AM radio

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Listening to Five Live last night - about the same time as the Radcliffe moment - I clearly noticed what I assumed to be a mainland European station coming through on the same frequency playing Destiny's Child's "Independent Women Part I" and Westlife's "World Of Our Own". Faint as they were, both songs were unmistakable, and I have to admit that both wormed their way back into my mind.

So your favourite AM (or Medium Wave in the UK) background moments, especially after dark when they really start coming through?

― Robin Carmody, Monday, 4 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

am (or mw) is intertwined with nostalgia. a reaction to the warmth and bass of fm. i used to listen to john peel on mw because the fm used to hiss on my little stereo and i could not afford a better one with a proper aerial. i used to hate the thin sound without the marshmellow fudge of the fm dial sound. i listen to those tapes now, the thin sound, peels voice occasionally peeping through, that drone, the words unimportant, something about real madrid or peel acres or the pig. and then there was the football, football was made for mw, can you even imagine it on fm? played in an orange kitchen, badly decorated, brighouse, sunday teatime, the sound of childhood? yes. but awful then, lets not pretend otherwise, fear of school. wanting the fm sound, the narcotic sensurround. and now we've got it, we want to throw it all away, pining for the mw. with the fm, you're part of the sound, but with the mw its separate, you're external, observer/listener (with wonderment) not participant/collaborator.

― gareth, Monday, 4 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The irony here is that Peel was one of the few Radio 1 shows regularly broadcast on FM back when they shared it with Radio 2, before FM (or VHF as it was often called back then) was the dominant force it is today.

You can't imagine football on FM: no, because it's only *ever* been on AM, nationally! I remember hearing football commentary on FM on some local station and it sounding, as you say, weird and unnatural, as though it had to sound less clear to be complete.

― Robin Carmody, Monday, 4 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Football commentary on BBC London (nee London Live, Nee GLR nee London again) is in FM and is advertised as such "Crackle Free". But if crackles were bad things why would they stuff Rice Crispies with them, eh?

I like the idea that oldies stations are on AM (Gold Stations) - as that's how they sounded in the sixties pre-FM. And also a suggestion that it isn't technologically good enough to warrant a full FM pumping. Robin - here's one for you. WOuld you rather listen to Telstar in AM or FM. The fact it was being made to be played on certain types of equipment may well alter the sonics used when it was being made.

― Pete, Tuesday, 5 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Not one for me now because I've gone off Joe Meek. However I have proven BY SCIENCE that the Sweet sound far better on MW than FM.

― Robin Carmody, Wednesday, 6 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

five years pass...

I can't imagine what Jack Buck would've sounded like on FM radio.

― Pleasant Plains, Saturday, 2 June 2007 05:32 (eighteen years ago)

eighteen years pass...

this is nuts... I have my clock radio tuned to KCBS and listen when I'm folding laundry etc. It'll probably become another sports betting station

WASHINGTON — CBS News said Friday it is shutting down its storied radio news service after nearly 100 years of operation as part of a round of layoffs, blaming a shift in radio station programming strategies and challenging economic times.

When it went on the air in September 1927, CBS News Radio was the precursor to the entire network, giving a youthful William S. Paley a start in the business. Famed broadcaster Edward R. Murrow delivered reports from London during World War II as part of the service.

― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 20 March 2026 18:06 (one month ago)

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