Thanks for the tour! I have several samples on my channel of using HD Radio receivers to decode C-Quam AM Stereo. It does work, but the bandwidth is rather narrow, and like he said, it gives you no stereo indicator, and the left and right channels are reversed. That's too bad about the custom-modified radio not working in stereo, but KYET sounds great through the Sony radio.
I have a sangean hd radio.. I'm not sure if it would decode am stereo or not. The model is the hdr 16 and does anyone know of any frequencies of stations I may be able to receive. It gets great reception and has a 200 mm ferrite bar. I live in southwest pa not far from Morgantown wv
@@alancordwell9759 I'm from Devon and I've just vaguely heard of AM stereo, it was great to see it in practice. UK AM seems to be dying a slow death. It would be an interesting curiosity piece to have this station here, but for me, I can only take so much country music ;)
Sure was nice of Matt to give such a detailed tour! KYET 1170 first went on the air in 1977 as KBWA 1180 in Williams, AZ -- according to Wiki. This was the first time I've heard AM stereo technology, and am amazed at the minimal distortion reminiscent of its VHF frequency-modulated counterpart.
My parents had a 1999 Chrysler T & C LXi that had an Infinity Sound System in it that had an AM Stereo receiver in it, but we had no AM Stereo Stations in our area so it was just mono.
@@msroper5287 Thanks for reply. I'm from UK, so as far as I'm aware this tech didn't get used over here (I may be wrong tho), shame, because I'm a huge fan of am radios - I've got 8 am receivers even now, use them regularly, and would definitely have had one of these great stereo am receivers. I think we maybe had too many am stations in the EU using tghis band at the time of development of this, hence we went FM and now DAB, What a shame, UK missed out on a treat! Our am airwaves here used to be packed with stations - less so nowadays, from Moscow to London, from Berlin to Iceland. I love Shangoos channel, it keeps me going! :)
This is all in a 20 foot storage container, or two in the middle of desert in Golden Valley, AZ. No wonder the AC units fail in a short time. No perfect way to insulate from the heat and electronics like it cool. He designed a near perfect transmitter antenna with ground plane and looks good. The AM signal sounds great in stereo! If this is Matt Krick , not only is he super knowledgable in his field , you may find some stuff as a presenter in a symposium on YT from several years ago ( I leave it to you to search for those vids) and is also quite entertaining and funny. See you on part three Shango!
I remember back in 1998 I was fixing a sanyo stereo, I had a really hard time diagnosing what was going on with the FM stereo, it was working while I was listening to the radio and then the it just went away, no separation no indicator led, both VU meters led and analog peaking at the same level. Long story short. It turns out that the designers of the stereo demodulation circuit, used the actually LED indicator as part of the demodulation itself, it was a very low powered red led, the actual silkscreen had a diode and the led in parallel, but some how they decided to cut cost and just use the led. in the end I did use a germanium diode and a new led in parallel which fixed it. I know it's an FM unit, but, who knows maybe similar design? Or just needs alignment.
It’s so great to see Matt working to make KYET a damn good sounding AM Stereo station. So many AM stations on the air now are basically being left to rot. It’s a labor of love running an AM Stereo station but it’s so worth it.
This has to be the best tour and explanation of an AM radio station that I have ever privileged to watch. Thank you for your time and effort on this endeavor and thank you to Matt for being not only the Chief Engineer but tour guide as well. Well done!
I was all in on AM stereo back in the early 80"s onward. I had all the Sony radios and a Radio Shack AM stereo tuner. I lived in the NYC area. WQXR-AM ran the Kahn Hazeltine version and I listened to them with two 1940 era Zenith Sailboat radios offsetting them via upper and lower sideband. It did work. There were CQUAM kits then too for retrofitting stereo receivers. I did several. Thank you Shango for this incredible AM stereo history set of videos. Please submit them to the Smithsonian for future preservation.
The broadcast engineer is an icon! How long has he been laboring out in the middle of the desert, in a tin shipping container, all alone.... keeping that station in tippy top shape! What dedication! ... and he and his brother built/erected the antenna?!
Radiomen were often called "radio hermits"I do the same thing at a govt short wave transmitter plant 15 miles from Greenville,NC.Just me and one other guy here! The big concern for us is SAFETY!!!Transmitters contain High Voltages-and can be still there even when power is off and primary breakers opened!The ground hook is your main protection.Use it before touching ANY HV connections-even is Sold state transmitters!The ones out here use HUGE tubes-expensive as a house-and the transmitters are as big or bigger than sea containers!
Hey, look, you're on WIKI! On Sunday, September 4th, 2022, popular vintage electronics UA-camr Shango066 released a video giving a station tour of KYET. The station engineer, Matt, explains how the AM stereo transmitter functions, as well as other details of the exciter and transmission system.
Really great video. Like one foot in each era of broadcasting. Mono and stereo. Seeing all the solid state gear driving a broadcast made nostalgia for me. As a little kid we toured the local TV broadcast station. The final output tubes glowed blue. Big vacuum tubes! His breakdown of the tower parts demonstrates that it is not just the wattage that gets the waves out there. It is the literal tuning of the entire structure. All the insulation breaks remind us of the raw power traversing the wires out in the elements. Finally, the call letters were interesting. Usually W is east of Mississippi and K is west of Mississippi. Thank you for all the driving and leveraging your connections to bring us this insightful reel. I noticed KNX is broadcasting on FM 97.1, and it's clear why. I'd never heard that about today's cars. I hope AM survives. More channels more better democracies.
Many large market AM stations are being simulcast on HD Radio subchannels these days. Getting AM radio reception even at home is a pain due to things like LED lightbulbs and flate screen TVs just dumping RF all over the band.
Fascinating! Never knew there was such a thing as AM stereo! So sad AM is slowly dying out, especially for us tube (valve) radio fans here in the UK. For now, we still have a number of stations receivable here. Excellent stuff Shango066!
With Europe's 9 kHz AM allocation / spacing, the bandwidth is even narrower than our 10 kHz AM allocation in Canada / USA. Likely doesn't lend itself well to the AM stereo modulation technology and also added high frequency rolloff with the narrow bandwidth.
Don't you still have the Longwave AM band there in the UK, yet active. Over here in the USA I been able to hear the BBC on its Longwave frequency. Wish we had broadcasting on LW here in America, you Europeans are lucky to have LW yet, which sadly is dying out too.
@@JCWise-sf9ww I have been able to receive BBC4 on 198 kHz and Ireland's Top 40 / CHR "Atlantic 252" (serving all of Europe) on 252 kHz from northeastern Canada. The transmission range of LW is amazing!
I don’t know how it is everywhere,but as Shango pointed out,am radio is mostly talk now,not exactly the type of programming that benefits from Stereophonic sound. I rarely ever listen to am or fm radio anymore. There’s no good content for the most part on either format and the amount of commercials have become obnoxious and intolerable. With CD’s,iPods,and people carrying their entire music collection stored on their phones,there’s too many better choices that allow you to listen to what you want without requiring the listeners to suffer though 10 minute blocks of commericals filled with idiotic,babblingto hear 8 minutes of programming.
@@Suddenlyits1960 Where I live, there are still several AM music stations within range in 2022. Many have quite a following for playing what mainstream corporate owned (iHeart etc.) radio stations do not. Often with much less commercial content (in the case of 1220 CFAJ, commercial free). That same station is essentially format free, and all day and all night play back to back a crazy playlist like: Journey, Ella Fitzgerald, Eddy Grant, Judas Priest, Neil Diamond, Depeche Mode, Kenny Rogers, Jan and Dean, Styx, The Beatles... nothing on FM comes close! Private-owned radio stations for the win!! 560 CFOS ... Classic Hits 600 CKAT ... Country 620 WHEN ... Hip Hip / R&B 740 CFZM ... Classic Hits, 1930s to 1980s 1080 WUFO ... Classic R&B 1220 CFAJ ... Classic Hits, 1930s to 1990s *_(commercial free)_* 1400 WWWS ... Old School Hip Hop 1460 CJOY ... Classic Hits 1580 CKDO ... 50s, 60s Oldies 1670 CJEU ... Dance music, trance, techno 1680 WPRR ... R&B
I worked at an AM stereo in 1989. It sounded awesome on the air. They added a touch of subtle reverb which made it even better. Im still addicted to AM and still see it as a fun and viable medium! Great tour. Thank you!
