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I am not sure if it is a country wide thing or not. But in Taiwan. Most emergency radio and music radio including illegal radio sites are in FM instead of AM. (

I am not sure if it is a country wide thing or not. But in Taiwan. Most emergency radio and music radio including illegal radio sites are in FM instead of AM. (probably due to sound quality) The AM is really obsoleted here. I am surprising there are still a lot of people using am radio. Do people use it for emergency radio only or some other reasons?

shkkmo 2y ago
AM is good for long range coverage and North America has a lot of really empty areas that make this long range more useful than it is in denser areas. AM stations in the USA carry a variety of content while being a bit heaveir on "talk" stations over music when compared to FM.
BeetleB 2y ago
> But in Taiwan. Most emergency radio and music radio including illegal radio sites are in FM instead of AM. Taiwan is tiny. You need only a few FM towers to cover the whole country. FM's range is low. AM's range is much, much higher: "However, during nighttime hours the AM signals can travel over hundreds of miles by reflection from the ionosphere, a phenomenon called "skywave" propagation. (Shortwave stations, which operate using AM modulation on several bands between between 2.3 MHz and 26.1 MHz, also use this phenomenon to broadcast still greater distances, up to thousands of miles.) Because of this change in signal propagation from daytime to nighttime, if every AM station kept its daytime operating power at night, massive interference would result. (For a similar description, see Hours of Daytime-Only AM Broadcast Stations, First Report and Order, BC Docket 82-538, 95 FCC 2d 1032 (1983) [ PDF ] and related [ MO&O ])." https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/am-stations-at-night https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/am-stations-at-night In the US, it's used for all kinds of stations - mostly junk talk shows and sports. And yes, emergencies. When driving on highways, you'll often see signs with lights telling you to tune into a certain AM frequency if the lights are flashing (e.g. landslide ahead).

shkkmo 2y ago

AM is good for long range coverage and North America has a lot of really empty areas that make this long range more useful than it is in denser areas. AM stations in the USA carry a variety of content while being a bit heaveir on "talk" stations over music when compared to FM.

BeetleB 2y ago

> But in Taiwan. Most emergency radio and music radio including illegal radio sites are in FM instead of AM. Taiwan is tiny. You need only a few FM towers to cover the whole country. FM's range is low. AM's range is much, much higher: "However, during nighttime hours the AM signals can travel over hundreds of miles by reflection from the ionosphere, a phenomenon called "skywave" propagation. (Shortwave stations, which operate using AM modulation on several bands between between 2.3 MHz and 26.1 MHz, also use this phenomenon to broadcast still greater distances, up to thousands of miles.) Because of this change in signal propagation from daytime to nighttime, if every AM station kept its daytime operating power at night, massive interference would result. (For a similar description, see Hours of Daytime-Only AM Broadcast Stations, First Report and Order, BC Docket 82-538, 95 FCC 2d 1032 (1983) [ PDF ] and related [ MO&O ])." https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/am-stations-at-night https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/am-stations-at-night In the US, it's used for all kinds of stations - mostly junk talk shows and sports. And yes, emergencies. When driving on highways, you'll often see signs with lights telling you to tune into a certain AM frequency if the lights are flashing (e.g. landslide ahead).