Ever liked a station you DXed?

[davideduardo]

... but it irks me when heritage stations flip formats with little or no warning.

It might help to understand the business side of format flips.

Going back a number of decades, it was very common to find situations where a the playbook for the flip was to have the new staff at a nearby motel along with carts of all the music and jingles and a book full of liners. The current format would end with the mass firing of the old format staff. The idea was to keep the change a total secret from the competition so that they could not react to counter the change.

Another reason for not advising of a format change is internal. Announcers who know their job will be over tend to engage in negative behaviour, ranging from swan songs to outright sabotage. I know of one case where, before leaving, a terminated jock peed in the production room board, ruining it totally. As to swan songs, when the operator I was with bought a rock station to convert it to Spanish language, the hard rock jocks spent a several months making negative remarks about Latin music, Hispanics and the changes in Los Angeles demographics.

So there are plenty of reasons not to let anyone know about a change and essentially no reasons to publicize it.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

It probably has more to do with fearing what the present staff might do than what competitors might do. Keeping secrets in radio is next to impossible. In the old days, on air staff from competitors were often in the offices and studios during non business hours, Nights and Weekends. All of the people knew each other, and probably worked there at one time. I've mistakenly called stations with similar phone numbers and asked for personnel from another station and they have responded with, "well, they don't work here anymore, but they were here a half hour ago".

You can figure out any new format within a day or so just by listening. And if the station that might have gotten information on a new format, if they were in a such a superior position to take so much advantage, they'd do it anyway. If they could pay more, they'd hire the DJs away. Kind of like the advantage when WMAQ went Country and put WJJD out of the Country Format. What could WJJD have done anyway?

One manager of a station only gave me the FAX number of the station lobby, not the FAX number in his locked office. Over a weekend, I sent a FAX that contained an upgrade plan for a station that they couldn't buy without spinning off a station they already owned but was much more difficult to upgrade, because it would have put them over the duopoly numbers. The upgrade opportunity for the other station had sat there for years without anyone figuring it out. It was very simple. Within a few weeks, the plan was applied for by the competitor with geographical coordinates within 15 seconds LAT and LON of the PROP Study plan I sent in the FAX. This was after I told several owners and managers to keep things like that under better security. I had even asked that manager whether I should send it to the personal FAX in his locked office, and he said the lobby FAX was good enough. He wouldn't give me his office FAX number.

 

[jim-satx]

I enjoy finding stations that have actual local programming or music you don't normally hear.

An example of the former is 94.3 KYKM "Texas Thunder Radio" in Yoakum, which I occasionally get via tropo. During the mornings they have a show featuring German and Polish polka music, and they dedicate the songs for local wedding anniversaries, birthdays, etc. I'm not much of a fan of polkas, but I really like the community feel.

An example of the latter is 1060 XEEP "Radio Educación." The first time I heard the station, I was intrigued because they were playing guitar music by Egberto Gismonti, a jazz/world music artist whom I've rarely heard outside of my music collection.

When I was a kid and WBBM had a reliable signal here every night, I enjoyed falling asleep to the station playing old CBS Radio Mystery Theater shows.

 

[Ai4i]

My favorite format change was preceded with the words,
"1010 WINS New York will be back with more music after the news".

Kind of like,
"I have directed Secretary Connally to suspend, temporarily, the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other reserve assets...".

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

The process was sort of reverse by me.
In both 1962 and 1963 the family stayed a week with cousins in
Norfolk VA. Norfolk's AM dial had three GY stations licensed
to the market. one of them, of course, was the great WNOR
and that jaunty 'Music Go 'Round' package from PAMS.
I was a kid, with my first tape recorder along for the 1963 trip.
I couldn't get enough of the station. They had DJ's with names
like Sam Spade, Buzz Baxter and Steve Canyon, and somehow
manage to combine a circus-y image with that of the occasional
clueless outbursts from pirates aboard some ship.
WNOR was Top 40. It used to get bumped around in the ratings
by WGH, which had 5000 watts to WNOR's 1000/250. But what
did I care about ratings? I didn't even know what ratings were at
age 14.
Well, one overnight back home, near Kennedy Airport in Queens (then called
Idlewild Airport) there was WNOR coming in on the Zenith!
WITH Baltimore, also a Top 40 station, was often atop. 1230 was a
pretty quiet frequency back then, you know. Once in a while WCOL
Columbus would come in (also Top 40), but the standard menu, at least
on MM's, was WITH, then my old radio station/teddybear WNOR. With
WITH's frequent fades I was a wide-eared kid again hearing WNOR. Johnny
Hart was the overnight DJ there.

(WFUN 790 was quite a rare catch, but on a few overnight MM's they could
be there for quite a while. Perhaps it was Auroral out, but I didn't know
about reception like that as a high school punk. I preferred their sound and
jingles over the far-more-frequent WQAM -- don't hit me, purists! :- )

 

[Icangelp]

Steve.

Thanks for the memories.

In the 1950's and early 60's, most kids of average means lived in a pretty small world, at least small compared to today. You have to be a child of the times to understand the pure joy of hearing a great jock on a well run AM Top 40 station. Pretty exciting stuff, for some of us anyway.

 

[cyberdad]

I enjoy finding stations that have actual local programming or music you don't normally hear.

.

Bingo, Jim. Same here. I also agree with you about XEEP. That's a tough catch here in the Chicago area, but it can be done. Much easier for me on my trips to Florida, where it's always a treat. I've heard the guitar music, but had no idea who the artist was. I'll have to look for Egberto Gismonti on Spotify. CFZM and R. Eniclopedia are two others I enjoy. CFZM usually has a very good signal here.