My Carver TX-11A AM Stereo reviver is capable of of receiving and decoding “CD Quality” stereo audio on AM. Full 20hz-20Khz stereo audio, blows FM out of the water. Always a fun party trick to show guests that my most impressive component in my stereo system is the AM radio. 😎
That was a pretty cool field trip, hopefully you can get that thing running on stereo, I really hate to see AM die I'm only 40 years old and I still have a AA-5 next to my bed clock radio that I turn the automatic shut off for 30 minutes and fall asleep to something like red eye radio at midnight get my 5 hours of sleep and go off to work the next day, thanks for the videos.
Kudos to the engineer (and owner) at that station for keeping AM and stereo alive! I remember when KING AM 1090 in Seattle was testing Kahn-Halzeltine AM stereo in about 1977. You could take two radios, tune one to the left side of the frequency, and the other to the right side. When they played an old Beatles crazy stereo song like "All my loving", you'd hear a definite stereo image with vocals in one channel and instruments in the other. It's really too bad they couldn't settle on an AM stereo standard, and then the confusion with the NRSC roll off frequencies in the early 1990's, along with crappy sounding new radio manufacturing, deregulation, etc, etc . . . spelled the doom of AM radio. It's really a cool sounding technology when done right that employed lots of people, had a profound impact on local communities and allowed listening from long distances (at night).
That was an amazingly packed video! So interesting to see all that equipment. I worked for a local radio and TV station but they didn't have all that transmitting equipment because it was all cable only (they used a TV modulator for the radio shows too), and I never had access to the interesting stuff and was never allowed to open anything. AM Stereo sounds amazing! I hope you can get VWestLife's radio fixed with some alignment or by replacing shorted tantalums or so. Looking forward to see the next part!
Enjoyed the tour ! Brings back memories seeing that equipment. I worked part time one Summer at an AM Station in Providence, R.I. WALE 990 AM, they are gone now. Last I heard the tramsmission antenna was laying on the ground rusting away in Lincoln, R.I.
Wow, I thought AM stereo was long gone! In the 1970s & 80s, I was a Radio/TV Engineer for KUAT in Tucson. Our main AM xmttr was a Harris MW-50A. That was a really neat rig, rather unique in its day. It employed a class-D modulator---the modulator (4CX5000) was a big switching regulator. Harris also offered a stereo option, which we didn't have. It seemed that AM stereo passed from the scene, not long there after. And I'm sure it won't be resurrected, because AM today is almost all News/Talk/Sports. There's no reason for stereo, unless you're broadcasting music.
Thanks for the tour! There is a lot of good basic introductory information in this video for anyone interested in the finer points of AM stereo operation, along with its challenges. All the stereo gear is at least 30 years old now, and you get to see some of the issues with the gear as it ages. When I worked for a station in the midwest, we had almost the exact same complement of gear; a Harris DX-10 with its matching exciter, and the 1310 demodulator. The STL shot to the site was mono, so we had a Orban stereo synthesizer to feed the air chain. Nautels' NX series transmitters include AM stereo in the base model, so no external exciter is required.
Just want to say, I subscribe to a lot of channels with million subscribers but it’s your videos I watch the most. I just love the education and nostalgia. Thanks for doing what you do.
It is so cool to find an AM radio station that still broadcasts in stereo. I may have to keep my ear out for it! My experience with AM has been almost exclusively in mono, either because I have never owned an AM radio capable of decoding stereo, or if I have all along without realizing it, it could have been due to the dumb luck of living in a market without any stations broadcasting in stereo. The closest I have is KSL on 1160, but they cheat by using HD Radio, even though they do sound noticeably better than on a legacy analog AM radio.
Thanks Matt & shango. - _and,_ thanks for all [bits] of those Stereo Tunes! Glad i Read about AM Stereo yesterday, it sure helped 'grasp', recall, more of what said today.
THANK YOU. I wanted to see the equipment involved with AM Stereo. So AM stereo was not marketed correctly as to why it's not prevalent in the AM broadcasting industry today, talk formats helped to eliminate from stations that had AM-Stereo. Most of our AM stations here in south central PA, now simulcast on FM with less reception range. It is so sad that digital and switching electronics interferes with AM radio reception, you would think they could easily solve the RFI problem electric cars have for the sake of AM radio. I'm beginning to think very few of us care if AM goes EOL. My one friend who worked as a transmitter engineer in Pittsburgh, called AM - Antique Modulation, he own a lot of FM only receivers. There is a big following of people that collect Antique AM Radios, etc., I'm going to such a show in Kutztown PA in a couple weeks.
There are still some AM stations who broadcast music still to this day here in south central Pennsylvania. 1440 AM in York county has music, 960 AM in Carlisle Pennsylvania is a good station for Rock , classic rock and 1000 AM is classic country. 1600 AM is complete mix of all the genres of music. Now if they would have CQuam stereo, that would be excellent but of course they do have fun stereo translators for the AM transmission of their signal. At night you can hear AM 740 from Montreal Canada. Great station and very strong.
@J.C. Wise I actually went to University of Pennsylvania Kutztown U back in the late 1980s and received my degree in telecommunications from there, If you wanted hands on for TV and Radio production that was a great school to go to. I then worked for a time at WGAL also in master control and production for the news and a weekly show called Susquehanna People. There were a number of AM stereo stations in the Philly area back from the late 1980s until the late 1990s or so KYW 1060 decided to broadcast their news radio with it, sounded great but I never understood why they chose it without music.
@@sweirich777 SO you live in my area! YES, we are very much aware of the those AM music stations. There are two more WADV 940 Southern Gospel Lebanon & WHVR 1290 Top 40 Hanover. WLBR 1270 Lebanon changed to talk. One of the best music programs comes on WABC 770 NYC Saturday nights, with cousin Brucie and Tony Orlando DJing all evening long with all kinds of oldies requests. WABC also streams online, most all stations do even around the world! Yes, I listen to ( a clear channel) AM 740 Zoomer radio sometimes too. The majority of the time I listen to Conservative News Talk WHP 580.
Ohh yes, I completely forgot about those 2 radio stations! So we really are from this same area! It's good to know that there is another person from this area! I am glad to meet you. Steve kb3hay
Thanks yet again for posting. Purchased an "AM Stereo capable" car stereo through Crutchfield in mid 80s. Although widely traveled, was unable to tune in a station that broadcast it. Other than a few magazine articles of that period, this is the first reference I've seen. At least now I can draw a line through another thing my ex claims I "imagined."
I remember having a couple of car stereos that would decode C-QUAM. Some 1980s/early 1990s Chrysler vehicles had this in their factory radios. Unfortunately the only station I could get that broadcast AM stereo was all news, so not a lot of point to it. Cool tour of a nearly forgotten technology. Glad there are those still keeping the faith.
Love the transmitter site tour and the ongoing saga of the Motorola-modified receiver. Interesting to see the Harris DX-10 design philosophy. I helped out on the technical side on an AM/FM commercial station, where we had a Nautel Ampfet 10 and a Harris FM20K. The Nautel didn't offer quite so much front panel diagnostic information as the DX-10 and it used PWM. Both designs are (I believe) from approximately the same period. Air conditioning was an ongoing issue for us too. Management made a token gesture, consisting of a single domestic window unit! In Summer, the Nautel TX would blow a few MOSFETs; this just meant that the output power would be slightly reduced until I could take it off air and replace them. Sustained high temperatures will of course prematurely age numerous other components and thus the equipment as a whole.
Our host is sending the green radio to us at WION in Ionia, MI to complete the series of his videos, and give a virtual tour. Listen live anytime to AM stereo at our www.i1430.com, or on any device. If you have a stereo web device, that's fine, too. it's fed by a REAL AM stereo receiver from the air. You'll hear the (short) interruption for power and pattern changes at the appropriate times. Give it a listen. We didn't have an app created because of constantly having to update the app at OUR cost, especially for the hoity-toity I-phones....but smart people know how to make a shortcut on their phones for it from the website. (and yes, the website is out of date by look and will be updated, but RADIO FIRST, WEBSITE SECOND. Enjoy!
Outstanding video! I have an am stereo radio in my truck and back in the day i remember AM Stereo sounding about the same as FM maybe a little more noisy. I'm in the Philly market so i think there were a couple stations. ...that truck is 31 yrs old now...
One of the most informative videos on AM stereo transmission I have seen outside of a college lecture. Brilliant. Very little technical detail but a great description of what goes on at these places. Thanks.
