You pick up a land line, 99.999999% chance of a dial tone, but it’ll still go away eventually
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Any format flips on the horizon for LA?
- Thread starter 30james
- Start date
And because that can happen, my phone is always charging when I drive, at my desk at work and on my nightstand by my bed.
IF the power were to go out for several hours on any given day (and in Northern California, that's not unheard of), I'm unlikely to be too far off a full charge when it happens. And at that point, I simply restrict my use only to the essential. The average battery life for a phone on the market today is 11.5 hours---and that's in use. Standby time (on but not using the phone, the text or apps) ranges between 2 and 5 days.
In the event that wasn't enough, a recharge is as close as the USB outlet in the car in the driveway.
I neglected to mention that the local cell towers were down as well...That's why I immediately turned on the radio...and because I discovered that 1260 (whose xmitter is in Mission Hills) was off the air it told me that the entire SF Valley was out...tuned down the band to see if KNX was reporting on what was happening...this is what I meant by the immediacy of radio.
Which can happen. But I've lived at the base of the Sierra Nevada foothills for nine years now---and we haven't lost cell service for more than a couple of minutes even once, even when we've lost power.
I'm not trying to say that a radio and batteries aren't a great thing to have---but, as with electric vehicles, there are too many people who think that phones magically become useless when the power goes out, which---if you're charging properly and conserving if there's an outage---they don't.
The telco switching stations are always on battery, under continuous charge, that's why even after the 94 earthquake there was still dial tone, even though the system was so overloaded you probably couldn't easily make a call. My problem is that since we get our dial tone through our local CATV provider, we have to use their provided telco modem. Although IT has it's own battery backup, after about 5 hours we would be up the creek without a proverbial paddle.
Was KNX reporting on what was happening? If so, how long did you have to listen to hear about it? How frequent were the updates?
I mean, KNX is a really strong news operation, so this is kind of a best-case scenario for getting information over the air.
Doesn’t it seem like Iheart is much more succesful with CHR radio than Audacy everywhere in the country
It helps when you have people like Ryan seacrest and Rick dees before him for the Chr brand. Carson Daley never quite caught on as much for the amp brand it seems.
All I remember it was apparently due to major power co equipment malfunction due to the heatwave in our region.
Too bad. It would have been interesting to know.
In a city, town or rural area that doesn't have a station with the live news resources of a KNX, the odds are worse.
Meantime, on a smartphone (assuming cell service is there) I can look at the utility's outage map, get an immediate read on where the outage is and isn't, and check the utility and other emergency services' social media for updates and advisories.
Exactly! All that’s great with a cell phone, but it doesn’t do you much good if you have no cell service or spotty cell service, which is very common, especially in times of power outages and natural disasters. If the power is out and you have no cell service, you have a very nice paper weight on your hands. Meanwhile, if you have a radio and some batteries, you will always be good to go!
I feel like I've said this before, because I have:
(screen goes all wavy, harp music plays)
I'm not trying to say that a radio and batteries aren't a great thing to have...
But here's the thing, asugeorge1, if you have a radio and some batteries you will only be good to go if someone on a frequency in your area is providing timely, relevant and useful information about your particular emergency.
If they're not, well, your radio is a very nice paper weight.
And not every situation where it's an emergency to you actually warrants an EAS alert.
And that's why I was hoping Tomas Estefan, who clearly remembered dialing 1260 to see whether the power was off in all of the
San Fernando Valley, and who clearly remembered dialing 1070 to see if KNX was reporting on what was happening, could remember whether they were or not (he couldn't).
As I said, KNX is a very strong news organization---they're kind of a "best case scenario" for this kind of coverage. But there are times of the day and week, where even with 1.75 million people in the San Fernando Valley sitting in the dark without air conditioning, they might not be on that story for a while, might not be able to say more than "yep, the power's out in the Valley" if they are, and because 80 percent of metro L.A. lives someplace other than the San Fernando Valley, almost certainly won't be going wall-to-wall with information about it.
And most cities, towns and rural areas don't have a radio station with the news resources of KNX.
Again, my points have been:
1) ABSOLUTELY have a radio and spare batteries.
2) Properly charged and judiciously used, a cell phone battery can last anywhere from 11 and a half hours to five days.
3) If a radio station in your area isn't covering your situation, or isn't covering it more than to say it's happening and they hope to have more information soon, you are likely to be able to get more information and more immediate information from outage maps, road closure maps, alerts and notifications from the agencies themselves via a smartphone.
If I was to win that billion dollars in the MegaMillions, I would have tried to pick up that station from iHM, bring the J1 Japanese pop format to a mainstream AM station (it's currently on KBUU-LP HD3) and change the call letters back to KRKD.
Let's not forget the many Americans who can't afford a data plan that can sustain listening to a stream for hours on end. The minimum service requirements for the "Obamaphones" is only 3G and just over 4 gigs a month. Those folks still need radio as their lifeline.
3G speeds and 4 gigs a month is sufficient to listen to around 350 hours of streaming Spotify on the "low" quality setting, if that is what the person wishes to prioritize. "Low" quality on Spotify is similar to SiriusXM quality.
Doesn't seem like a problem.
And let's remember that there are very few instances that require listening to streaming for hours on end. Another advantage to the smartphone over radio---with radio, you need to stay tuned and have the radio on or else you might miss something. With a smartphone, you can usually go straight to information you need, instantly updated.
Once you understand that by and large, the authorities are only giving the media briefings every few hours, the "need" for constant listening pretty much evaporates.
But again---I apparently have to say this to avoid having to say it again later---ABSOLUTELY have a radio and some batteries.
Depends are where you are. 3G in many rural parts of the country/smaller markets turns your phone into a paperweight
The LA station most likely to flip is almost always Levine's 1260. Although, he seems content with Classical for the time being. I still don't understand why he is running Classical music on AM? There must be better choices.
Here's an interview with Saul on the subject from two years ago:
While the sound quality of AM in digital HD is better than I had thought possible, it's a case of being too late to save AM radio, and attracting new listeners.
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