radio
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How the once mighty fall
For many decades, one of the landmark radio stations in Washington, DC was WMAL-AM (now re-branded WSPN), at 630 on (what in pre-digital times we called) the dial. As AM listening faded, so did WMAL, which moved its talk format to 105.9 FM in Woodbridge and its signal to a less ideal location, far out… Continue reading
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Vermont Public Radio rating wins, and the future of streaming & podcasting
Public Radio: What is the best NPR station in the country? That’s a question on Quora I thought needed answering. So I did, with this: Here’s a quantitative answer to your qualitative question: WVPS of Vermont Public Radio. Because, in Nielsen’s Audio Ratings, it scores a 12.6 in its home market of Burlington, and a 16.2 in its neighbor market… Continue reading
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How long will radio last?
The question on Quora was How long does a radio station last on average? Here is my answer, which also addresses the bigger question of what will happen to radio itself. Radio station licenses will last as long as they have value to the owners—or that regulators allow them to persist. Call signs (aka call letters) come… Continue reading
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Digging in Radio.Garden
Radio.garden is an amazing and fun discovery, perfect for infinite distraction during life in quarantine. (James Vincent in The Verge calls it “Google Earth for Radio.”) Here’s a list of just some discoveries I’ve made while mining that Earth with Shazam open on my phone: CIAU/103.1 in … not sure where this is, except in… Continue reading
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Where Public Radio Still Rocks
Where does public radio rock—or even rule? And why? To start answering those questions, I looked through Nielsen‘s radio station ratings, which are on the Radio Online site. I dug down through all the surveyed markets, from #1 (New York NY) through #269 (Las Cruces-Deming NM), and pulled out the top 31 markets for public… Continue reading
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Still no serious coverage of pirate radio
Here’s what I wrote about pirate radio in New York, back in 2013 . I hoped to bait major media attention with that. Got zip. Then I wrote this in 2015 (when I also took the screen shot, above, of a local pirate’s ID on my kitchen radio). I got a couple people interested, including one college student,… Continue reading
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Where the nickname came from
My given name is David. Family members still call me that. Or Dave. Everybody else calls me Doc. Since people often ask me where that nickname came from, and since apparently I haven’t answered it anywhere I can now find online*, here’s the story. Thousands of years ago, in the mid-1970s, I worked at a… Continue reading
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Defibrillating a dead horse
Before we start, let me explain that ATSC 1.0 is the HDTV standard, and defines what you get from HDTV stations over the air and cable. It dates from the last millennium. Resolution currently maxes out at 1080i, which fails to take advantage even the lowest-end HDTVs sold today, which are 1080p (better than 1080i).… Continue reading
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The best FM radio
Somebody in Quora asked “Which is the best FM radio?” So far, mine is the only answer. It’s tops with a whopping 3 upvotes, out of 139 views. Not a lot of box office there. So I’ve decided to duplicate the answer here,, for whatever additional good it might do. I also added a bit,… Continue reading
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Thought: mobile apps are just hors d’oeuvres
Yesterday morning, while I was making curtados in the kitchen, I was also trying to listen to the radio. The station was WNYC, New York’s main public radio station. The program at the time was This American Life. Since the espresso machine is noisy when extracting coffee or steaming milk, I kept looking for the… Continue reading
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The slow sidelining of over-the-air radio
I’ve always loved AM radio. But it’s not a requited love. AM radios these days are harder to get, and tend to suck. The band is thick with electronic noise from things that compute (a sum of devices that rounds to everything). AM stations are falling like old trees all over the band, and all… Continue reading
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WMAL/630am 2.0
A few months back I wrote a post with a headline in the form of a question: How will WMAL-AM survive losing its transmitter? Here was my best guess at the time: To stay on the air, WMAL will need to find replacement acreage, somewhere that allows the signals … to cross as much of the Metro area… Continue reading
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Content as Icebergs
In Snow on the Water I wrote about the ‘low threshold of death” for what media folks call “content” — which always seemed to me like another word for packing material. But its common parlance now. For example, a couple days ago I heard a guy on WEEI, my fave sports station in Boston, yell… Continue reading
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Fun with tropo
Right now every FM and TV station in Santa Barbara and San Diego can be heard in both places. Between them lays more than 200 miles of ocean across a curved earth. I’m not there right now, but I see what’s happening remotely over my TV set top box. (Thank you, SlingBox.) But, more importantly,… Continue reading
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The untold pirate radio story in New York
[Update, 4 June 2016—I’m attempting to listen right now to WFAN/101.9 and it’s obliterated by signals flanking it on 101.7 and 102.1. Maybe my tweet about it here will finally get some journalists interested in the topic.] The radio dial here in “upstate” Manhattan and the Bronx is packed with pirate radio signals. Many are… Continue reading
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How will WMAL-AM survive losing its transmitter?
This is about AM radio stations being worth less than the ground they stand on. Case in point: WMAL-AM in Washington, DC. You can see the problem with this Google Map: The heart-shaped patch of green between the legs of I-495 and the I-270 spur is populated by four towers radiating the signal of WMAL, a landmark… Continue reading
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Local jazz radio coming to Kansas City
So I just learned that a Kansas City Jazz station is headed toward existence. If you love any of these musicians, this should be very good news. The story begins, By this time next year, Kansas City-style jazz might be bebopping out of a new radio station near you. The Mutual Musicians Foundation in the 18th and… Continue reading