Thanks for the brilliant tour, I can't wait for the receiver repair. Those epoxy-dipped tantalum capacitors are a matter of replace-on-sight. After 20-30 years (depends on the storage conditions), they become at least as unreliable as paper capacitors. Never even use NOS of those. The epoxy resin can not seal them hermetically, both oxigen and moisture can get inside over a few decades, and tantalum caps are very sensitive to that, they can go leaky or to a complete short very easily. They behave absolutely unpredictably when voltage gets applied to them after years of sitting. I have a few instruments in which they failed in the number of dozens within minutes. One shorted, I clipped that out (it was just for bypass), an other one shorted within a few seconds on the same rail, and so on. They can not be re-formed. Up to 4.7uF you can substitute them with Wima or other film caps with 5mm lead spacing, and for higher capacitances you can use MLCC if it is for power supply bypass, or just simple alu. electrolytics, if it is a DC blocking cap in the audio signal path. I like tantalums, but only the metal encapsulated, hermetically sealed ones, those almost never fail, even 50 years old ones. I recently bought a box of 340pcs 100uF 10V KEMET T110 series, made in 1985, but I will happily use them for 5V rail bypass in vintage computers and stuff. They are $8.60 per piece if you buy 80 to 440 pieces of them, so my 340pcs would cost almost $3000 if I would buy them new! I payed $65 for them in October 2021...
I'll have to see if I can tune these folks in sometime. Sony and Sansui both made ICs capable of decoding the multiple AM stereo systems. (Sansui's ICs were, if memory serves, capable of automatically detecting the system in use and switching accordingly. You'll find them in the TU-S77AMX and the TU-D99AMX. The latter in particular is an outstanding tuner on either AM or FM.)
Love this - and love the passion that's gone into this station. The AM stereo technology still fits in the 21st Century despite the way the entire AM band has been decimated. We went all in during Stereo's early days in Buffalo (WGR) and Cincinnati (WKRC). Our competitor in Buffalo (WKBW) was intermittently testing the technology. We shared transmitter sites so there were few secrets. The night we installed AM Stereo on WGR (5k-DA-n) KB was working on the same thing. Late at night a bunch of us were sitting in the parking lot when a loud "Ka-Rack" emanated from the building. We thought the worst -fearing that WKBW would get their system on the air first. Our corporate director of engineering came out of the building looking at the group somberly and announced that the noise came from a final transmitter section... of 'KB's 50kw Harris. 'KB's CE was very knowledgeable of his plant-and got it back on the air quickly, but in a race that no one cared about-we won. In Cincinnati we used the Kahn-Hazeltine system and fed it with a stereo synthesizer just to turn the light on. My wife's new Jeep decoded the signal with an expanded bandwidth and it sounded wonderful. We also worked out a deal with the local cable company to use one of their FM frequencies. It was about the time MTV was beginning so we both had the luxury of FM stereo signals. In retrospect-that's another race that no one cared about, but the ability to experiment? Priceless.
Great video Shango, Matt and VWestlife! Sad to see AM disappearing...working on a valve TRF AM radio project now which when complete I will enjoy whilst stations here in Europe are still around.
Well that was certainly no wasted day. Thanks a million for showing us this Shango, station and thanks to you Matt for telling us the story of how you made it all work. It's fascinating stuff. Kudos and plaudits to both of you 🏆 Watching this a few times for sure, it's a real ✨🦄
RIP Joe Hart. My wife and I met Joe and his wife, Rhonda, at a ham radio swap meet about 5 years ago in Mesa, AZ. He noticed I was selling a Directed DMHD-1000 receiver at my swap meet table and noted it could receive AM Stereo. I told him I was aware of that and I lamented the fact that there were so few AM Stereo stations left. He then told me he owned KYET, Cactus Country, in Kingman, and that it was an AM Stereo station. I had no idea he was the State Mine Inspector. I still have the Directed DMHD-1000 receiver (a similar example is seen in the video at 14:33). I also have a Sony SRF-42 AM Stereo Walkman somewhere. Back in the day my brother had a 1992 Dodge Shadow and one day I discovered it had AM Stereo and that Phoenix had a few AM Stereo stations at that time. The audio from those stations was excellent.
Oddly enough, Paul Lotsoff, who was the owner of another small quirky country & western station in Arizona also passed away just recently. He ran KAVV 97.7 FM (The Cave) in Benson, AZ. The callsign is a nod to the nearby Kartchner Caverns. They played a really eclectic mix of older C&W music you will never hear on any other broadcast radio station.
@shango066 *Wow this is a super high quality video, I loved this tour and this engineer, and plenty of obscure information, but he knew it ALL, and could describe it so laypersons could understand it* I was around as a kid in the 1980s and remember AM stereo being in Philly on a LOT of stations, even KYW 1060 was using it for the news radio only broadcasts! I love the discussion of all the different AM stereo formats that were around in the 1980s. Also the comment section is FULL of amazing stories of people who actually worked with this equipment as well. Incredible! Thanks!
This is super cool stuff! It's so good to actually understand all the tech because of all the radio repair videos I've watched in the past few years...
My 1987 Pontiac Fiero has AM Stereo built in. It really sounded pretty good in the late 80s when it was being broadcast widely. Thank You so much for this video. That was such an interesting look at local AM Broadcasting to see how it works. I agree….we should all enjoy and support it while its here.
Well Shango I listen to this with Dolby pro logic turned on “ in a properly set up system“ and the sound quality was incredibly good it was very fun to watch such a video this might be one of your best field videos yet.
Thanks for the road trip tour. That was mighty nice of you and of course, Matt to do this. The listenership of AM is shrinking, although, it's still there but their coverage is shrinking with the increasing noise floor. We know that AM radio listening is in the single digits from ratings and research done in the past year or so. The areas where it thrives are small communities that aren't served by larger signals that aim for the money in bigger cities and big power stations. Stereo Tool is used by several stations near my area. ST is packaged with hardware called STXtreme and offered for sale through Telos called Omnia SST. I use ST paired with another processor and the combo works very well. I had it running on my part 15 AM, too. I have licensed features on mine, so it has a lot of bells and whistles. The Nashville market had a lot of AM stereo stations, even in the early 1980s. There was a mix of systems in use, but Harris' system was the choice around here with WHIN and WSM using it until 1983 or 1984 when, at least WSM, converted to C-QUAM. WHIN stopped using it completely but kept the entire plant stereo even though they broadcast mono (and still do to this day). The lone AM stereo station in this market is WKDA, but it isn't true stereo. It's mono audio fed to one channel only.
Shango, thanks for the tour and commentary by Matt of KYET. Really nice to see people out there still trying to keep things alive while they can. Good luck on getting that radio to play AM Stereo.
Barring a chip that is faulty and can't be found I know they'll fix it. They'll have to check the IF bandwidth and the frequency response. Then they'll have to check the ancillary components around the main chip. I wonder how difficult it would be to set up a synthesizer?
Thx for the tour, Shango. Lived in AZ back when AM 780, KAZM, was using the old standard of AM stereo and we were trying to get both channels clearly north of Flagstaff. Pre CQUAM. All of this never lived up to the promise, but tip of the cap to those who innovated and tried to make it work.
Seen this video back when it was uploaded, Finally got to listen to a bit of KYET the other day when I was in Nevada! Too bad just rental car so no AM stereo. But loved the music selection
This rig must use a lot of electricity to get the AM stereo out is my guess. I wish we had AM stereo up here where i live. Up here i only get some BBC stations and Russian stations on AM. But up here in Norway the electricity prize is now so high. That no one will run an AM station here. We pay now over 1 dollar pr, kilowatt. Just to mention, we pay also 4X more for the gas and diesel than people in USA. Sad but true. Nice review Shango066. Looking forward to next video 🙂
Wooow... Dan, you just made a happy man feel very old. :) Seeing that Harris transmitter really brought back memories ! 20 years back, I used to work with Harris transmitters very much like the one we just saw, "mine" was the next generation though. Harris make absolutely excellent stuff !
Excellent as usual brother! After graduating I worked at Harris Communications in San Antonio. I worked on phase locks. I wanted to work on that side of the company but it didn't happen! Thus, I was discouraged and left... Then got into home audio 🤙
My 1989 Oldsmobile Tornado had AM stereo and up till the early 2000's we had a station in town that broadcasted in stereo. Seems like I was pretty lucky to experience it
Thanks for the vid, I was enthralled by the amount of technical verbiage that I remember from my early color(rowndy) TV that included antenna design knowledge that I acquired from an old Audel TV book from the late '60s. Physics books & my Navy career in the '70s, sadly set me up for a career of mechanicing cars. But I still like the tv & radio thangs...
