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Knight Flashback..

I just had a fun Knight-stereo flashback.
It's regarding that Knight unit I bought from AMVETS.
It had this STRANGE feature that I couldn't figure out for years. The function knob allowed you to choose FM on one channel - and AM on the other... AT THE SAME TIME! For example - you would hear FM out of the left channel and AM out of the right channel at the same time.
This stumped me for years and no books told of the reason. (remember this is before the internet... and I'm not that old!)
It turns out that before FM stereo multiplex, they would simulcast one channel (ex: LEFT) on FM and the other channel (ex: RIGHT) on AM. VOILA! STEREO!
 
Worked at a radio station that did use their FM station for right channel and the AM for the left was in one of their old station FCC liceneses.-Was experimental.Was before my time there-saw it in their files at the transmitter site.I had a McIntosh tuner that had an AM-FM function that allowed you to listen to the AM-FM stereo-and it used the FM and AM tuners in the unit.Later a Multiplex adaptor was added-and you got regular FM stereo.On most FM transmitter exciters I worked on they had Stereo gen inputs and SCA inputs as well as L+R mono audio input.Later FM exciters then had the stereo generator built in-no more external stereo gen units.You then would feed stereo input to the exciter and SCA if your station used it.SCA hogs a slight amount of bandwidth-its worth it to some.You sacrifice 10% of your overall program modulation level.
 
SCA

Yeah, actually SCA stood (stands for) Subsidiary Communications Authorization. If I remember correctly it was an AM subcarrier on the FM band. Radio stations would use that to transmit additional audio programming, such as MUZAK or other programming. A long time ago, I built an SCA receiver from a kit to pick up Greek music off of a radio station in Philadelphia, and MUZAK off of WPEN in Philadelphia. I had an Eico FM tuner that had an MPX jack on the back. The receivers would plug into that jack.
 
I had the same catalog, from which my brother and I bought the Knight-Kit Star Roamer shortwave radio kit. We put it together in a few days, and I got many years of shortwave radio listening out of that radio. Still have it. Internet radio sure takes a lot of the fun out of listening to foreign stations.
 

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