AM radio helped kindle my lifelong interest in technology and music. Grew up in Alaska in the '50s. When I was 8, my Dad bagged me some old headphones, wire, a

AM radio helped kindle my lifelong interest in technology and music. Grew up in Alaska in the '50s. When I was 8, my Dad bagged me some old headphones, wire, a variable capacitor and one of those new-fangled 'diode detectors' from a friend at Elmendorf Air Base. Much coil winding and fiddling later, I was able to hear KOMA in Oklahoma, a great rock station. KOMA Klimbers! Nowdays, I find AM content distasteful in the extreme, hardly ever listen. But fond memories of an early influence.