Good little tour with Matt -Brought back memories of AM stereo in those older days.Glad the AM stereo is working out with Matt in that station.AM stereo just didn't catch on in the DC Baltimore areas at that time.-Maybe try again?The other issue is the AM stereo radios were not easy to obtain.Remember I had to order My Sony Walkman-was like the Grey one Matt was holding.Exposed ground radials-could understand in that area since the ground is rocky and probably has high ground resistance.In DC Baltimore area the soil would have less rock and lower resistance.Have had to put in ground system-multitower.The ground systems of each tower connected together with 6" wide copper straps in trenches.Had to Braze these -solder connections don't hold underground.If you had exposed ground elements in DC-Baltimore area they would be gone in no time.Sometimes the copper wires float to the ground surface-one of my jobs as engineer was to mow the towerfeilds.More than once you would get wire wrapped around the tractor mower blade spindle!
Good to see they are using Stereo Tool.. one of the best audio processors around... and its mostly free! It looks likes he is using the WRT-54G Wireless AP as an STL link? wow
This was a top class video. Congratulations on finding that person and getting access to the site. Both the AM stereo technology and the PWM transmitter was interesting. Here in Europe we have never (as far as I know) had any AM stereo radio and AM in general is rapidly declining. Here in Sweden there are no AM radio at all anymore. AM broadcasting to the general public almost died in the late 60's (a very rapid decline). The last transmitters were used only for listeners abroad. I cannot recall any references at all regarding any proposals for AM stereo here. In Sweden it was a competition between the now usual MPX systems and a swedish system (FM/FM system Berglund). The FM/FM had some advantages but the MPX won, probaly because it became more or less a defacto standard for FM stereo. In retrospect it was a good choice, othervise we would be stranded with our own peculiar system. This resulted in a reletively late introduction of FM stereo here (I guess about 20 years after US). The audio quality as shown in the video was better than I would have imagined. OK, lacking in treble but probably OK for car radio and casual listening.
Having worked on many many pinball and arcade games, seeing those 3 AA Batteries mounted directly to the board in the Harris DX10, gave me flashbacks to acid damage and made me want to relocate them!
Very interesting video indeed! This video was worth watching just for the explanation of the electronics in the TX chain never-mind the look at the mast / antenna. Well done and thanks to all who made this possible. Can I perhaps ask that you think about doing similar videos for standard AM, FM & DAB stations just to show how the transmission setup differs between each. I know it isn’t what you normally cover but it was great to see how the transmitter worked for AM Stereo. UK viewer here - where we still have FM, Mono AM and our digital radio format is DAB. 😀
@@shango066 I know things are different in the US and that you use a different digital radio standard. They keep saying they'll stop broadcasting FM within 10 or so years here in the UK. It depends how much the government stands to make by selling off spectrum. Looking forward to your future videos ... thanks once again
At 20:24 . . . What would the voltage difference be between the base of the tower where the feedline connects and the ground radials in this installation? There didn't seem to be too much concern of electrocution. Another broadcast station tour video I watched, with 1.5 megawatts power on 252 kHz LW, there were fences and signage warning to keep out and of _'instant death on contact'_ with the feedline or antenna tower. I remember when they were in the antenna matching/tuning room, the fences and railings were resonating with the song being transmitted - crazy !
Thanks for doing this. I find radio fascinating. AM Stereo could have worked, but the FCC really botched it by not selecting a system from the start. The knowledge of radio/tv engineers never ceases to amaze me.
I live in Fort Wayne, Indiana where the Magnavox system was developed. Rumor had it that 1190 WOWO was the first to broadcast AM stereo, but it was at night when developing the system. We still have a AM stereo station broadcasting in the city at 1450KHz.
You said a lot of information was contained in this video, and you weren't kidding! It's crazy to think that the AM stereo technology is still around, although not being produced any more, and that there are stations still broadcasting CQUAM.
I hate to disagree with you, but my 2015 VW e-Golf's factory radio has AM and it receives just fine. If AM is going away it's not necessarily because of electric cars. Really like The AM stereo tour because I'm also a fan of quadrophonic. Look forward to seeing the next video!
That's good to know. The inverters and motor drives will whipe out most AM out on the town. But it comes and goes. I love AM and we still have plenty here in the Northeast.
My close friend is the owner of WWPR 1490AM in Florida. It's just a small, lower power station, but I should ask them if they ever thought about broadcasting in Stereo. Thanks for posting this! I never knew AM stereo existed until a couple years ago. It's so fascinating to know this existed.
The problem with it is while some stations might have antiquated AM stereo equipment sitting in their racks not doing anything, the thing everyone is getting wrangled into these days is the HD AM stuff, MA1 or MA3 mode. a lot of stations in the NYC Metro area uses these on their stations aside from having a stream going out on HD2 or HD3 on FM. While it might pan out to do AM Stereo, not everything supports it... and while most newer cars from 2007 onwards will have HD Radio capabilities, maybe a chunk of those can do HD AM as well, and that's still more than there are AM Stereo compatible receivers in cars.
Very interesting tour! I used to listen to a AM station using Kahn stereo with two radios offset tuned like he mentioned since I couldn't find a AM stereo receiver with good results.
Great tour and fascinating discussion. Matt sure seems to know his stuff and is very interesting to listen to. That's why you are one of the top UA-cam channels Shango001! You provide a variety of topics and discussions on many areas of interest. Thanks for all of the postings you share with us and take care!
Found your video interesting. Back in the day, when I was in High school, I worked at a radio station in my home town. AM 1410 WLSH. I noticed an AM stereo component in a rack where I worked and asked about it. It was a long time ago, but I think they said it wasn't active or something. It needed another piece of equipment to make it functional. Sorry, i'm not very technical. Just a fond memory working there. I miss it.
Thank you for the video. Gave me a kick back to my youth where my electronic life began 40 years ago. I am so sad that we don’t have any AM station left in Germany. Only a few countries in Europe still send via AM, so I have to wait until night I can receive them. Never knew that it was possible to broadcast in stereo by AM. Very exciting! So I know my next vacation goes to the USA only to enjoy AM stereo broadcasts ;-D For now I listen to KYET over TuneIn.
*_"We do AM Stereo, not because it is easy, but because it is hard."_*
That was great !
Like I said. J.F.K would be proud.
@applied engineering,Going to the moon was slightly more ambitious.
@@Suddenlyits1960 Not really lol.
Thanks for the tour! I have several samples on my channel of using HD Radio receivers to decode C-Quam AM Stereo. It does work, but the bandwidth is rather narrow, and like he said, it gives you no stereo indicator, and the left and right channels are reversed. That's too bad about the custom-modified radio not working in stereo, but KYET sounds great through the Sony radio.
*Thanks VWestlife,* for sending Radio! Was a nice surprise to know what i didn't. Cheers!
What HD radios have C-QUAM stereo?
Amateur radio
Press trustacune doiler, brogle spoiler by barbalizer
I have a sangean hd radio.. I'm not sure if it would decode am stereo or not. The model is the hdr 16 and does anyone know of any frequencies of stations I may be able to receive. It gets great reception and has a 200 mm ferrite bar. I live in southwest pa not far from Morgantown wv
AM Stereo sounds a lot better than I expected!!!
I am very impressed!
Me too! It's the first time I've heard it, AM Stereo is just not a thing here in the UK.
@@alancordwell9759 I'm from Devon and I've just vaguely heard of AM stereo, it was great to see it in practice. UK AM seems to be dying a slow death. It would be an interesting curiosity piece to have this station here, but for me, I can only take so much country music ;)
"We do AM stereo not because it is easy, because it is hard", l like that guy.
Impressive visit of an AM stereo station.
I like the part where the owner told him there was a stereo modulator and he made it is mission to make it work. My kind of guy!
J.F.K would be proud.
Yep, John Kennedys moon speech.
Sure was nice of Matt to give such a detailed tour! KYET 1170 first went on the air in 1977 as KBWA 1180 in Williams, AZ -- according to Wiki. This was the first time I've heard AM stereo technology, and am amazed at the minimal distortion reminiscent of its VHF frequency-modulated counterpart.
My parents had a 1999 Chrysler T & C LXi that had an Infinity Sound System in it that had an AM Stereo receiver in it, but we had no AM Stereo Stations in our area so it was just mono.
I'm absolutely blown away by the sound quality, I didn't know these a.m. stereo radio things existed.
