FM Radio - what's it like in your area?

QuadraphonicQuad

Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
US radio sounds pretty bleak. Do you not have plays, documentaries, comedy shows, panel games, live concerts, book readings, arts reviews, investigative journalism, supported young musicians, music festivals, in-house orchestras? Please tell me there’s live cricket!
Used to catch the news from Lake Wobegon whenever I could

 
For you lesser non New Orleans residents, you are allowed access through wwoz.org...
Love that station (enough to be a monthly supporter!) I've been listening for many years since "Treme" was on HBO. I later watched a few episode and was shocked to find out 'OZ was the station depicted in the series!
I'll also give a shout out to 89.3 KUVO in Denver which plays everything from Mariachi to blues, jazz and one of my favorite shows The R&B Jukebox on Saturday nights.
Other than that, I listen to sports talk and SiriusXM, occasionally spinning my way through the FM dial in vain hopes of finding something good to listen to. iHeart and the other corporate pigs have strangled the life out of local radio
 
Last edited:
No radio for me - ever. I listen to music as much as possible - in the shower, on walks, on the deck drinking a brew, anytime I drive - an it’s never the radio. It’s either CDs or my iPod in the car or streaming Amazon Music thru a UE Boom otherwise, unless I’m listening to music on my main system. As far as I’m concerned, I want to be in charge of what I’m listening, not some disc jockey.
 
If I had to give up TV or radio, I’d happily ditch the TV. I get the majority of my news, entertainment and music via the radio. I can’t imagine life without it. The TV ? – I couldn’t care less.
 
US radio sounds pretty bleak. Do you not have plays, documentaries, comedy shows, panel games, live concerts, book readings, arts reviews, investigative journalism, supported young musicians, music festivals, in-house orchestras? Please tell me there’s live cricket!
Cricket? Those noisy little bugs? No, can't say we have those chirpy little critters on the radio. But we do have NPR, National Public Radio. That's where you find most of what you described. No in-house orchestras, though. Our local NPR station, WLRN, features all the usual NPR programming, but also some fine local public interest fare, as well. In addition, their HD2 channel brings us round-the-clock classical music. The station is owned and operated by the Miam-Dade County School Board, and is listener-supported. No commercials!
 
The station is owned and operated by the Miam-Dade County School Board, and is listener-supported. No commercials!
Interesting, a very different model to what we have. I'd no idea any particular special interest groups owned NPR stations. What you mean by 'listener supported' is that some sort of subscription? - I assumed they were wholly government funded. And, why would a school want to run a radio station?
 
Cricket? Those noisy little bugs? No, can't say we have those chirpy little critters on the radio. But we do have NPR, National Public Radio. That's where you find most of what you described. No in-house orchestras, though. Our local NPR station, WLRN, features all the usual NPR programming, but also some fine local public interest fare, as well. In addition, their HD2 channel brings us round-the-clock classical music. The station is owned and operated by the Miam-Dade County School Board, and is listener-supported. No commercials!
The only thing I really hated about WLRN was when they broadcast those damn school board meetings. They blew out all their regular programming. :mad:
Nothing like listening to something I couldn't care less about on my drive home from work rather than All Things Considered.
 
i live between two radio stations [one good NPR station, seattle's KUOW 94.9, and one bad one, a cruddy country music station on the same frequency with a stronger signal some days as is usually the case], and on some days only the latter station comes in.
 
Interesting, a very different model to what we have. I'd no idea any particular special interest groups owned NPR stations. What you mean by 'listener supported' is that some sort of subscription? - I assumed they were wholly government funded. And, why would a school want to run a radio station?
Think of NPR and PBS as our equivalent of the BBC, but without license fees. Why would a school board want to operate an NPR station? Easy; to offer training to students who are interested in working in radio and TV. WLRN-FM provides that, but has major name broadcasters in the Miami area who host news and public affairs programs. WLRN-TV, channel 17, is a PBS affiliate, and shares that affiliation with WPBT, channel 2, and WXEL, channel 42. Both are owned by South Florida PBS.

Under our last "president", funding for Public Broadcasting was greatly reduced. Hopefully, that funding will be restored by the current administration. Viewer and listener contributions are encouraged, although not required to listen. I support WPBT/WXEL with a monthly contribution. I get a monthly program guide that lets me see what I want to watch, and I can set up my DVR to catch what I can't when it's actually airs. Major corporations in the area also contribute to Public Television, as well as local philanthropists.

