Retired after 40 years in business  

 
Home
About
Used Equipment
Articles Written
Speeches Given
Tech Tips
Web Links
Radio History
 


 
   Articles for the Radio Broadcast Industry

Terms of Use & Disclaimer


Shine 800

by Mark Persons
Radio World
August 13, 2025






August 20, 2025: This article recalls the summer evening I caught PJB under the headphones on a Sony SRF-A100 AM stereo radio forced into its Magnavox/Motorola/Harris mode. That superb and now long defunct little portable radio does not need to see a stereo pilot to decode phase-dependent AM stereo. PJB from Bonaire, CKLW(AM) Windsor, Ontario, and WLAD(AM) Danbury, Conn., were all coming in at about equal strength here in Wilton, Conn. Because their frequencies differed by fractions of a cycle, the radio decoded the constantly shifting phase differences. Imagine yourself under the headphones as the nucleus of a lithium atom, atomic number 3. Swirling around your head in orbit are the three electrons. That is the effect created by the phase-dependent AM stereo decoder. Under headphones, it creates an image in three-dimensions of the three stations orbiting around in your head in psychoacoustic space. This makes it possible to follow and copy any one of the stations by anticipating and focusing on its location in space to the exclusion of the others at any given instant. It’s a wild and crazy but interesting effect that could be used to enhance an AM DXer’s ability to pick out and highlight one given station in a jumble of several. Dennis Jackson, Wilton, Conn.

August 19, 2025 email: Amazing story. Great reporting. Take one’s breath away to know that operations like this still exist in the world. Robert Richer.

August 15, 2025, email:
Hi Mark! Great story on PJB3! Back in the early 70's I was living in Detroit where I grew up.  CKLW Windsor was the dominant rock and roll station in the market and their 50 kw transmitter with a directional array threw a heck of a signal into Michigan.  But as with all good directional stations it had a sharp pattern.  I used to drive between Detroit and Jackson MI (90 miles due west) and on most evenings the big 500 kw signal of PJB quickly overtook them.  Greg Surma, K8GL, interlochen, MI.

August 13, 2025, emaii: I just read with interest you “Radio World” article on your visit to TWR in Bonaire. I recall in the mid 1960s-1973 when I lived in South Central Michigan, at night I was able to tune the AM car radio to 800 and actually hear the station. The church I attended supported a TWR missionary who worked at the station when I was in high school and encouraged me to try to pick up the station. And there were many nights that the signal was pretty clear for being so far away. Thanks for sharing, Bill Harrier, Radio Training Network, Peachtree Corners, GA.

 


Comment on this or any article. Write to radioworld@nbmedia.com.


Also find the article at: https://www.radioworld.com/global/a-visit-to-shine-800-am


 


     Questions?  Email Mark Persons:  teki@mwpersons.com       

    Return to Home Page    Return to the Articles Page

.