@@msroper5287 Thanks for reply. I'm from UK, so as far as I'm aware this tech didn't get used over here (I may be wrong tho), shame, because I'm a huge fan of am radios - I've got 8 am receivers even now, use them regularly, and would definitely have had one of these great stereo am receivers. I think we maybe had too many am stations in the EU using tghis band at the time of development of this, hence we went FM and now DAB, What a shame, UK missed out on a treat! Our am airwaves here used to be packed with stations - less so nowadays, from Moscow to London, from Berlin to Iceland. I love Shangoos channel, it keeps me going! :)
This is all in a 20 foot storage container, or two in the middle of desert in Golden Valley, AZ. No wonder the AC units fail in
a short time. No perfect way to insulate from the heat and electronics like it cool. He designed a near perfect transmitter antenna with ground plane and looks good. The AM signal sounds great in stereo! If this is Matt Krick , not only is he
super knowledgable in his field , you may find some stuff as a presenter in a symposium on YT from several years ago
( I leave it to you to search for those vids) and is also quite entertaining and funny. See you on part three Shango!
I remember back in 1998 I was fixing a sanyo stereo, I had a really hard time diagnosing what was going on with the FM stereo, it was working while I was listening to the radio and then the it just went away, no separation no indicator led, both VU meters led and analog peaking at the same level. Long story short. It turns out that the designers of the stereo demodulation circuit, used the actually LED indicator as part of the demodulation itself, it was a very low powered red led, the actual silkscreen had a diode and the led in parallel, but some how they decided to cut cost and just use the led. in the end I did use a germanium diode and a new led in parallel which fixed it. I know it's an FM unit, but, who knows maybe similar design? Or just needs alignment.
It’s so great to see Matt working to make KYET a damn good sounding AM Stereo station. So many AM stations on the air now are basically being left to rot. It’s a labor of love running an AM Stereo station but it’s so worth it.
This has to be the best tour and explanation of an AM radio station that I have ever privileged to watch. Thank you for your time and effort on this endeavor and thank you to Matt for being not only the Chief Engineer but tour guide as well. Well done!
I was all in on AM stereo back in the early 80"s onward. I had all the Sony radios and a Radio Shack AM stereo tuner. I lived in the NYC area. WQXR-AM ran the Kahn Hazeltine version and I listened to them with two 1940 era Zenith Sailboat radios offsetting them via upper and lower sideband. It did work. There were CQUAM kits then too for retrofitting stereo receivers. I did several. Thank you Shango for this incredible AM stereo history set of videos. Please submit them to the Smithsonian for future preservation.
@BillyLapTop
Wow I haven't heard that name Kahn Hazeltine in almost three decades!
I think KYW AM 1060 used in Philly as well, back in the 1990s.
The broadcast engineer is an icon! How long has he been laboring out in the middle of the desert, in a tin shipping container, all alone.... keeping that station in tippy top shape! What dedication! ... and he and his brother built/erected the antenna?!
Radiomen were often called "radio hermits"I do the same thing at a govt short wave transmitter plant 15 miles from Greenville,NC.Just me and one other guy here! The big concern for us is SAFETY!!!Transmitters contain High Voltages-and can be still there even when power is off and primary breakers opened!The ground hook is your main protection.Use it before touching ANY HV connections-even is Sold state transmitters!The ones out here use HUGE tubes-expensive as a house-and the transmitters are as big or bigger than sea containers!
@@thomasoliver5095 I've passed the Greenville VOA/Radio Martí site many times. I'm up the road in the thriving metropolis (not!) of Roanoke Rapids.
Hey, look, you're on WIKI! On Sunday, September 4th, 2022, popular vintage electronics UA-camr Shango066 released a video giving a station tour of KYET. The station engineer, Matt, explains how the AM stereo transmitter functions, as well as other details of the exciter and transmission system.
That editor should make Shango066 show up in blue letters there.
I see EEVblog, Louis Rossman and others there.
I love the sounds of AM STEREO. To me it has more depth and channel separation than FM stereo. Those classic rock segments sounded awesome!!
That was absolutely fascinating. Thank you Shango. Who knew AM Stereo could sound that good.
Really great video. Like one foot in each era of broadcasting. Mono and stereo. Seeing all the solid state gear driving a broadcast made nostalgia for me. As a little kid we toured the local TV broadcast station. The final output tubes glowed blue. Big vacuum tubes! His breakdown of the tower parts demonstrates that it is not just the wattage that gets the waves out there. It is the literal tuning of the entire structure. All the insulation breaks remind us of the raw power traversing the wires out in the elements. Finally, the call letters were interesting. Usually W is east of Mississippi and K is west of Mississippi. Thank you for all the driving and leveraging your connections to bring us this insightful reel. I noticed KNX is broadcasting on FM 97.1, and it's clear why. I'd never heard that about today's cars. I hope AM survives. More channels more better democracies.
Many large market AM stations are being simulcast on HD Radio subchannels these days. Getting AM radio reception even at home is a pain due to things like LED lightbulbs and flate screen TVs just dumping RF all over the band.
@@NJRoadfan AM in the newer big rigs pick up a lot of static from fuel injectors.If you are very close to the station its ok.
So true! I sometimes tune low in the AM band to hear my MSD box singing around 3kHz ;)
@@johnchildress6717 Seems like these rig builders need to learn about ferrite coils to filter out the static.
Fascinating! Never knew there was such a thing as AM stereo! So sad AM is slowly dying out, especially for us tube (valve) radio fans here in the UK. For now, we still have a number of stations receivable here. Excellent stuff Shango066!
With Europe's 9 kHz AM allocation / spacing, the bandwidth is even narrower than our 10 kHz AM allocation in Canada / USA. Likely doesn't lend itself well to the AM stereo modulation technology and also added high frequency rolloff with the narrow bandwidth.
Don't you still have the Longwave AM band there in the UK, yet active. Over here in the USA I been able to hear the BBC on its Longwave frequency. Wish we had broadcasting on LW here in America, you Europeans are lucky to have LW yet, which sadly is dying out too.
@@JCWise-sf9ww I have been able to receive BBC4 on 198 kHz and Ireland's Top 40 / CHR "Atlantic 252" (serving all of Europe) on 252 kHz from northeastern Canada. The transmission range of LW is amazing!
I don’t know how it is everywhere,but as Shango pointed out,am radio is mostly talk now,not exactly the type of programming that benefits from
Stereophonic sound.
I rarely ever listen to am or fm radio anymore. There’s no good content for the most part on either format and the amount of commercials have become obnoxious and intolerable. With CD’s,iPods,and people carrying their entire music collection stored on their phones,there’s too many better choices that allow you to listen to what you want without requiring the listeners to suffer though 10 minute blocks of commericals filled with idiotic,babblingto hear 8 minutes of programming.
@@Suddenlyits1960 Where I live, there are still several AM music stations within range in 2022. Many have quite a following for playing what mainstream corporate owned (iHeart etc.) radio stations do not. Often with much less commercial content (in the case of 1220 CFAJ, commercial free). That same station is essentially format free, and all day and all night play back to back a crazy playlist like: Journey, Ella Fitzgerald, Eddy Grant, Judas Priest, Neil Diamond, Depeche Mode, Kenny Rogers, Jan and Dean, Styx, The Beatles... nothing on FM comes close! Private-owned radio stations for the win!!
560 CFOS ... Classic Hits
600 CKAT ... Country
620 WHEN ... Hip Hip / R&B
740 CFZM ... Classic Hits, 1930s to 1980s
1080 WUFO ... Classic R&B
1220 CFAJ ... Classic Hits, 1930s to 1990s *_(commercial free)_*
1400 WWWS ... Old School Hip Hop
1460 CJOY ... Classic Hits
1580 CKDO ... 50s, 60s Oldies
1670 CJEU ... Dance music, trance, techno
1680 WPRR ... R&B
I worked at an AM stereo in 1989. It sounded awesome on the air. They added a touch of subtle reverb which made it even better. Im still addicted to AM and still see it as a fun and viable medium!
Great tour. Thank you!
winamp it really whips the llama's ass
My Carver TX-11A AM Stereo reviver is capable of of receiving and decoding “CD Quality” stereo audio on AM. Full 20hz-20Khz stereo audio, blows FM out of the water. Always a fun party trick to show guests that my most impressive component in my stereo system is the AM radio. 😎
That was a pretty cool field trip, hopefully you can get that thing running on stereo, I really hate to see AM die I'm only 40 years old and I still have a AA-5 next to my bed clock radio that I turn the automatic shut off for 30 minutes and fall asleep to something like red eye radio at midnight get my 5 hours of sleep and go off to work the next day, thanks for the videos.
What a cool channel. I listen just for your voice. Very calming. And i learn a lot. What a combo!
