Why A.M. ???

[KX5JT]

Why AM?

I was recently attending our local radio clubs monthly meeting and after casually mentioning something about AM to a fellow ham, he asked “Why do people want to run AM?”  Now although this particular ham was quite the senior compared to me and for some reason, maybe due to his attitude and enthusiasm towards radio, I was under the impression he was relatively new to amateur radio.  I was surprised when I looked up his callsign on qrz.com to find that he was first licensed in the 1950s!  He indicates a strong propensity towards phone mode (ssb) and I noticed from his comments to others that he didn’t particularly enjoy cw. 

So the question is… “Why AM?”  I thought about it but the meeting came to order before I was able to properly answer.  I want to answer that question for him and for anyone who might read my A.M. section of my website.  So here I thought I would bring the question to all of YOU, the A.M. enthusiasts that I have come to respect and love here at A.M. Fone dot net.

So please help me answer..
"Why A.M.?"  What say you?

KX5JT

[Ed/KB1HYS]

 Why AM?

Well speaking only for me,

There is no single aspect that, taken by it’s self, would be enough. There are many aspects that taken together make AM the thing that keeps me going in Amateur Radio.

It’s the Warm inviting sound that makes you feel like the fellow you are in a QSO with is sitting across the room. Signals that are so easy to listen to for hours, whether it's in a relaxed round table or a rapid fire free for all in a break-in QSO, many of which were built by the person behind the mic.

We are a true international fraternity of like minded folk who still enjoy the technical aspect of the hobby, with people who are glad to share what they have found. 

Operating and caring for vintage gear that you can jab with your soldering iron and not worry about smoking some tiny IC or losing some surface mount component.

Having the option to get into the latest technology whether its hardware as in class E rigs or Software using SDR's.  Or even some weird combinations of all aspects like using a class E transmitter, and an R-390 receiver with the IF plumbed into a softrock. Having access to people who can make such combinations work, and work well.

My personal opinion is that the groups of folk who operate AM represent nearly all aspects of Amateur Radio. 

These are good reasons why the number of people who operate AM is growing in a hobby where the average numbers are declining. Perhaps AM embodies the best parts of Amateur Radio, the way it is supposed to be.  I think TOM would approve.

Why AM?   Indeed Why NOT AM?

[Jim, W5JO]

At the next club meeting you might ask the gentleman when last he repaired or built something other than an antenna.  In fact, why don't you poll the club membership and find out how many of them have done anything other than antennas.  I would almost bet the new guys buy antennas.

AM and CW are the last bastions of technically competent people.  In the niche of AM operators you will find that they really do understand SWR whereas in the general population the real understanding is lacking.  In the AM community you will find people who understand what components are for and what will happen if they go bad.  In short, they repair their own equipment.

Next ask him when was the last time he assisted another new ham with a technical project.  I would bet he hasn't in a long time.  These are the reasons for my appreciation of AM and CW operators.

[W1EUJ]

Is fun is mode specific? Is this going to turn into a SSB-hater's club again!
I hate when it becomes like that.

[Bill, KD0HG]

I use AM because I'm too stupid to figure out a sideband rig.

[WB2YGF]

IMHO, AM'ers are an interesting mix of experimenter/builders, and political/social wingnuts.

That's what makes it fun.

AM is a niche hobby.  There are many niche hobbies in Amateur Radio.  They tend to go through cycles of ascendancy and decline.  They all have their fraternities and their motivated experts that contribute to the body of knowledge.

A few I can think of:

RTTY-AMTOR
SSTV-ATV
Sat communications
APRS
Moonbounce
Packet
QRP builders-operators
Meteor scatter - WSPR DSP
IRLP
DSTAR
Antique Wireless

The club I belong to occasionally has presentations about these niche modes.  The latest thing I learned about was "rovers".  Rovers are a cross between VHF contesting, hilltopping and storm chasing!!
The idea is to become "rare DX" in as many otherwise unrepresented grid squares and as many bands as possible in a period of time.  Being successful (competitively) requires a lot of hard work, planning and engineering.



