Driving around eastern Iowa during the daytime, I heard easy listening instrumental music on my car radio on 1710 AM. Very, very easy listening. Sedative. The kind of music you might hear right after they overthrow the government. I listened for IDs, announcers, hints… but nothing. Where on earth might this be coming from? I heard this on a few consecutive days in broad daylight.
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Daytime music on 1710 am
- Thread starter icybluelake
- Start date
somewhere VERY close by to you... within a couple of miles of wherever youre hearing it. someones got a hamilton rangemaster or a procaster or some other part 15 transmitter on their roof.
You say.. driving around eastern iowa.. but you dont specify how far. to be heard over a wide distance by day, theyd have to be running alot of power. part 15 stuff is limited to 100 milliwatts
This is absolutely a part 15er/pirate because broadcasters are not even allowed to use 1710. Only that New Jersey TIS has the legal clearance.
1710 doesn't fall under the 100 mW/3 meter antenna provisions of 15.219. They are limited to a field strength of 15 uV/m at 30 meters if the bandwidth is less than 10% of the center frequency, per 15.223. In reality, I doubt if the FCC would go after someone on 1710 unless they're interfering with another station or are running way too much power. Just like in the real Ancient Modulation band.
I'm not sure what services use the 1705-1800 kHz band these days. The old cordless phones in that band have been gone for decades.
Of all the weird invocations of today's toxic politics in non-political threads, this might be the weirdest. I don't even want to know who "they" might be.
doesnt matter that it doesnt fall under part 15, p[eople still use part 15 transmitters because they will tune up there
Even that theory about soft music is a bit off. I've been in my own stations several times when the national government was overthrown. On both occasions, the coup was done with the support of most of the military establishment, and immediately my offices were populated by soldiers.
They were there to make sure nothing was said on the air as all official declarations were issued by the government station (the equivalent of the BBC). There was an armed soldier in each of the 5 studios and a sergeant in the main office, with a lieutenant coming by ever hour or two.
After the second coup, when the soldiers were a bit nervous as there had been some street violence, a bit of aerial bombing and the like, I sent out for food. That went over extremely well, so a bit later, we sent out for several cases of beer. At that point the soldiers were all much more friendly and we did not fear that they might shoot us.
At no point did we have to play any music that was not part of our format.
I'm reminded here of that weird custom they had in the USSR of playing somber classical music for several hours before announcing "bad news", such as the death of a leader.
It must be some kind of cultural thing, as though they are gathering everyone together softly and gently before they make an announcement, and getting them ready for what they are going to be told. The Russian soul runs very deep.
Just happened to think, could this be connected to the Maharishi movement around Fairfield? I have in mind Maharishi International University as well as nearby Maharishi Vedic City.
I remember reading that listeners in the old Soviet Union could always tell when their president had died because somber music would play on all of the government's radio services, whether they were classical music, light music or even spoken word. They got to hear an awful lot of it during the four-year period during which three successive aged, infirm leaders -- Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko -- died. But that's not the same as breaking format for a coup.
Oops, I see that IM42A had the same thoughts I had, and composed his remarks a few minutes faster.
In 1963, I was in traveling in Colombia when Pope Juan XXIII died. Every station ceased commercial broadcasting and ran classical music for several days of mourning. Colombia was under a Papal Concordat, so it reacted the same way the Vatican did. Stores close, churches shrouded the figure of Jesus at the alter in mourning. Liquor was prohibited, people had to dress in black.
To leave the hotel, I had to tip a bellman to take one of my shirts and a pair of pants to find ones in black that matched... difficult as "ready to wear" clothing was not common there at the time.
Fortunately, the hotel convenience store opened and I found several books to read during those days.
I remember when President Kennedy was killed, most radio stations in the U.S. broke from their regular format and played subdued, if not somber, music. Usually instrumentals. Regular programming was also suspended on TV. An exception that I remember (because I watched it), was one of the Milwaukee stations, WTMJ-TV if memory serves, that ran a movie without commercials after the Saturday 10pm news "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo".
I also remember the somber music when President Kennedy was killed. It was either that or continuous network news on the radio.
That's what we got in southern Indiana. Radio was either funeral music or news. TV was wall-to-wall network news. Even independent WTTV, who aired ABC during that time, along with "regular" affiliate WLWI.
And when they went back to their regular formats it was in most cases a slow transition back.
Maybe my memory is getting fuzzy in my old age, but from what I remember, regular programming on both radio and TV returned the next day after the burial, which was on November 25.
TV for sure. A few Top 40 stations eased into it. Some went right back as they were.
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