[HN Gopher] The Beginnings of FM Radio Broadcasting (2018)
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The Beginnings of FM Radio Broadcasting (2018)
Author : 8bitsrule
Score : 93 points
Date : 2024-09-07 04:01 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theradiohistorian.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theradiohistorian.org)
| MontgomeryPy wrote:
| Informative article. For anyone looking for more on FMs 60s
| resurgence there is a decent documentary on Boston's WBCN.
| Trailer at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ljlNTH9UIzU
| Ozarkian wrote:
| When I was a child, I always wondered why analog television
| started with channel 2. Where was channel 1? Finally, I know the
| answer!
|
| _> To the shock of RCA and other television proponents, the
| commission reassigned TV Channel 1 - 42 to 50 MHz - creating 40
| exclusive channels for FM radio._
| patrakov wrote:
| In other countries, e.g., Russia, analog channel 1 existed and
| was used.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Australia--the true home of Electromagnetic Spectrum
| management fuck-ups--allocated a TV Channel-0 in the low end
| of the 6-meter Amateur band, TV Channels 3, 4 & 5 in the
| international FM Band (88-108MHz), and a Channel 5A in an
| international satellite band!
|
| Undoing that monumental fuck-up was a mammoth undertaking, I
| know I was in the thick of unraveling it at the time.
|
| Anyway, I challenge anyone to come up with a worse case
| example (at least in the post-War era).
|
| _
|
| Some background: the Channel-0 was damn stupid engieering
| decision, huge TV antennas, Sporadic-E propagation, and so
| on. Channel 5A had to be so named as the higher channels were
| already allocated and station owners rightly objected to
| having their station IDs changed. Note: this all didn't
| happen in the early experimental days of the 1920-30s but in
| the 1960s long after both TV and FM had been established
| worldwide!
|
| So after nuking the FM spectrum what to do about the missing
| FM Service?
|
| Well, the Goons running spectrum management (the ABCB--
| Australian Broadcasting Control Board) proposed to solve
| their self-made problem decided to introduce a unique
| Australian style UHF-FM service.
|
| Opponents--amongst whom was yours truly--objected on multiple
| grounds but mainly that a UHF-FM service was an unfair
| technological tariff on the Australian people, as the FM
| radio sets would be one of a kind and have to be made
| locally, and therefore much more expensive. Moreover, there
| was only one Australian manufacturer namely AWA (Amalgamated
| Wireless Australasia). So much for competition.
|
| And here the plot thickens, the proposed UHF-FM specs had
| been concocted by both the ABCB and AWA joining forces.
|
| Anyway, after much skulduggery and political lobbying on our
| part which led to a Royal Commission (the McLean Inquiry) we
| eventually won. We got our FM band back.
|
| BTW, it's not as if the 88-108MHz FM band was vacant before
| being taken over by TV, the ABC was broadcasting a simulcast
| of one of its AM band frequencies on FM. That had to be
| closed down when TV channels 3, 4 and 5 started.
|
| _Right, Australia is the Olympic champion of spectrum
| management fuck-ups._
| lxgr wrote:
| > station owners rightly objected to having their station
| IDs changed
|
| The entire notion of numbered channels never made sense to
| me growing up in Europe, and I was very confused about it
| until I learned how strongly the concept of a logical
| channel and a physical broadcasting station (and the
| associated RF channel) go hand in hand in the US and some
| other places.
|
| The first thing to do when we got a new TV always was to
| program the mapping of station numbers to RF channels, and
| there was no generally accepted "right" way to do it, so at
| home, a given TV station might be on program 4, whereas a
| friend's family might have it on 5.
|
| That did get really annoying with digital satellite or
| cable TV, though - the station numbers now regularly go up
| to the hundreds or thousands!
| Aloha wrote:
| You guys did manage to get UHF CB, which we dont have a
| direct analog of in the states, GMRS is close, but not
| licensed by rule, you have to pay for and obtain a license,
| so its not _all_ screwed up. ;-)
| hilbert42 wrote:
| I'm aware of that. Sorry I can't post images here or I'd
| send a copy of the preface and list of names that head
| the Citizens' Radio submission to parliament as I was in
| on that act as well (but I was only one of many). We even
| had a large rally of vehicles that travelled the few
| hundred miles from Sydney to Canberra and we made a
| nuisance of ourselves lobbying politicians on mass. The
| government eventually caved in to pressure and did 27MHz
| first and then UHF.
|
| That CB effort was a little before the FM lobbying (it
| was useful for me as I gained experience dealing with
| politicians). (For the record, as far as I know I'm the
| only common link between the CB and FM lobbying efforts).
|
| Nothing's perfect anywhere but I've told you very little
| of the full sordid story about how commercial AM
| interests killed the introduction of FM for 30 years from
| just after the War to the mid 1970s. It's complicated
| long and horrible (Rupert Murdoch's father, Keith
| Murdoch, was involved in these political machinations,
| need I say more!)