I disagree that AM and CW are the "last last bastions of technically competent people".  (After all, hooking a DX-100 up to an antenna doesn't require a whole lot of brains.)  All you have to do is look beyond your own niche to the other cool stuff going on.

[W4EWH]

I like AM because it reminds me of my youth: of the magic time when simple rigs and simple antennas could connect me to other proto-geeks who shared my fascination with electronics. The first rig that I owned was a Clegg 99'er, an AM transceiver that got me on both six meters and every TV within a mile.

There were other rigs, earned by dishing up ice cream at Brigham's: all hollow-state, all big and heavy and warm and magical. I even had a Teletype machine, obtained from a recycling program after my father signed a form saying I'd never sell it.

After that, the world got a lot faster all of a sudden: I went to Vietnam on my Senior trip, and returned to a job with Ma Bell and responsibilities and college and trying to get ahead. My dad had put the Model 15 out for the trash man while I was overseas, and a series of rented apartments didn't have room for ham radio, so I switched to VHF gear and contented myself with having an autopatch on my ham rig and an IMTS telephone to go with it. It wasn't until thirty years after I walked out the gate of the Oakland Army Base that I could, once again, see radio as something to be enjoyed for itself instead of a means to prove how much money I had to spend.

My Yaesu transceiver is still operable, still reliable, and still on a shelf: I like the sound of an HQ-170A, and I have an 813 rig that is (slowly) coming back to life.

I like AM, in short, because it makes me feel like a kid again.

Bill, W1AC

[KE6DF]

The digital modes -- including digital voice -- require technical competence -- at least software and signal processing competence on the part of program developers.

[N3DRB The Derb]

I like it more than the other stuff, and I've done all the other stuff. AM combines the following subgenres:

antiqueing

building

restoration

pursuit of radio knowledge ( you must have some, to be successful at the other things )

you get to bring every sort of craftworking skill to bear on your projects, and if you dont know them you start to learn. You have to. You wind up being a skilled craftsman. Along the way, you find that you have grown as a individual. No other facet of ham radio has done that for me, from HF DX to weak signal VHF AND UHF work. It was fun, but it was not more than fun. Am'ing is more than just fun. It alone IMO, has the ability to improve yourself.

[nq5t]

I use AM because all of the radios I own (even the new-fangled DSP thingies) have an "AM" position on the mode switch.   Seems like that switch position was probably put there for a reason.

I do have some radios that are missing the "SSB" positions on the mode switch, but I don't really miss it :-)

Grant/NQ5T

[N8LGU]

Well...1. I enjoy real radios that glow in the dark and that can be worked on.
         2. A plate modulated rig is much more pleasant to listen to by quieting the background static between syllables. (If you have enough strap!)
         3. The audio bandwidth of SSB is generally the least amount needed to understand the human voice. 2.8 kc sounds very robotic and cold. 4.5 kc sounds MUCH better to my ear.
         4. AM operating procedures developed before the advent of the Push-to-Talk switch. This meant you threw the "Plate" switch and made a transmission. This requires some level of thought on part of the operator as to what he was going to say before throwing the plate switch. Thus, some actually meaningful dialog generally develops. (Unfortunately, not always!) The PTT crowd many times evolve into a cacophony of hoots, howls, and general mayhem, not to mention explosive blasts of air from either end.
         5. AM'ers tend to be less prone to being "appliance operators". They rarely go out and buy a rig from AES and plug it in and call CQ on 3705 kc. They are generally "elmered up" by an older Ham who has tinkered, studied, and scrounged old parts from hamfests. Thus they have the benefit of being apprenticed into the art.
         

[K1JJ]

It's the people on the mode that I like about AM.

Having grown up with many of them through the 60's, 70's and beyond, it's a natural.

If AM didn't exist, I'd be doing the same thing on ssb.

But having a great mode like AM, with all it's benefits, just makes it more fun!