Kudos to the engineer (and owner) at that station for keeping AM and stereo alive! I remember when KING AM 1090 in Seattle was testing Kahn-Halzeltine AM stereo in about 1977. You could take two radios, tune one to the left side of the frequency, and the other to the right side. When they played an old Beatles crazy stereo song like "All my loving", you'd hear a definite stereo image with vocals in one channel and instruments in the other. It's really too bad they couldn't settle on an AM stereo standard, and then the confusion with the NRSC roll off frequencies in the early 1990's, along with crappy sounding new radio manufacturing, deregulation, etc, etc . . . spelled the doom of AM radio. It's really a cool sounding technology when done right that employed lots of people, had a profound impact on local communities and allowed listening from long distances (at night).
That was an amazingly packed video! So interesting to see all that equipment. I worked for a local radio and TV station but they didn't have all that transmitting equipment because it was all cable only (they used a TV modulator for the radio shows too), and I never had access to the interesting stuff and was never allowed to open anything.
AM Stereo sounds amazing! I hope you can get VWestLife's radio fixed with some alignment or by replacing shorted tantalums or so.
Looking forward to see the next part!
What a superb video, I need to watch it again to try and understand more
Enjoyed the tour ! Brings back memories seeing that equipment. I worked part time one Summer at an AM Station in Providence, R.I. WALE 990 AM, they are gone now. Last I heard the tramsmission antenna was laying on the ground rusting away in Lincoln, R.I.
Wow, I thought AM stereo was long gone! In the 1970s & 80s, I was a Radio/TV Engineer for KUAT in Tucson. Our main AM xmttr was a Harris MW-50A. That was a really neat rig, rather unique in its day. It employed a class-D modulator---the modulator (4CX5000) was a big switching regulator. Harris also offered a stereo option, which we didn't have. It seemed that AM stereo passed from the scene, not long there after. And I'm sure it won't be resurrected, because AM today is almost all News/Talk/Sports. There's no reason for stereo, unless you're broadcasting music.
Thanks for the tour! There is a lot of good basic introductory information in this video for anyone interested in the finer points of AM stereo operation, along with its challenges. All the stereo gear is at least 30 years old now, and you get to see some of the issues with the gear as it ages. When I worked for a station in the midwest, we had almost the exact same complement of gear; a Harris DX-10 with its matching exciter, and the 1310 demodulator. The STL shot to the site was mono, so we had a Orban stereo synthesizer to feed the air chain. Nautels' NX series transmitters include AM stereo in the base model, so no external exciter is required.
Wow! Thanks so much for this one Shango. We've never had AM stereo here in The UK, it's been so good to find out all about it from your great video.
That's awesome that he's still using Winamp. Lol.
It really whips the llama's ass!
Just want to say, I subscribe to a lot of channels with million subscribers but it’s your videos I watch the most. I just love the education and nostalgia. Thanks for doing what you do.
Great video! I love the fact that all the radios, music and transmitter are "period correct".
I live in a remote area, and only 4-5 AM stations are listenable. I'm lucky to get those with a decent AM antenna. Thanks for the tour! 😎
It is so cool to find an AM radio station that still broadcasts in stereo. I may have to keep my ear out for it! My experience with AM has been almost exclusively in mono, either because I have never owned an AM radio capable of decoding stereo, or if I have all along without realizing it, it could have been due to the dumb luck of living in a market without any stations broadcasting in stereo. The closest I have is KSL on 1160, but they cheat by using HD Radio, even though they do sound noticeably better than on a legacy analog AM radio.
PS Kudos to Shango he is becoming a legend.
Thanks Matt & shango. - _and,_ thanks for all [bits] of those Stereo Tunes!
Glad i Read about AM Stereo yesterday, it sure helped 'grasp', recall, more of what said today.
THANK YOU. I wanted to see the equipment involved with AM Stereo. So AM stereo was not marketed correctly as to why it's not prevalent in the AM broadcasting industry today, talk formats helped to eliminate from stations that had AM-Stereo. Most of our AM stations here in south central PA, now simulcast on FM with less reception range. It is so sad that digital and switching electronics interferes with AM radio reception, you would think they could easily solve the RFI problem electric cars have for the sake of AM radio. I'm beginning to think very few of us care if AM goes EOL. My one friend who worked as a transmitter engineer in Pittsburgh, called AM - Antique Modulation, he own a lot of FM only receivers. There is a big following of people that collect Antique AM Radios, etc., I'm going to such a show in Kutztown PA in a couple weeks.
Most AM now is sports, talk radio.
There are still some AM stations who broadcast music still to this day here in south central Pennsylvania. 1440 AM in York county has music, 960 AM in Carlisle Pennsylvania is a good station for Rock , classic rock and 1000 AM is classic country. 1600 AM is complete mix of all the genres of music. Now if they would have CQuam stereo, that would be excellent but of course they do have fun stereo translators for the AM transmission of their signal. At night you can hear AM 740 from Montreal Canada. Great station and very strong.
@J.C. Wise
I actually went to University of Pennsylvania Kutztown U back in the late 1980s and received my degree in telecommunications from there, If you wanted hands on for TV and Radio production that was a great school to go to. I then worked for a time at WGAL also in master control and production for the news and a weekly show called Susquehanna People. There were a number of AM stereo stations in the Philly area back from the late 1980s until the late 1990s or so
KYW 1060 decided to broadcast their news radio with it, sounded great but I never understood why they chose it without music.
@@sweirich777 SO you live in my area! YES, we are very much aware of the those AM music stations. There are two more WADV 940 Southern Gospel Lebanon & WHVR 1290 Top 40 Hanover. WLBR 1270 Lebanon changed to talk. One of the best music programs comes on WABC 770 NYC Saturday nights, with cousin Brucie and Tony Orlando DJing all evening long with all kinds of oldies requests. WABC also streams online, most all stations do even around the world! Yes, I listen to ( a clear channel) AM 740 Zoomer radio sometimes too. The majority of the time I listen to Conservative News Talk WHP 580.
Ohh yes, I completely forgot about those 2 radio stations! So we really are from this same area! It's good to know that there is another person from this area! I am glad to meet you. Steve kb3hay
Thanks yet again for posting. Purchased an "AM Stereo capable" car stereo through Crutchfield in mid 80s. Although widely traveled, was unable to tune in a station that broadcast it. Other than a few magazine articles of that period, this is the first reference I've seen. At least now I can draw a line through another thing my ex claims I "imagined."
I remember having a couple of car stereos that would decode C-QUAM. Some 1980s/early 1990s Chrysler vehicles had this in their factory radios. Unfortunately the only station I could get that broadcast AM stereo was all news, so not a lot of point to it. Cool tour of a nearly forgotten technology. Glad there are those still keeping the faith.
Nice to hear Chris' voice at 11:23. I'm not surprised that he would want to tour the station too.
Love the transmitter site tour and the ongoing saga of the Motorola-modified receiver. Interesting to see the Harris DX-10 design philosophy. I helped out on the technical side on an AM/FM commercial station, where we had a Nautel Ampfet 10 and a Harris FM20K. The Nautel didn't offer quite so much front panel diagnostic information as the DX-10 and it used PWM. Both designs are (I believe) from approximately the same period.
Air conditioning was an ongoing issue for us too. Management made a token gesture, consisting of a single domestic window unit! In Summer, the Nautel TX would blow a few MOSFETs; this just meant that the output power would be slightly reduced until I could take it off air and replace them. Sustained high temperatures will of course prematurely age numerous other components and thus the equipment as a whole.
Well that was a roundabout way of hearing AM stereo for the first (and probably the only) time. Awesome and thanks!
Our host is sending the green radio to us at WION in Ionia, MI to complete the series of his videos, and give a virtual tour. Listen live anytime to AM stereo at our www.i1430.com, or on any device. If you have a stereo web device, that's fine, too. it's fed by a REAL AM stereo receiver from the air. You'll hear the (short) interruption for power and pattern changes at the appropriate times. Give it a listen. We didn't have an app created because of constantly having to update the app at OUR cost, especially for the hoity-toity I-phones....but smart people know how to make a shortcut on their phones for it from the website. (and yes, the website is out of date by look and will be updated, but RADIO FIRST, WEBSITE SECOND. Enjoy!
Outstanding video! I have an am stereo radio in my truck and back in the day i remember AM Stereo sounding about the same as FM maybe a little more noisy. I'm in the Philly market so i think there were a couple stations. ...that truck is 31 yrs old now...
WPEN 950, "The Station of the Stars" ran AM stereo back in the day. I was able to hear them on the south Jersey shore.
One of the most informative videos on AM stereo transmission I have seen outside of a college lecture. Brilliant. Very little technical detail but a great description of what goes on at these places. Thanks.
Thanks for the brilliant tour, I can't wait for the receiver repair.
