I started reading the Professor’s detailed travelogues of his AM and shortwave radio band excursions back when he was writing for WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. After he quit contributing to BotB I learned that he was keeping things going at his own Radio Kitchen blog. The Professor belongs to a group of radio enthusiasts […]
Today’s highly anticipated 9/9/09 Apple product announcement brought the return of the Messiah (Steve Jobs) but not the band bigger than Jesus. Alas, the much hoped-for debut of the Beatles in the iTunes music store did not arrive, despite Yoko telling Sky News to the contrary. The really big news today is a second coming […]
After rendering the AM dial a garbled mess after sunset by cramming in too many stations along with space-hogging HD signals, in 2007 the commercial radio industry came a-calling to the FCC with it’s hand out. It’s request? To let AM radio stations have repeater stations–called translators–on the FM dial. While sitting on the NAB’s […]
To some it may seem like I’ve been beating a dead horse over the TV channel 6 on FM issue, but I can’t help but be fascinated with TV broadcasters taking such pains to be on what so many observers say is the dying medium of radio. In my second missive on the channel 6 […]
Fandom is an amazing thing and thanks to the Internet it’s easier and easier to find like-minded obsessives who share one’s passion for the most obscure objects, idols, and idiosyncrasies. Radio is no exception. Loads of websites document radio history, with nostalgic archivists collecting ephemera, airchecks, and reminiscences from San Francisco to Boston. Various forums […]
Back in the early days of FM, when AM radio ruled the roost and an FM radio was still a rare commodity, many station owners simply simulcast their AM station’s programming on their FM stations. In the 1960s the Federal Communications Commission put the kibosh on that scheme, ordering FM stations to air different programming. […]
Following up on last week’s post about LPTV stations on channel 6 effectively turning into radio broadcasters I’ve been researching the topic a bit more. Turns out that full-power TV stations had the option to stay on channel 6 in their transition to digital, as I learned from this April article in TV Technology. Although […]
A couple of weeks ago I was scanning the FM band as I made my short commute from my far-north Chicago neighborhood to WNUR in Evanston for a station meeting. At the bottom end of the dial I encountered a fading station playing a steady stream of smooth jazz with no DJ. I’d never heard […]
