Generally, what do you get from AM radio that you don't get on FM radio, and vice versa?

I love the smooth, clear sounds of FM and loathe the shrill commercials of AM radio.

@smilingheart1 but how about the content, other than the commercials that they both have?
I turn down the volume really low during the commercials, it becomes second nature after a while.

Now there’s something I haven’t used in near 30 years.

I listen to CBC Radio One which used to be on the AM band but has long since migrated to the FM Band. That’s a great source of intelligent news, information and discussion
http://www.cbc.ca/programguide/daily/today/cbc_radio_one/

AM generally has a greater range watt for watt than FM . FM is less affected by atmospheric interference and thus has greater clarity where AM can increase distance by bouncing off the atmosphere in a phenomenon known as ‘skip’. AM is easier to make than FM, that is the transmission process is somewhat less complicated and thus, easier.

@flo, I am really partial to jazz and FM dominates in that genre. And like @Dr_Lawrence, I am a CBC buff. When I saw your question my thoughts immediately went to the grating effect that AM stations seem so characteristically to produce and I went quite beside myself with disdain.

Red Sox Baseball on AM

One of our AM stations in Cleveland does traffic reports every 10 minutes. When we’re headed downtown for a hockey game, it’s a great help. And then we listen to some of the game recap on the way home. Otherwise, there really is no AM radio in our lives.

Another CBC fan here!

FM has higher fidelity and can broadcast in stereo, but transmission is line of sight; reception ends on the other side of a hill or mountain or the curvature of the earth.

Because it can bounce off the atmosphere, especially at night, AM can sometimes be received hundreds of miles from the transmitter. But he sound quality is really poor, which is why it is now mostly news and talk radio.

The thing about AM radio is…at night you can listing to a lot of differant stations across the country. I like to see how many I can pick up. I live in Tennessee and I get many stations especially when the right weather conditions exist.

AM radio today is generally talk radio. In the beginning, AM radio was given permission by the FCC, to operate in America, in order to give the public a source of information and entertainment. AM radio does not have the broadcast quality of FM, since they both operate on two entirely different radio frequencies. The AM radio waves are effected by the sun, so that when the sun went down, an AM stations waves would stretch further across America. There were just a few stations with enough transmitting power to reach a large portion of America’s population. These were powerhouse stations with 50,000 watts of transmitting power. This was enabled, so the people in secluded areas of America would have access to information, that other people were receiving. WSM and WLS were two of the leading powerhouse stations, in the early 1900s.

FM radio was originally formulated, by the FCC, in order to provide “mostly elevator music” to the public. FM radio waves are much closer together, allowing a much better quality sound of music. FM radio is not effected by the sun, thus what you hear in the daytime is the same station at night. It takes much more transmitting power to operate on the FM frequency, compared to AM. FM was soon discovered to be a media frequency that could be used for a profit from the private sector. Elevator music was mostly forgotten and today FMs format includes anything from country to oldies music and many commercials.

I have always said that television is radio with pictures added.

Thanks everyone.
@Neizvestnaya You may not have turned on AM radio (or is it radio, period?) for the last 30years? I don’t know how you manage that. I mean if the electricity is out, you use the radio with baterries, to find out how extensive the outage is, how long it will take before it comes back etc. no? If you are not around a TV, and you hear about the shutttle disaster or the 9/11, what do you turn on? AM radio right? Besides so much of our common knowledge that we get from people in our circle, comes partly from AM radio, other than books, TV, internet, etc. so even if you don’t know it, it is useful to you, i.e., you are using it, I think.

@Dr_Lawrence you should have known CBC years and years ago, it used to be breathtaking how good it was.

@john65pennington thanks for that detailed answer!