It does look like 1610 may be reserved for part 15 such as real estate signs and part 15 stations. Plus if LPAM is ever available how hard would it be to have a linear connected to the Advanced talking house transmitter I already own and put the antenna say in an attic and then get the license and operate at the higher power? With the 75 Ohm output I see no reason I can't unless they make it so I have to buy a $2,000 part 73 transmitter. I tried to understand these already proposed petitions. Good Work WDCX this may be what we need.
Everyone's been so focused on LPFM, there's been comparatively little talk about doing anything with low power AM. Sure it gets talked about a lot in hobbyist radio circles, but in the world of licensed broadcasting, not so much.
A few well thought out proposals have been put out and it looks like things are going somewhere, but supporters don't seem to stick around, proposals aren't updated. It is a whole lot of work to get a movement going, you have to dedicate yourself to it, and usually there are a few top evangelists working on it, and groups then form, like Prometheus and REC Networks did for LPFM.
Across my whole AM band in my area, there may be a dozen frequencies that could support a TIS style AM, and half of those channels would support a full power AM, in my opinion. I got into looking at contour maps and keeping track of the band for frequency ideas on my own P15 station.
I'd like to see LPAM service, it would help to keep the band alive, even for the big stations. Countries who are talking about "turning off" are wrong, they're taking away a resource that can be used for good, and the fact is, you can still go to a K-Mart or Sears and get a pocket radio that will receive AM and FM too, for about $12
Mr.Bruce told me about a Memorex AM/FM pocket Radio that has really good reception and is a cheap Radio. This could be good for Album Rockers who want to work outside and don't want to ruin their boombox or scratch their iPod or smartphone screen while working. If I got my AM transmitter working well with the new antenna it could be a nice cheap way for my listeners to hear my station locally and spend a few dollars doing it. Because when your outside it would not matter rather its Stereo or Mono as long as they had half way decent sound. So I'm trying to make this work out for me.
This is the one TheLegacy is talking about. Bought mine at Walmart. It comes with a set of earbuds, I only paid $10.99 USD for mine NEW, not sure why the one at this link is $18.99 USD, mine was not a reduced or closed out item when I bought it back in January. I still have the box and it has a 10.99 sticker on it and receipt says 10.99 as well.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Memorex-AM-FM-Pocket-Radio/21000299
Other links:
http://www.amazon.com/Memorex-AM-Portable-Radio-Black/dp/B007HD8QCM
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Memorex-Pocket-size-AM-FM-radio-with-earbuds-model-MR4210-/181763989651
Has surprisingly excellent reception on both AM and FM. Although I originally bought it because I thought it had AM STEREO as well as FM STEREO, but it is AM monophonic unfortunately.
Has excellent channel separation for such a little capacitance tuner.
It also has a BASS boost switch on the right side for increasing the low frequencies. Covers entire AM band up to 1710Khz goes down to 87.5 MHZ as well.
Uses 1 (one) AAA cell, that lasts for days for some reason under continous non-stop usage. We use this thing a lot, so I'm figuring about 4 days non-stop usage and the battery is still hanging in there.
Bruce.