Slashdot Mirror
Old AM Broadcast Towers Get a New Life
Esther Schindler shares an article from Hewlett Packard Enterprise: Video may have killed the radio star, but other media certainly make old AM radio towers superfluous... maybe. "As once-loyal listeners tune away, most AM stations are barely holding onto life, slashing staff and budgets as deeply as they can while struggling to find a return to profitability," reports HPE. "Once upon a time, having a broadcast license of any kind was like having a permit to print money. In today's world, that's no longer true." But, with some 10,000 AM broadcast towers in the United States stretching high into the sky, there may be an opportunity for wireless carriers who don't want to argue with community opposition from neighborhoods where residents don't want yet another cell tower. The amount of money an AM station owner can pocket by sharing its tower with a wireless partner varies widely, depending on the tower's location, height, and several other factors. But it's certainly more income -- and a way to keep "old" technology from becoming obsolete. "Using an AM tower, which has very often been in place for many years, avoids many zoning and other permitting issues, versus going in and creating a new site for a tower," Behr explains. He says local residents, businesses, and officials rarely complain about an AM broadcast tower that suddenly begins serving as a cell site. "That tower was there before they were, and it doesn't bother them," Lawrence Behr, CEO of Greenville, North Carolina-based LBA Group, says. "Hanging a few things on it is rarely controversial, so that's a real good thing for AMs."
Honest question - isn't it necessary to de-energise the transmitter before technicians can climb the tower to install or maintain hardware? Presumably it happens in the graveyard shift. The ERP right at the tower must be quite high.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
The ridiculous number of commercials on broadcast TV (and cable-only channels) is another big reason for cord-cutting. You can subscribe to commercial free services on-line (Hulu, Netflix, etc.) without having to also pay for 150 channels of commercials you don't have any interest in.
I know it may be difficult for a "might-makes-right" mentality to grasp, but here's the thing: numbers may make them the mainstream, but it doesn't make them less kooky. Intelligence, like beauty, is a rare thing among humans, especially American humans. Our "democracy" is controlled by the mainstream of nitwits, kooks, etc. The Electoral College failed to fulfill its purpose in the last election. That's how we ended up where we are now (that and the help of the Russians).
unlike TV and FM towers, the AM tower > IS the antenna. the tower is hot. they are isolated by placing them atop large ceramic insulators. if the station is still on the air, this poses gigantic grounding and potential RF coupling into a cell service.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?