Those epoxy-dipped tantalum capacitors are a matter of replace-on-sight. After 20-30 years (depends on the storage conditions), they become at least as unreliable as paper capacitors. Never even use NOS of those. The epoxy resin can not seal them hermetically, both oxigen and moisture can get inside over a few decades, and tantalum caps are very sensitive to that, they can go leaky or to a complete short very easily. They behave absolutely unpredictably when voltage gets applied to them after years of sitting. I have a few instruments in which they failed in the number of dozens within minutes. One shorted, I clipped that out (it was just for bypass), an other one shorted within a few seconds on the same rail, and so on. They can not be re-formed.
Up to 4.7uF you can substitute them with Wima or other film caps with 5mm lead spacing, and for higher capacitances you can use MLCC if it is for power supply bypass, or just simple alu. electrolytics, if it is a DC blocking cap in the audio signal path.
I like tantalums, but only the metal encapsulated, hermetically sealed ones, those almost never fail, even 50 years old ones. I recently bought a box of 340pcs 100uF 10V KEMET T110 series, made in 1985, but I will happily use them for 5V rail bypass in vintage computers and stuff. They are $8.60 per piece if you buy 80 to 440 pieces of them, so my 340pcs would cost almost $3000 if I would buy them new! I payed $65 for them in October 2021...
Your knowledge of this area is awesome and I enjoy ur comments on current events are on spot..music choices are my favorites growing up.
I'll have to see if I can tune these folks in sometime.
Sony and Sansui both made ICs capable of decoding the multiple AM stereo systems. (Sansui's ICs were, if memory serves, capable of automatically detecting the system in use and switching accordingly. You'll find them in the TU-S77AMX and the TU-D99AMX. The latter in particular is an outstanding tuner on either AM or FM.)
A REAL FINE PIECE OF ART. MR SHANGO066... this time you surpassed yourself.
Very cool thanks for bringing us along!
Love this - and love the passion that's gone into this station. The AM stereo technology still fits in the 21st Century despite the way the entire AM band has been decimated. We went all in during Stereo's early days in Buffalo (WGR) and Cincinnati (WKRC). Our competitor in Buffalo (WKBW) was intermittently testing the technology. We shared transmitter sites so there were few secrets. The night we installed AM Stereo on WGR (5k-DA-n) KB was working on the same thing. Late at night a bunch of us were sitting in the parking lot when a loud "Ka-Rack" emanated from the building. We thought the worst -fearing that WKBW would get their system on the air first. Our corporate director of engineering came out of the building looking at the group somberly and announced that the noise came from a final transmitter section... of 'KB's 50kw Harris. 'KB's CE was very knowledgeable of his plant-and got it back on the air quickly, but in a race that no one cared about-we won. In Cincinnati we used the Kahn-Hazeltine system and fed it with a stereo synthesizer just to turn the light on. My wife's new Jeep decoded the signal with an expanded bandwidth and it sounded wonderful. We also worked out a deal with the local cable company to use one of their FM frequencies. It was about the time MTV was beginning so we both had the luxury of FM stereo signals. In retrospect-that's another race that no one cared about, but the ability to experiment? Priceless.
Fascinating. I remember hearing about am stereo in the early 90s. Never heard it in person though.
Great video Shango, Matt and VWestlife! Sad to see AM disappearing...working on a valve TRF AM radio project now which when complete I will enjoy whilst stations here in Europe are still around.
Separation unmistakable using headphones! First time ever hearing AM stereo. Fascinating tour !
Well that was certainly no wasted day. Thanks a million for showing us this Shango, station and thanks to you Matt for telling us the story of how you made it all work. It's fascinating stuff. Kudos and plaudits to both of you 🏆 Watching this a few times for sure, it's a real ✨🦄
RIP Joe Hart. My wife and I met Joe and his wife, Rhonda, at a ham radio swap meet about 5 years ago in Mesa, AZ. He noticed I was selling a Directed DMHD-1000 receiver at my swap meet table and noted it could receive AM Stereo. I told him I was aware of that and I lamented the fact that there were so few AM Stereo stations left. He then told me he owned KYET, Cactus Country, in Kingman, and that it was an AM Stereo station. I had no idea he was the State Mine Inspector.
I still have the Directed DMHD-1000 receiver (a similar example is seen in the video at 14:33). I also have a Sony SRF-42 AM Stereo Walkman somewhere. Back in the day my brother had a 1992 Dodge Shadow and one day I discovered it had AM Stereo and that Phoenix had a few AM Stereo stations at that time. The audio from those stations was excellent.
Oddly enough, Paul Lotsoff, who was the owner of another small quirky country & western station in Arizona also passed away just recently. He ran KAVV 97.7 FM (The Cave) in Benson, AZ. The callsign is a nod to the nearby Kartchner Caverns. They played a really eclectic mix of older C&W music you will never hear on any other broadcast radio station.
Great video Shango! Love seeing broadcast facilities.
@shango066
*Wow this is a super high quality video, I loved this tour and this engineer, and plenty of obscure information, but he knew it ALL, and could describe it so laypersons could understand it*
I was around as a kid in the 1980s and remember AM stereo being in Philly on a LOT of stations, even KYW 1060 was using it for the news radio only broadcasts! I love the discussion of all the different AM stereo formats that were around in the 1980s.
Also the comment section is FULL of amazing stories of people who actually worked with this equipment as well. Incredible! Thanks!
This is super cool stuff! It's so good to actually understand all the tech because of all the radio repair videos I've watched in the past few years...
My 1987 Pontiac Fiero has AM Stereo built in. It really sounded pretty good in the late 80s when it was being broadcast widely. Thank You so much for this video. That was such an interesting look at local AM Broadcasting to see how it works. I agree….we should all enjoy and support it while its here.
I have a Pioneer AM stereo/FM stereo/ Cassette head unit that was supposedly supplied in Honda Legends of the late 80s.
This was an excellent video. Looking forward to part 2.
Well Shango I listen to this with Dolby pro logic turned on “ in a properly set up system“ and the sound quality was incredibly good it was very fun to watch such a video this might be one of your best field videos yet.
Thanks for the road trip tour. That was mighty nice of you and of course, Matt to do this.
The listenership of AM is shrinking, although, it's still there but their coverage is shrinking with the increasing noise floor. We know that AM radio listening is in the single digits from ratings and research done in the past year or so. The areas where it thrives are small communities that aren't served by larger signals that aim for the money in bigger cities and big power stations.
Stereo Tool is used by several stations near my area. ST is packaged with hardware called STXtreme and offered for sale through Telos called Omnia SST. I use ST paired with another processor and the combo works very well. I had it running on my part 15 AM, too. I have licensed features on mine, so it has a lot of bells and whistles.
The Nashville market had a lot of AM stereo stations, even in the early 1980s. There was a mix of systems in use, but Harris' system was the choice around here with WHIN and WSM using it until 1983 or 1984 when, at least WSM, converted to C-QUAM. WHIN stopped using it completely but kept the entire plant stereo even though they broadcast mono (and still do to this day). The lone AM stereo station in this market is WKDA, but it isn't true stereo. It's mono audio fed to one channel only.
Shango, thanks for the tour and commentary by Matt of KYET. Really nice to see people out there still trying to keep things alive while they can. Good luck on getting that radio to play AM Stereo.
Barring a chip that is faulty and can't be found I know they'll fix it. They'll have to check the IF bandwidth and the frequency response. Then they'll have to check the ancillary components around the main chip. I wonder how difficult it would be to set up a synthesizer?
Thx for the tour, Shango. Lived in AZ back when AM 780, KAZM, was using the old standard of AM stereo and we were trying to get both channels clearly north of Flagstaff. Pre CQUAM. All of this never lived up to the promise, but tip of the cap to those who innovated and tried to make it work.
Seen this video back when it was uploaded, Finally got to listen to a bit of KYET the other day when I was in Nevada! Too bad just rental car so no AM stereo. But loved the music selection
This rig must use a lot of electricity to get the AM stereo out is my guess. I wish we had AM stereo up here where i live. Up here i only get some BBC stations and Russian stations on AM. But up here in Norway the electricity prize is now so high. That no one will run an AM station here. We pay now over 1 dollar pr, kilowatt. Just to mention, we pay also 4X more for the gas and diesel than people in USA. Sad but true. Nice review Shango066. Looking forward to next video 🙂
KYET coming in nice and strong tonight in the California high desert on my Panasonic RF-2200. Reduced power of 1 watt at night!!
Wooow... Dan, you just made a happy man feel very old. :) Seeing that Harris transmitter really brought back memories ! 20 years back, I used to work with Harris transmitters very much like the one we just saw, "mine" was the next generation though. Harris make absolutely excellent stuff !
