TWiRT 736 - AM Band Signal & Noise Study with John Kean & Dave Hershberger
Friday, February 21, 2025 at 8:57AM
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John Kean, Dave Hershberger, and Tom King recently set out to take measurements of RF noise levels on various roadway types from open interstate highways to city streets, to determine how the noise would affect AM broadcast reception. These environments reflect the current habits of AM radio listening, which is primarily in vehicles. In addition to RF noise level, RF signal levels were measured for three AM stations operating on frequencies in the low, middle and high ends of the AM broadcast band. These measurements provide a better understanding of how AM radio reception is affected by RF signal strength and noise in a range of roadway environments from rural to dense urban environments. On this episode of TWiRT, John Kean and Dave Hershberger join us to describe the testing methodology and the results and conclusions we can infer from them.

Show Notes:
NRSC-R102: Measurement of AM Band RF Noise Levels and Station Signal Attenuation
SDRplay RSPdx-R2 Wideband Full-Featured 14-bit SDR Covering 1kHz to 2GHz
Test Plan for Measurement of Multipath Distortion Parameters for AM SFNs

Guests:
Dave Hershberger - Senior Scientist (retired) at Continental Electronics
John C. Kean - Senior Engineer at Cavell, Mertz & Associates

Host:
Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, Star94.3, South Seas Broadcasting, & Akamai Broadcasting

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Article originally appeared on This Week in Radio Tech (https://thisweekinradiotech.com/).
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