Letter Re: Will Analog AM and FM Radio Soon Be Phased Out?

James,
A friend of mine who is in the know with the FCC told me that in a few years all AM/FM commercial radio stations will be changing from analog to digital broadcast. Most or all AM/FM radios will not work after this is implemented is what he said. Have you heard anything about this and he also told me even the OTA car radios would not work and have to be replaced. I asked him if someone was going to come up with a converter like they did for televisions and he said probably not.  This person is not one to tell something that is not true and he is a retired electrical engineer that used to work for one of the local television stations. Have you heard anything about this? Thanks, – Randy H.

JWR Replies: The digital transition is not mandatory and most stations are presently not planning to change. And if they do, they will likely broadcast in parallel (analog and digital) for many years. Furthermore, the FCC hasn’t even set a uniform standard (since there are several competing digital systems.)

The “installed base” of analog AM and FM radios is huge. (If you count car radios, there are roughly 11 working radios for each television in America.) Thus, for at least the next couple of decades a full transition is impractical. And, unlike the converter boxes for analog televisions connected to Cable TV, a digital “converter” for a radio would be a completely new receiver. This would mean that the only functionality you would salvage from the old analog radio would be the antenna, amplifier and loudspeaker.

As a long term hedge against the digital trend, I recommend that the only analog radios that SurvivalBlog readers henceforth buy are very sensitive analog radios that are multiband–including shortwave bands–and that have a BFO. That way, even if analog AM and FM commercial broadcasts are phased out, then those radios will still have considerable usefulness for international shortwave listening. My favorite EMP-resistant multiband tube radio is the Hallicrafters S-38E or S-38EM. (The latter has identical guts, but in a faux mahogany cabinet.) They can be operated on both 120 Volt AC and DC. These can often be found on eBay for less than $80, or at garage sales for less than $40. (I bought one of mine for $10!) Either replace the electrolytic capacitors yourself, or if that is beyond your level of hobby electronics expertise, then buy one that has already been “re-capped.”

Since the analog to digital transition will be protracted, I suspect that the makers of sophisticated multiband (“general coverage”) receivers (such as Drake, Kenwood, and ICOM) will produce several new generations of receivers that are multi-mode. (Analog and digital.) Essentially these will be configured like the venerable Kenwood R-2000, but with capability of demodulating the latest digital modes. But you might want to wait a few years to see how the new AM and FM digital radio standards shake out, because they have yet to go through their equivalent of the Betamax Versus VHS War.

For some details on the digital transition, see the Wikipedia page on HD Radio.