We're all so lucky, the way events turned out, to be playing AM radio - in the grand scheme of things... :-)

Tom, K1JJ

[KB5MD]

There is just something magic about those old boat anchors.  There is a love for them that goes all the way back to junior high.  I  wore out  catalogs that Lafayette Radio, Burstein-Applebee, Allied and others sent just looking and wishing.
I could never afford to buy any of the items shown, much less complete receivers and transmitters.  Now that I have the financial means, I can't seem to get enough of the ones I used to dream of having.  I always wanted
a ham shack with the large racks full of equipment like the ones in the Handbook. AM just happens to be the mode used in all that old equipment and homebrew transmitters that now fill my ham shack.  Sure, I like CW, RTTY and some of the other modes but AM, well its' just "magic" .  

[WB2YGF]

>AM'ers tend to be less prone to being "appliance operators".

Meh - IMHO 90% of AM'ers run appliances.  They may have needed to repair or modify it (or not), but sometime in it's life, somebody purchased it, plugged it in, and went on the air.  Be it military, Gates, Johnson, Hallicrafters or whatever. (flame suit on  )

That said, if someone spends 3 year restoring a Gates it's definitely not appliance operation (At least till it's done. )

[Pete, WA2CWA]

The digital modes -- including digital voice -- require technical competence -- at least software and signal processing competence on the part of program developers.

The digital modes, besides technical competence, also require more operating skill for weak-signal DXing on VHF/UHF frequencies, and for EME type operations. I would suspect some of these players could run rings around AM technical expertise.

I enjoy AM no more or no less then any other mode that I use. No need for me to relive my youth (been there-done that) plus it really never feels the same because you already experienced it.

In my opinion, I enjoy amateur radio as a hobby and AM, SSB, digital modes, contesting, VHF, etc. are all part of my amateur radio activities. Unlike some amateurs who tend to resist change or lack the desire to move forward from a technical perspective to try or embrace new modes or operating activities, I don't have that problem as I get older in life.  To me, it's actually more fun today in amateur radio, then it was 40 years ago.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

I don't see how that fact that the original owner was an appliance operator makes someone who buys the rig and repairs it 50 years later an appliance operator. Sure, there are some appliance operators on AM, but far less than most other modes. Most hams today (including AMers) can't repair the newer radios. So, they get sent back to the factory. What factory takes the DX-100?

>AM'ers tend to be less prone to being "appliance operators".

Meh - IMHO 90% of AM'ers run appliances.  They may have needed to repair or modify it (or not), but sometime in it's life, sombody purchased it, plugged it in, and went on the air.  Be it military, Gates, Johnson, Hallicrafters or whatever. (flame suit on  )

[WB2YGF]

I don't see how that fact that the original owner was an appliance operator makes someone who buys the rig and repairs it 50 years later an appliance operator.

Just because somebody installs a recap kit to get a Johnson back on the air, doesn't make it homebrew.  Built-from-scratch is my definition of a non-appliance.  Heck, a Heathkit is closer to homebrew than a recap kit.

I am not down-playing the knowlege gained by doing your own repairs, but after it's fixed, what's really the big difference?

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Using that definition, I agree. Using that definition makes the overall ham radio population 99.9% appliance operators. AMers are only 90%. So AMers are almost 10% better!   

[k4kyv]

Why AM?

I was recently attending our local radio clubs monthly meeting and after casually mentioning something about AM to a fellow ham, he asked “Why do people want to run AM?”  Now although this particular ham was quite the senior compared to me and for some reason, maybe due to his attitude and enthusiasm towards radio, I was under the impression he was relatively new to amateur radio.  I was surprised when I looked up his callsign on qrz.com to find that he was first licensed in the 1950s!  He indicates a strong propensity towards phone mode (ssb) and I noticed from his comments to others that he didn’t particularly enjoy cw. 

It was recently mentioned on another forum that many of the hams who question the use of AM, including the jerks, lids, troublemakers and miscreants who give us a hard
time, are ex-CB'ers.  It was pointed out that CB'ers, ex or otherwise (freebanders in particular), disdain the use of AM as being unworthy of true radio operators.  "Only kids, drive-time suburbanites and  losers use AM. Every 'professional' radio operator knows that!"

But the original anti-AM element in amateur radio goes way back to the days long before the advent of CB.