|
| In fact, a stranglehold on the political process stopped
| _any_ new radio station--AM or FM--in Sydney from the
| early 1930s until December 1974. Incidentally, that new
| station was not AM but FM. Yes, it 'll be 50 years in
| December since that victory.
|
| Getting the spectrum changed here in Australia was damn
| hard and determined work, fortunately the pent-up energy
| meant we had some very dedicated like-minded people to
| help. These efforts were a bit like Armstrong and
| Farnsworth versus RCA's David Sarnoff. (Incidentally,
| some months ago I posted a description on HN of my time
| working for RCA, therein I described my rather short
| meeting with Sarnoff when he visited here to open a new
| RCA record factory.)
|
| It's a shame we've been so bad at documenting our radio
| history especially the FM side as bits of it are quite
| interesting. Some of our own skulduggery that I mentioned
| is hidden deep within the archives and is unlikely to
| ever see the light of day unless one of us mentions it
| (and there aren't many of us left).
|
| For instance, we sought help to beat the entrenched
| opposition (all-and-sundry including Government
| department gnomes (ABCB, etc.), commercial interests such
| as FARB (Federation of Australian Radio Broadcasters),
| local manufacturing and such who argued for the status
| quo or for a lame-duck UHF system). We approached
| commercial equipment importers and others with vested
| interests such as academic educators (broadcasters) for
| help and the information many provided was very useful.
|
| One particularly helpful source was the local Rohde &
| Schwarz agents who brought out to Australia the no
| nonsense, straight-talking very-opinionated Dr. Lothar
| Rohde who gave evidence to the Royal Commission. Rohde
| had spent time in South Africa helping to establish its
| FM network a decade or so earlier.
|
| Before the Commission was established both serendipity
| and some good political acumen by few of our lot led us
| to the wily and very cleaver politician James McClelland+
| (the cognoscenti knew him as Diamond Jim). McClelland had
| been looking for ways to rout his 'dodging' bureaucrats
| especially the ABCB on a number of matters and by chance
| we met him informally after giving evidence to a Senate
| Committee hearing on other matters (about education, arts
| and science). McClelland was its chairman. He was quite
| delighted as we gave him the technical evidence he needed
| to shaft them (he was a lawyer and not technical). How
| that meeting happened is a great story but I've not time
| to go over it here.
|
| That encounter led McMcClelland to obtain the services of
| Sir Francis McLean++ who had been head of BBC Engineering
| as one of the Royal Commissioners. I'm not sure if the
| Hansard (parliamentary transcript) was taped or not but
| I'd love to hear a reply of the dialog between Rohde and
| McLean, it was wonderful. After that, we were rubbing our
| hands with glee; we knew that the Inquiry had to come
| down in our favour.
|
| Incidentally, a while after the Inquiry we approached
| McLean (who by then was long back in the UK) to become
| the patron of first properly licensed FM station in
| Australia. Not only did he accept the offer but he came
| to visit us and was very interested in our 'homemade'
| bespoke transmitter (that too is another great story).
|
| McLean was a very intelligent and charming man; it was a
| privilege for me to have known him.
|
| _+https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_McClelland
|
| ++
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_McLean_(engineer)
|
| Edit: I just found this Wiki (it's the sanitized version:
| :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Inquiry_int
| o_Frequ..._
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Can't talk about early radio without mentioning the goat gland
| doctors border blaster.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Brinkley
| gxs wrote:
| Completely unrelated, but I asked Siri to read this article to me
| on my phone while I made breakfast and I was pleasantly
| surprised.
|
| Not only did it work, but it was accurate and didn't sound too,
| too robotic. Will definitely try again.
| doug_durham wrote:
| It's fascinating to read about the ebb and flow of technical
| development. New technologies supplant the prior ones. I haven't
| listened to terrestrial radio in many years. I only stream music
| and content now. Progress continues.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I'm at the point in the article where increasing numbers of
| 40Mhz-50Mhz FM stations are coming online.
|
| This feels like building tension, given where FM eventually
| lands.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| Edwin Armstrong was to radio what Nikola Tesla was to the AC
| power system, and William Thomson to submarine cables: Someone
| who so deeply understood what he was doing that everyone else was
| a amateur by comparison. The man invented the superhet receiver
| _and_ wideband FM modulation, in other words, (analog) radio as
| we know it. Pity he got screwed over so badly.
| CalChris wrote:
| Philo Farnsworth got screwed over by the same guy, David
| Sarnoff.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| _W71NY ... was connected by land line to the WOR studios, just
| 4,000 feet away, although the station even experimented with a
| light beam link between the two locations._
|
| 'Light beam link' sounds super innovative for ~1942.
| dkga wrote:
| This reminds me of the man who put radio on the internet, Russ
| Hanneman.
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(page generated 2024-09-07 23:00 UTC)