In addition to WPBT and WXEL, South Florida PBS provides a local "For Your Health" channel. There's a channel dedicated to PBS Kids, one for hobbyists, and one "en espanol".
 
Too many commercials on music stations, I'm considering not even bothering with a radio tuner once I get the Q8 player installed + Involve board, more din space for EQs etc. I will just use my phones headphone jack with flac player. I could also strap my laptop into the front seat to get discrete multichannel but more fun for me to pop in homemade 8tracks. Just got another Motorola Q8 player recently, came with a (mono?) reverb thingy:
20210605_191811.jpg
 
We
Too many commercials on music stations, I'm considering not even bothering with a radio tuner once I get the Q8 player installed + Involve board, more din space for EQs etc. I will just use my phones headphone jack with flac player. I could also strap my laptop into the front seat to get discrete multichannel but more fun for me to pop in homemade 8tracks. Just got another Motorola Q8 player recently, came with a (mono?) reverb thingy:
View attachment 67958
We had a Motorola console stereo, when I was growing up, that had that "Vibrasonic" BS built in. My father loved it, but I always turned it off when I (rarely) used that set.
 
We

We had a Motorola console stereo, when I was growing up, that had that "Vibrasonic" BS built in. My father loved it, but I always turned it off when I (rarely) used that set.
When I saw the front/rear fader I thought it might be a quad reverb but it seems to be intended to add a rear mono speaker for cars which had one front speaker, guess it predates the Q8 player by a several years.
 
The only thing I really hated about WLRN was when they broadcast those damn school board meetings. They blew out all their regular programming. :mad:
Nothing like listening to something I couldn't care less about on my drive home from work rather than All Things Considered.
I can agree with that! They should have a dedicated HD subchannel for School Board business. But they've come a long way since the days when they were only on the air during school hours, carrying programs for the Dade County elementary schools.
 
Most radio is garbage these days. But people still listen.... almost exclusively in their cars. Me? I find the HD-2 & 3 channels on most stations in my area to have much better programming, usually with no (or few) commercials. That doesn't help me at home, though. Receivers, especially vintage ones, can't pick them up. Plus, so many of the big radio conglomerates are cutting back on engineering staff so it could be weeks or months to fix a problem that happens on the HD-2 and 3. I've experienced that several times, even when I called to tell them about the problem.
If you want to add HD radio to your older receiver/prepro, you can look for the Sony XDR-F1HD, like this one: Sony XDR-F1HD FM/AM Digital Tuner HD Radio with Remote | eBay .
I have have one of these I used to use before I updated my prepro for ATMOS. It has an EXCELLENT tuner in it with the bonus of HD, on both am & fm. The tuner was actually better than the one in my previous prepro!
 
If you want to add HD radio to your older receiver/prepro, you can look for the Sony XDR-F1HD, like this one: Sony XDR-F1HD FM/AM Digital Tuner HD Radio with Remote | eBay .
I have have one of these I used to use before I updated my prepro for ATMOS. It has an EXCELLENT tuner in it with the bonus of HD, on both am & fm. The tuner was actually better than the one in my previous prepro!
It's a very nice tuner, but I listen to so little radio that it's just not worth it. This little gizmo cost me $20 and let's me Bluetooth audio from my phone. It's perfect.
PXL_20210614_181300308.jpg
 
Too many commercials on music stations, I'm considering not even bothering with a radio tuner once I get the Q8 player installed + Involve board, more din space for EQs etc. I will just use my phones headphone jack with flac player. I could also strap my laptop into the front seat to get discrete multichannel but more fun for me to pop in homemade 8tracks. Just got another Motorola Q8 player recently, came with a (mono?) reverb thingy:
View attachment 67958
I had one of those reverb units, looked just like that. IIRC it worked on common ground speaker systems, I put it in my parent's wagon which had the standard Ford two channel stereo with a fader for two front two back speakers. It just added spring reverb to the back. Kinda neat for a few hours. Got it used in '76 or so and it was old and cheap in a "junk" store at the time. Cool to see it again!
 
Back
Top