Ahh, yes, AM radio !!! I grew up in the 'burgh with it, before FM was much of anything. (FM at the time was mostly elevator music, or "underground" programming like heavy metal is now - remember Brother Love and Brother Hood ??) I remember listening to many Pirates games...back when they still had a team and Bob Prince was announcing ("And there was no doubt about it !!!") on 1020 KDKA, the world's first licensed commercial b'cst station (disputed!).
I grew up in the "burgh" too, and also listened to Prince and his close as a gnat's eye-lashes, etc, and went to some games and heard him call it low and outside when actually it was a throw to first base, and then accused the umps of getting the count wrong later. KDKA was so strong that we could pick it up on our telephone. When I left town to go to grad school out in the midwest, the town I lived in had a daytime station on 1020, and as soon as it turned off around 6 PM, after about 15 seconds, KDKA would pop in, and I could listen to the baseball games. When driving home from the midwest, I'd leave the car radio on 1020, and it would alternately pick up KDKA, WBZ (Boston) and another station out of Philly as I drove along rt 40. The Boston and Philly stations were on 1010 and 1030, but my car radio didn't care. When one station faded out, one of the other two would come in. The east/west reception of KDKA was real good, but I can only rarely pick it up here in Maine, which is dissappointing.
I still listen to some talk shows and some sporting events, so that category fits me like a glove! But recently most of that moved to FM in our area which is a blessing as the local AM station cuts back to 500 watts at night and it was difficult to pick up what I wanted to hear on my whole drive home in the winter. But I haven't abandoned AM completely. When on the longer distance road at night I still like to DX, stations like KDKA and WBZ which are only 10kHz apart. I sometimes listen to KYW or WRVA as well...
? Is KYW the Philly station???
(KDKA was b'cst in C-QUAM - AM stereo - for a couple of years. My '87 Chevy P/U had a radio that could resolve it. Only stereo AM programming I ever heard.
KDKA is the station I mentioned earlier that came out with stereo in the late 50s, with the left on AM and right on FM. (or visa versa).
(I still have a number of tube AM radios! Learned all about "super hetrodyne" from ones like that! One was my Mother's, an RCA if memory serves - has the old "high top" tubes and wooden knobs. Another is a Philco that came from my uncle,
I had a couple Philco radios, one was a big floor model that did SW band too. I still have a 1940 era Hallicrafter SW/AM receiver. Last time I tried it, it still worked, but I haven't tried it for years.
Another is a portable tube radio - one "D" battery for the filaments and one 45-volt battery for the plates. About the size of a brick, has a leather case and strap. It's in mint condition. I think I can still get that battery...)
Wow, I had a radio similar to that back in the early 50s. THe radio was about the size of a half cement block, and about as heavy. THat one is LONG GONE though. Around 1960 though, I bought this tiny Toshiba radio that did AM/FM/SW. It was GREAT. This was back when Japanese stuff was considered as JUNK, but this portable was about the size of a pack of cigarettes, and outperformed any other radio I had at the time. It really told me that those Japanese were something to worry about, technology wise.