Excellent as usual brother!
After graduating I worked at Harris Communications in San Antonio.
I worked on phase locks.
I wanted to work on that side of the company but it didn't happen!
Thus, I was discouraged and left... Then got into home audio 🤙
My 1989 Oldsmobile Tornado had AM stereo and up till the early 2000's we had a station in town that broadcasted in stereo. Seems like I was pretty lucky to experience it
Thanks for the vid, I was enthralled by the amount of technical verbiage that I remember from my early color(rowndy) TV that included antenna design knowledge that I acquired from an old Audel TV book from the late '60s. Physics books & my Navy career in the '70s, sadly set me up for a career of mechanicing cars. But I still like the tv & radio thangs...
this is some of your best work ever, thanks for a very well done tour and technology education.
Good little tour with Matt -Brought back memories of AM stereo in those older days.Glad the AM stereo is working out with Matt in that station.AM stereo just didn't catch on in the DC Baltimore areas at that time.-Maybe try again?The other issue is the AM stereo radios were not easy to obtain.Remember I had to order My Sony Walkman-was like the Grey one Matt was holding.Exposed ground radials-could understand in that area since the ground is rocky and probably has high ground resistance.In DC Baltimore area the soil would have less rock and lower resistance.Have had to put in ground system-multitower.The ground systems of each tower connected together with 6" wide copper straps in trenches.Had to Braze these -solder connections don't hold underground.If you had exposed ground elements in DC-Baltimore area they would be gone in no time.Sometimes the copper wires float to the ground surface-one of my jobs as engineer was to mow the towerfeilds.More than once you would get wire wrapped around the tractor mower blade spindle!
Good to see they are using Stereo Tool.. one of the best audio processors around... and its mostly free!
It looks likes he is using the WRT-54G Wireless AP as an STL link? wow
the classic router. probably firmware modded too... I had one of those for quite some time.
They work great as a basic wireless to wired bridge with DD-WRT firmware. Not blazing speeds but perfect for old IOT stuff.
@@v12alpine yeah agreed.. used them for years.. not that great over 1-2km thou but reliable as!
This was a top class video. Congratulations on finding that person and getting access to the site. Both the AM stereo technology and the PWM transmitter was interesting. Here in Europe we have never (as far as I know) had any AM stereo radio and AM in general is rapidly declining. Here in Sweden there are no AM radio at all anymore. AM broadcasting to the general public almost died in the late 60's (a very rapid decline). The last transmitters were used only for listeners abroad. I cannot recall any references at all regarding any proposals for AM stereo here.
In Sweden it was a competition between the now usual MPX systems and a swedish system (FM/FM system Berglund). The FM/FM had some advantages but the MPX won, probaly because it became more or less a defacto standard for FM stereo. In retrospect it was a good choice, othervise we would be stranded with our own peculiar system. This resulted in a reletively late introduction of FM stereo here (I guess about 20 years after US).
The audio quality as shown in the video was better than I would have imagined. OK, lacking in treble but probably OK for car radio and casual listening.
Great video. We really got into the nuts and bolts here. Lots to nerd out over.
That station ID at the beginning of the video sounds like it was voiced by Dude Walker. A true legend in the industry...
Amazing, Dan. Thanks for sharing this tour with us. So much fascinating information was learned.
Having worked on many many pinball and arcade games, seeing those 3 AA Batteries mounted directly to the board in the Harris DX10, gave me flashbacks to acid damage and made me want to relocate them!
Very interesting video indeed!
This video was worth watching just for the explanation of the electronics in the TX chain never-mind the look at the mast / antenna.
Well done and thanks to all who made this possible.
Can I perhaps ask that you think about doing similar videos for standard AM, FM & DAB stations just to show how the transmission setup differs between each. I know it isn’t what you normally cover but it was great to see how the transmitter worked for AM Stereo.
UK viewer here - where we still have FM, Mono AM and our digital radio format is DAB.
😀
We don't have dab. Maybe I'll get around to an FM someday
@@shango066 I know things are different in the US and that you use a different digital radio standard. They keep saying they'll stop broadcasting FM within 10 or so years here in the UK. It depends how much the government stands to make by selling off spectrum. Looking forward to your future videos ... thanks once again
@@NMY556L Ill see what comes up, maybe in the 4th video we can cover fm
@@shango066 great 👍
At 20:24 . . . What would the voltage difference be between the base of the tower where the feedline connects and the ground radials in this installation? There didn't seem to be too much concern of electrocution.
Another broadcast station tour video I watched, with 1.5 megawatts power on 252 kHz LW, there were fences and signage warning to keep out and of _'instant death on contact'_ with the feedline or antenna tower. I remember when they were in the antenna matching/tuning room, the fences and railings were resonating with the song being transmitted - crazy !
Extremely high voltages. Surprised we don't hear more stories about electrocutions.
Thanks for doing this. I find radio fascinating. AM Stereo could have worked, but the FCC really botched it by not selecting a system from the start. The knowledge of radio/tv engineers never ceases to amaze me.
That 10 KHZ bandwidth sounds so good.
I live in Fort Wayne, Indiana where the Magnavox system was developed. Rumor had it that 1190 WOWO was the first to broadcast AM stereo, but it was at night when developing the system. We still have a AM stereo station broadcasting in the city at 1450KHz.
You said a lot of information was contained in this video, and you weren't kidding! It's crazy to think that the AM stereo technology is still around, although not being produced any more, and that there are stations still broadcasting CQUAM.
You have driven many miles for our entertainment. Thank you. I hope you fix your am stereo receiver.
Please...... More Studio/Transmitter Tours (This was Great !)
I hate to disagree with you, but my 2015 VW e-Golf's factory radio has AM and it receives just fine. If AM is going away it's not necessarily because of electric cars.
Really like The AM stereo tour because I'm also a fan of quadrophonic. Look forward to seeing the next video!
That's good to know. The inverters and motor drives will whipe out most AM out on the town. But it comes and goes. I love AM and we still have plenty here in the Northeast.
@@johnnytacokleinschmidt515 I'm a little confused by your answer. The e-Golf is an electric vehicle. Maybe I should have made that more clear.
I didnt even realize there was stereo AM, and i especially liked seeing WinAmp running on his computer!!
This is one incredible almost a documentary. Shango - you are doing awesome! 73 from Moscow.
Brilliant- I can't add anything to the grateful comments of the rest of the viewers. Thanks.
You put a lot of work into your videos for us, and it shows. Thank you!
Fantastic Video! Reminded me of two tours of local TV station transmitters here in Louisville Ky.
Nice! I love tours of broadcast facilities. The history of broadcasting is so interesting.
My close friend is the owner of WWPR 1490AM in Florida. It's just a small, lower power station, but I should ask them if they ever thought about broadcasting in Stereo.
Thanks for posting this! I never knew AM stereo existed until a couple years ago. It's so fascinating to know this existed.
The problem with it is while some stations might have antiquated AM stereo equipment sitting in their racks not doing anything, the thing everyone is getting wrangled into these days is the HD AM stuff, MA1 or MA3 mode. a lot of stations in the NYC Metro area uses these on their stations aside from having a stream going out on HD2 or HD3 on FM. While it might pan out to do AM Stereo, not everything supports it... and while most newer cars from 2007 onwards will have HD Radio capabilities, maybe a chunk of those can do HD AM as well, and that's still more than there are AM Stereo compatible receivers in cars.
Very interesting tour! I used to listen to a AM station using Kahn stereo with two radios offset tuned like he mentioned since I couldn't find a AM stereo receiver with good results.
Wow! I'm really impressed!
Great tour and fascinating discussion. Matt sure seems to know his stuff and is very interesting to listen to. That's why you are one of the top UA-cam channels Shango001! You provide a variety of topics and discussions on many areas of interest. Thanks for all of the postings you share with us and take care!
Found your video interesting. Back in the day, when I was in High school, I worked at a radio station in my home town. AM 1410 WLSH. I noticed an AM stereo component in a rack where I worked and asked about it. It was a long time ago, but I think they said it wasn't active or something. It needed another piece of equipment to make it functional. Sorry, i'm not very technical. Just a fond memory working there. I miss it.
Thank you for the video. Gave me a kick back to my youth where my electronic life began 40 years ago. I am so sad that we don’t have any AM station left in Germany. Only a few countries in Europe still send via AM, so I have to wait until night I can receive them. Never knew that it was possible to broadcast in stereo by AM. Very exciting! So I know my next vacation goes to the USA only to enjoy AM stereo broadcasts ;-D For now I listen to KYET over TuneIn.