60Hz or thereabout interference (hum) from the house or possibly transmission lines. If it's a cheap radio, then get a better one. If you have a decent radio with external antenna input, you could try buying or making a dedicated antenna. I guess it also depends on the band. In the US, MW is basically shortwave which includes upper "AM" band or just above it.
Good radio (maybe too good) and ext. antenna. Seems to pick up a mouse farting at 10,000 yards, yet can't pick up the damn cricket..Just as we pick up another cheap wicket as well..
If you're far from the transmitter, then AM is more likely to be affected by interference than FM. There are far more sources of interference likely to affect the amplitude of an AM signal than a likely to interfere with the amplitude encoded into the frequency modulation of an FM signal. Having said that, you may be able to pick up AM stations from further away, since AM signals are better able to bounce off the ionosphere than FM signals.
Can I ask a really dumb question? Why should AM be able to rattle round the country incoherently and still be a broadcast standard? Why not just shift everthing to FM? Ok, so the police and military need a bit, but thier slice is pretty small. FM bandwith is just a notional convention, it could be extended..
FM signals don't travel very far. The millions of people who don't live close to a metropolitan area need AM. There's more to it than that. Frequency modulation doesn't work very well at low frequencies. That's why the FM band is higher than the AM band.
How is it that I can understand the finer points of gravity, yet I can't understand why Britains' second favourite sport (after fishing) is transmitted in an incomprehensible garble of buzzing and squealing? If I recall, and I'm showing my age here, even the long- extinct short-wave was better than this.
I'm not sure what you're referring to. In the USA, in addition to inane talk radio, AM radio stations broadcast Spanish-language music and even country & western music. The sound quality is just fine, certainly good enough for a car radio, which is about the only place I listen to radio. (My cable TV system has about 20 sound-only music stations that appeal to my tastes better than the wasteland of hip-hop and "classic" rock on radio.) The shorter the wavelength, the higher the frequency. Short-wave stations broadcast in a higher band than regular city stations. This is why they carry so much farther; their bouncing geometry is more favorable. That higher frequency may also contribute to better sound quality. Still, I had a radio with the short-wave bands when I was a kid back in the 1950s. I listened to music from foreign stations when I could find it, and I certainly did not notice any major difference in sound quality over the stations in town.
The replacement for AM isn't FM but rather digital Radio which has same range as AM but is clearer and less prone to interference than FM is
The nature of AM As I understand it (and very shallowly, at that), the issue is the fundamental difference between amplitude and frequency modulation. With amplitude modulation, there are considerably more opportunities for interference. As a result, even someone's dropped bumper, lying on the side of the road, can interfere with your reception. But that's as basic as it comes. Someone else will have to explain the physical reason amplitude modulation is so fragile.
Yeah... the 1960's have ended. Want to hear that game? Get satellite radio or a really good TV sercive (DirecTV). Can't pull up the game on grannie's old radio anymore- it's obsolete. PS- Drunk? Drunk or high?
Just plain drunk..When I was a kid my uncle used to get me drunk on whiskey, he was a paedophile, and it was supposed to make me more supplicant I guess. I learned then not to loose control, so still function well when drunk. Am sober again now, I'll have to do something about that later..
That operates at frequencies above FM radio. I don't know what the transmission method is, by my guess would be it's FM, too.
Going back to the original question, the problem is the frequency of the AM band or Medium Wave as it's also known, roughly 500 to 1500 kHz. One of the main reasons it has been used for broadcast is that it tends to 'channel' between the ionosphere and the ground (kind of like a waveguide) allowing excellent coverage for a wide area. But only during _daylight_ hours. At sundown the layers disperse and reception generally falls apart. As received signal strength falls the AGC (automatic gain control) of the receiver goes to full and the radio becomes much more sensitive to noise, static and interference, to which the AM modulation system is more susceptible to begin with. Another factor is that the ionosphere doesn't degrade in a uniform fashion, and this sometimes leads to interference by a 'skip path' whereby a very distant station can clobber a much closer station with a locally received signal that is stronger than the closer station.
