i noticed it on 680 in the car an hour ago ....

Both stations have high towers - CFTR has eight at 400 feet, and CFRB four at 550 feet. With the weather we are having right now, snow flurries plus wind, there is likely a static buildup which results in discharges.  The transmitters will momentarily throttle back, with the duration dependent on the magnitude of the static discharge.

torontostan wrote:

So much for AM radio being perfect for emergencies..... 

Even a noisy AM signal with needed information is better than days of silence in the dark.

And I still find it very sweet!

I'm not naïve enough to believe AM will be around forever. It's just where most of the kind of programming I like currently resides. If they were to transfer some of those formats to FM, I would definitely tune to that band. For the moment, at least, that's not the case. (Unless I'm in the car, where I tune in the HD version of the signals because, yes, it sounds better.) 

So unlike others here, I really don't care where I'm tuned band-wise or the lesser audio quality, as long as it provides what I want to hear. For the moment, that's on AM. Hopefully that changes one day. For now, it's the only real choice if you're not really into music.

I'm really not sure why this bothers so many here. Live and let live, I say. (Or perhaps that should be listen and let listen...)

Honestly RA, I was initially just making a joke about you being the Kool-Aid guy, but I did want to explain my thoughts.  I hate sounding like I'm running you down, but I do feel genuinely about what I just posted

RadioActive wrote:

My comments were not aimed at you Jody, just critics of AM in general. I know you're not into it anymore, but I wish you were still on air (AM or FM!). Do you ever miss it?

Oddly enough, I think what I miss more about radio was what inspired me to get into it when I was young.  I remember being at my grandparents cottage at the lake just outside of Dunnville, and listening to an AM station from Erie.  My grandfather always got out the headphones so I could listen to his receiver, while the rest of the family talked or watched television.  I imagined what it was like being a jock in Erie, Pennsylvania, looking outside across Lake Erie in that direction.  For me it was never really about theatre of the mind.  It was more the "big music station" from the "big city", and getting to have access to all of those records.  That's how I perceived it anyway.

I remember in 1981, my dad and I going for a ride in his 1976 F-150.  He would tune in WBZ Boston at night and we would listen while driving on West River Road between Cayuga and York.  Whenever I hear Arthur's Theme from Christopher Cross, I think of hearing that song (oh so slightly pitched higher) going into the news stinger at 9pm on WBZ Boston.  The sound was so "big" and "impressive".

And I've pined endlessly about my love for CKOC and CFTR, but you get the idea.

Today though, I feel empty whenever I hear radio today (regardless of band).  Radio is so predictable, lifeless, inauthentic, overly formatted and bland.  Sure it was cool to pre-record traffic report and then tune in to Newstalk 1010 and hear my voice with all of the processing coming out of my radio.  But when I hear myself packaged with abysmal content that I described as above, that fades.

My most favourite employed radio memories were while I was on overnights at AM 96 in Cambridge (modern day Dave-FM) in 1991.  We had the McCurdy board and two triple deck cart machines, plus the two Denon CD-Cart machines.  We had two Technics turntables, one on each side with Systemdek arms installed.  And surprise! (which was odd in 1991), we played gold selections on 45-rpm promos, while hits and recurrents were on CD.  I was hitting posts, mixing tight and playing CHR and AC cuts on AM radio, just as I grew up with.  I loved it - overnights or not.  It was my version of an amusement park, and I was paid a whopping $6.50 an hour.

That good fortune continued until I was replaced with satellite programming (Oldies Coast to Coast) after Power Broadcasting re-jigged the programming.  I still miss that time.

But that sort of radio is not coming back.  What I described is no longer part of the game.  So I miss what radio was; not what it is.

 

RadioActive wrote:

I'm not naïve enough to believe AM will be around forever. It's just where most of the kind of programming I like currently resides. If they were to transfer some of those formats to FM, I would definitely tune to that band. For the moment, at least, that's not the case. (Unless I'm in the car, where I tune in the HD version of the signals because, yes, it sounds better.) 

So unlike others here, I really don't care where I'm tuned band-wise or the lesser audio quality, as long as it provides what I want to hear. For the moment, that's on AM. Hopefully that changes one day. For now, it's the only real choice if you're not really into music.

I'm really not sure why this bothers so many here. Live and let live, I say. (Or perhaps that should be listen and let listen...)

The problem is that this perspective has nothing to do with an emergency. Any FM station could pivot to broadcast anything if a true emergency was unfolding.... it doesn't need to be the news station covering it. Besides, we have CBC radio in this country with a vast network of FM stations that could broadcast in both official languages if needed