Saving another low-end but important technology: AM Radio!

[garbon]

And then someone hits you in their Prius.

Fucking hipsters. 

Note someone and not me as I wouldn't be caught dead owning one.

[CountDeMoney]

Thing is that emergency radio's already been long gone from AM.  Sure, there are things like NJ Turnpike's highway traveler info radio station, but emergency personnel mostly switched to P25 en masse back in the 90s.

I only partially worked on p25 interoperability standards at the state before I left, but part of the problem is precisely because doesn't have civilian availability for emergency notification.   And good luck trying to find any available bandwidth after 9/11.   Another law enforcement clusterfuck.

[CountDeMoney]

What about Town Criers?  Can we save those to?

I hate all of you.

[Barrister]

AM radio was great living in the countryside.  There was no way FM stations from the city were reaching where I lived, and there was only one incredibly generic FM station in the small town I was in.  But I could reliably haul in AM signals for my really long car drives every day.  As well in the Yukon it was only the CBC AM transmitter that had any coverage whatsoever outside of Whitehorse city limits.

Plus, I have fond memories of the mid 90s dropping my then-girlfriend off at her house, then driving home at some incredibly late hour.  I would start fiddling with the am dial to see what kind of wacky AM signal I could listen to.  I could consistently get a Chicago all news station, but I remember getting a Denver station, and I think one from Kentucky.

[jimmy olsen]

Pai doesn't even seem old enough to be a luddite.

Post script:   shove it, HVC.

you probably have one of those giant wheeled bicycles too, dontcha

Then he'd be a Korean schoolgirl, because bikes with ridiculously large and/or ridiculously small wheels are fashionable among them.

[Eddie Teach]

Pai doesn't even seem old enough to be a luddite.

neither does CdM, but there you have it

He's plenty old enough. He's probably got a rotary phone.

[garbon]

What about Town Criers?  Can we save those to?

Well amateurs seem to be saving themselves. Remember that old man who announced the birth of the royal baby?

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

I only partially worked on p25 interoperability standards at the state before I left, but part of the problem is precisely because doesn't have civilian availability for emergency notification.

Civilian availability for AM only works if said civilians have an AM radio and actually listen to it.  If people need a radio covering a specific band for emergency purposes, we would be better off with the existing All Hazards radio system.  The frequency band those stations use has better range performance than AM, is taxpayer-funded, and already exists.

[garbon]

I only partially worked on p25 interoperability standards at the state before I left, but part of the problem is precisely because doesn't have civilian availability for emergency notification.

Civilian availability for AM only works if said civilians have an AM radio and actually listen to it.

The only time I ever listen to AM is in my car when I turn to listen to traffic.

[derspiess]

I could consistently get a Chicago all news station, but I remember getting a Denver station, and I think one from Kentucky.

The last one might have been WLW AM 700 out of Cincinnati.  At night it can be picked up as far west as Denver.

I remember one Saturday evening, driving from West Virginia back home through Eastern Kentucky--  all through Kentucky I was able to listen to the LSU game pretty clearly on a Baton Rouge AM station, but as soon as I got close to Cincy the signal faded out.

My grandpa was a huge radio enthusiast-- he had all sorts of crazy antennas on top of his house.  I thought it was cool how he could pick up French-language stations out of Quebec :bewareMalthus:  I didn't understand a word of what was being said, but listened anyway because it all sounded so foreign & cool.

[The Brain]

spring ice breakup

Is this about drunk sluts showing boobs?

[derspiess]

While we're on the subject of radio, my grandpa also gave me my first short-wave radio, and told me how to find the "Russian Woodpecker" signal, which in the midst of the Cold War freaked me out a little because nobody knew what is was.  But it was fun to speculate on what the hell they were doing.

[Syt]

While we're on the subject of radio, my grandpa also gave me my first short-wave radio, and told me how to find the "Russian Woodpecker" signal, which in the midst of the Cold War freaked me out a little because nobody knew what is was.  But it was fun to speculate on what the hell they were doing.

Do you mean UVB-76?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76

[Grey Fox]

While we're on the subject of radio, my grandpa also gave me my first short-wave radio, and told me how to find the "Russian Woodpecker" signal, which in the midst of the Cold War freaked me out a little because nobody knew what is was.  But it was fun to speculate on what the hell they were doing.

Do you mean UVB-76?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76

Nah, woodpecker was the signal from DUGA-3 stations.

[Barrister]

While we're on the subject of radio, my grandpa also gave me my first short-wave radio, and told me how to find the "Russian Woodpecker" signal, which in the midst of the Cold War freaked me out a little because nobody knew what is was.  But it was fun to speculate on what the hell they were doing.

Do you mean UVB-76?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76

From a link at the bottom of the article you posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Woodpecker

Fascinating.