Slight corrections required here .
AM Stereo was "Pushed" for cars and I can tell you exactly which manufacturers
were paid to put Stereo AM into their products as I was working in the car
industry myself at the time, never seen so many sales brochures pertaining to
one particular topic at any one time. So the manufacturers were Rover, Holden
(GM) - in their Berlenia and Kellett Comodore models -, SAAB, Mercedes, Jagua,
Nissan - in their Pintara and above - some rebadge Nissan cars sold by Ford,
Reindriver.
There are stations still broadcasting Stereo AM in Australia as I reported
earlier, the one I know of is 2CA in Canberra.
Stereo AM - as Barry says - never took off in Australia because the format
really never had a chance to, unlike digital radio Stereo AM was never given
any proper launch, all stations were told was that if they wanted to Broadcast
in Stereo AM - and many did because of the financial squeeze being placed upon
them by the new FM commercial stations - then they could go right ahead from
February 1st 1985 and most stations were broadcasting in that format on or by
that date.
I know that many stations in the Melbourne area were broadcasting in this
format long before February 1ST thus these stations had a head start in the
game, they were able to Tweak the performance of the transmitter and equipment,
experiment with the various methods of Stereo AM around at the time, gage
listener feed back from myself and another person I know who I reckon were
probably just about the only people who had AM Stereo sets in Melbourne at one
stage of the game.
The Stereo AM sets were far more expensive than other radios available and were
low in stock thus consumers weren't interested, "Why should I pay 5 times the
price for a Stereo AM set when the FM one is cheaper and still receives AM
which I don't really want to listen to anyway as it sounds dreadful on the
radio I have".
Then there was the court battle over which AM Stereo method should be used in
Australia which - though finally resolved - didn't help matters, as mentioned
earlier som manufacturers such as Sony took matters into their own hands.
There were also interference issues though I never personally experienced any!
in all my time of using Stereo AM sets, things were so bad in Sydney at one
stage that Radio 2Uw and others wouldn't transmit in Stereo AM between 7 A.M.
and 7 P.M..
Because of the expensive nature of a Stereo AM set other solutions were soon
devised and they found their way onto the market. For example, you could buy a
"Stereo AM Converter" which you tuned to the Stereo AM frequency and then the
converter would transmit that received signal onto a predetermined frequency on
the FM band for your car stereo to receive.
The cheapest AM Stereo tuner I ever saw was one sold by radio shack, I saw it
as low as $50 and it was amazingly simple but yet so amazingly affective and
quality was very reasonable, I know many inghusiests still have these tuners to
this day and most have had mods done on them of various kinds to make them even
better.
And finally, the other big problem with Stereo AM was the lack of
self-contained systems such as Music Centers and the like featuring Stereo AM,
Voxon was the only firm that marketed such devices.
To my knowledge, the last AM Stereo unit ever made was by Sony in 1995 which
marketed the 25th Anerversary Walkman model which had Am Stereo as part of it,
I'm fortunate enough to own one of those sets.
A new standard of Stereo AM was proposed but by the mid 90's manufacturers had
given the whole idea away completely and this standard meant spending yet more
money on completely new chips, I don't know the name of the standard proposed
but I do know that the band width was far wider than what we had been used to
up until this time.
Many people dismiss Am Stereo as "Rubbish" but I certainly do not, with a good
radio and a good signal Stereo AM sounded nearly as good - in fact some what
better - than many processed FM singnals.
As for music stations in Australia, there are still many that transmit on AM -
in stereo or not - which still do very well: 2CH in Sydney, Magic 1278 and My
MP in Melbourne, Magic 882 and 4KQ in Brisbane, Cruise 1323 in Adelaide and
many other country stations, music will always be a part of AM radio in
Australia because of the long distances AM is able to travel and be heard.
On 8 Apr 2014, at 9:06 am, Barry Chapman wrote:
> This is true. However, AM stereo never really took off in Australia, other
> than for car radios, although a number of stations either
> did or still do use it. I don't actually own an AM stereo receiver.
>
> These days in Australia, most of the music stations are on FM while the AM
> band is mainly for talk stations. In the capital cities
> where digital radio exists, all the major AM and FM stations simulcast in
> digital stereo, along with other digital only stations.
>
> Barry Chapman
