[Milsurplus] [ARC5] [MRCA] CW Keying Wheel

[Hubert Miller]

I do listen to AM radio when i can, and i try to keep up with the state of that medium. I live in coastal Oregon. If i long distance drive after dark, i often
check out KOMO Seattle, my old home town, or KNX LA CA. These stations have better, more informative programming than local AM stations, i feel. 
There is only one AM station within an hour drive from where i am. The three AM station network went belly up, bankrupt, January 1 of this year. 
I notice when i listen that the big city stations have more actual "real" ads, ads from large, viable, continuing firms, while the small market stations 
have "flakier" ads, like a capsule that contains 30 nutrients extracted, so you don't have to bother with eating the actual vegetables and so on, or flaky
short time loans for young folks with shot credit. And downhill from there. So it does seem that downmarket stations will continue to exit, while the
metropolis stations, at least some of them, will continue to be moneymakers. I notice that also, some smaller stations unable to make it with 
conventional formats have come to have minority population formats which seem to still work. Like KKHI out of California; i remember for many
years it was classical music ( on the AM band, imagine that ! ) and now they're Hindi language and music. From Portland OR i have heard a station that
has Russian language and sometimes Chinese. I imagine AM will go on a decade more, maybe more, but to cope with EVs maybe the modulation mode
will have to change to deal with the noise level. But what do I know ?  

Another thing about AM band: this has to be the Golden Age for 'crystal radio' experimenting. We have Litz wire in any insane formulation you  could
want; excellent detectors, and piezo headphones; the parts are optimized over what was available decades ago

I sometimes consider that i am the only person on my block, my apartment building, in the crowd at a store, and so on, who actually knows what the
AM band is, its limits, and its present and past. I don't think any student at a high school here knows what the AM band is. 

OH- i just recalled what i was trying to remember: AM i heard besides "ancient modulation" called "approved modulation", which cracked me up.
"FM" of course, everyone knows it refers to "Fine Music" or for ham radio, "Fun Mode". 
-Hue Miller