AM STATION SYNCHRONIZATION

“Synchronization” is a tool used to expand a station’s coverage when additional frequencies are unavailable.  Synchronization requires the precise matching of two or more independent signals so that listeners tuned to their (common) frequency can hear the broadcast throughout the combined coverage area.

Here are newspaper stories and some well-written technical articles on the state of AM synchronization efforts during broadcasting’s first two decades. The pioneers of this art had few expectations and were willing to learn.  The technology is still in use today provide solutions to unique coverage problems. But even with today’s precision technology, AM synchronizing remains less than the perfect solution; there will always be “distortion areas” where reception is actually worse than it would be without synchronization.

Some of the stories below are fun reading.  One of the more interesting is “CBS Sync practices,” since it summarizes best efforts to that date.  “AM Sync ideas” takes a look at a future that might also include “wide-band radio channels” (in a different form the “wide-band” idea led to the abortive “Hi-Fi” allocations of the 1930’s).

“RCA”:  Radio Club of America Proceedings, reproduced with permission of RCA

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