Many of those who oppose AM or question its use on the ham bands to-day were the first converts, the true-believers, who jumped on the SSB bandwagon when it was being heavily promoted during the 50's.  During that era, nearly every ham magazine, radio club and national amateur radio organisation became a propaganda agent for SSB.  From the beginning there always was some conflict between users of the two modes, but they seem to get along pretty well until the early 60's, when the cheap transceivers like Swans, Galaxies, Heathkit "Hotwater" rigs, and others, came on the market.  "Sideband for the masses" had arrived!  ...and this opened a huge new market for a brand new product, so the manufacturers joined the fray.  

Up till then, the only way to get on SSB had been to spend a considerable sum of money on Collins or Central Electronics gear, or else build your own.  Many of the wannabe slopbucketeers had neither the financial resources to buy a commercial rig, nor the knowledge, expertise and test equipment necessary to build a SSB rig. Once those cheap transceivers hit the market, the floodgates were opened and that was when the great AM/SSB wars erupted in the mid-60's.  A legacy of this conflict that still persists to this day throughout ham radio is the deliberate interference and jamming that became commonplace during that era.

By the time Incentive Licensing had been in effect for a year or two, circa 1970, AM had all but disappeared from the air.  The few of us who stayed with the mode were harassed and heckled as could be expected for anyone who refuses to go along with the crowd, plus the SSB warriors thought they had won, and it was an extreme thorn in their side whenever they heard the few remaining AM stations that defiantly stayed on the air.

AM started coming back in the early 70's, only a few years after it had supposedly died, and to-day AM has been "coming back" for about 35 years, far longer that it had ever been "dead" in the first place, and for almost as long as it had been used by amateur radio operators from the beginning up until its officially-declared "death" in the late 60's.

So, some of the anti-AM crowd we hear to-day are not ex-CB'ers but old timers, veterans of the 60's AM vs. SSB wars. Nevertheless many or most hams of that era are now SK, and others have mellowed out in their old age, some of whom have actually returned to AM, regretting having got rid of their old gear 30-40 years ago.

The old timer in your club who questioned the use of AM, while not necessarily showing disdain for the mode, probably falls within this category.

[WB2YGF]

Using that definition, I agree. Using that definition makes the overall ham radio population 99.9% appliance operators. AMers are only 90%. So AMers are almost 10% better!   

I don't know what percentage the QRP crowd is in Ham radio, (there are quite a few in our club) but I suspect 90% of them these days build their own stuff from a board and a handful of parts and fabricate their own enclosures.  (Tuna or Altoids anyone?  ) 

http://www.njqrp.org/
http://www.amqrp.org/index.html

 

[k4kyv]

I can remember when hams with Rangers, DX-100's, Valiants and even BC-610's were derided as being appliance operators.

[WB2YGF]

I can remember when hams with Rangers, DX-100's, Valiants and even BC-610's were derided as being appliance operators.

Some Hams are builders, some are operators, and some are both.  It's always been that way and always will be. There is no "right", "wrong" or "better" here. What a boring world if we were all the same.

[w3jn]

For me, the attraction was first and foremost, the people.  A great bunch of guys, having a helluva lotta fun on the air, and discussing interesting things.  Not the "hi hi, fine business, 73" or just absolutely inane garbage you hear elsewhere.

Also, having previously been heavily into boatanchors, it was a neat fit into this niche for me.

I had been pretty much inactive, didn't know AM was so popular.  As a young JN back in MN in the 70s and 80s there was NO AM whatsoever so I was surprised to learn it was alive and well, with the flame kept alive by guys like Tron, Don KYV, HUZ, DUQ, K1KW, JJ, et. al.  Once pointed out to me, and given a listen, I was hooked.  I've been more active on AM than I ever was previously.

[Opcom]

It's for the mix of audio power amplifiers and RF power amplifiers interconnected in one system, and the fun of making these things work together.

[KX5JT]

These answers are awesome!  I emailed my friend from the Club with a link to this post.  I'm not trying to get any converts, (great if it happens!) but an understanding of our thinking/motivation/passion might help some who ask the question!

KX5JT