Having traveled in my work for decades, I had the good fortune to catch stations on the road that are for all intents and purposes not
DX-able" in my area, but are favorite listens nonetheless. KBRD and KCEA on the West Coast come to mind. Also, CBC Radio 2 in Canada. Classic FM in the UK (Classical), and Cajun stations like KLEB and KBON in Louisiana. All of these are gems, and fortunately most of them stream.

Then there's KNXR-FM in Rochester, MN. For 40 years. arguably one of the most unique easy listening formats ever. A little like the old Schulke "beautiful music format". Live Jocks Heavy on instrumentals, but overall more upbeat musically, and more of a "foreground" (as opposed to background) sound. Chicago radio legend John Doremus used the KNXR library to program his syndicated programs in the 1960s and 70s. Inevitably, KNXR flipped a couple of years ago to a rock format, but a recreation is available online (97five.com)....complete with pristine recordings of Doremus' three-hour programs every evening.

 

[davideduardo]

Bingo, Jim. Same here. I also agree with you about XEEP. That's a tough catch here in the Chicago area, but it can be done. Much easier for me on my trips to Florida, where it's always a treat.

I had never paid attention to XEEP when I have been in Mexico City as it's not a particularly high rated station, and on travels there I'd tend to listen to the top rated stations. I just discovered it is on TuneIn, so I am going to check it out further.

 

[Ai4i]

I remember many years ago, listening to the local small city sound of CHNS, Halifax, NS,
as they were relayed for the fishing fleet, by CHNX on the forty-nine meter shortwave band.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I remember in the early 70's, waiting for the 97.9 in Odessa to shut down for the night, so I could listen to KZEW from Dallas.

 

[cyberdad]

I remember many years ago, listening to the local small city sound of CHNS, Halifax, NS,
as they were relayed for the fishing fleet, by CHNX on the forty-nine meter shortwave band.

I remember listening to CHNX on Cape Cod in the days before streaming. Oldies on 49 meters...6130, IIRC. I heard them a few times here in the Chicago area, but it was a pretty tough catch on my Yacht Boy PE 400. I stand to be corrected, but I'm pretty sure they were running 500 watts.

 

[charlestondxman]

I remember when I first got shortwave radio around 2001 or so when CFRB was on 6070. It didn't come in very often in this area, but more often than 1010 AM here.

This isn't DX, but I grew to enjoy WLW when they put that on XM in 2006. It was cool that basically WLW's entire feed (except for Reds games) was simulcast nationwide. I liked some of the talk hosts on there (like Scott Sloan, then the night host, who now is the midday guy). The trucker show overnights also had a lot of listeners (I was too young to stay up for much of that).

Even in the Clear Channel days of the mid 2000s, at least the news/talk stations sounded unique (even though most of their music stations were well in the voice tracked era). WHAS, WLW, and others all had their own sounds and sounded uniquely local. Now, you don't even have that.

 

[mimo]

As a kid living in Calgary in the 1980's I grew to love Edmonton's 630 CHED, while they had an almost local like signal in the city, they were 3 hours away by car...so they were a long way away to a kid. Then when I moved to Vancouver I used to listen to KJET (nights) and KKFX (days) from Seattle along with what was then known as AM 106 in Calgary. Upon moving back to Calgary I loved CKXY 1040 and CKST (originally on 800 and later they moved to 1040) from Vancouver. In 1984 when I lived in Edmonton AM 1600 from Denver was a regular visitor simulcasting a station known as Y-108. When I lived in Iowa I used to listen to XEWA 540, XEMU 580, XEX 730, XEROK 800, XEW 900, XEJ 970 and XEG 1050 because I enjoyed the Mexican music and I was learning Spanish at the time. I used to listen to WIND Chicago in the days but that was a hard one to pull in due to the interference from KTRS and WNAX. They were being squeezed on both sides.

 

[crainbebo]

If SW does count, I enjoyed when Radio Taiwan International had their English broadcasts to North America in the early evenings. 5950 in winter, 9680 in summer at 0200 UT years ago. They gave good Asian news coverage and had some interesting features on the people and cultures of Taiwan.
Radio Australia is also fun to listen to, especially Saturday Night Country and their Grandstand cricket/rugby coverage. But of course, my SW listening days are about over.
1600 Denver was KRXY. The Y-108 was KRXY-FM (now KQKS) on 107.5. They were the #1 CHR station in Denver through the 1980s. KRXY calls are now at 94.5 in Shelton, WA.
AM 106 is obviously CKMX. I miss the Classic Country format. Comedy gets revenue and that's about it. I'm sure it's a 0.1 in the ratings, if not lower.

 

[davideduardo]

1600 Denver was KRXY. The Y-108 was KRXY-FM (now KQKS) on 107.5. They were the #1 CHR station in Denver through the 1980s. KRXY calls are now at 94.5 in Shelton, WA.

KRXY was not CHR until around 1984.

KOAQ and KPKE generally beat it initially as a CHR.

By 1986, KOAQ had left the format, and KPKE was beating KRXY by a good margin.

But by 1987, KPKE had dropped the format for a soft AC format, leaving KRXY alone at the end of the decade... 1987 and on.

By 1989, KRQS was making inroads, and by early 1990 was winning the CHR battle.

In other words, KRXY wwas not the #1 CHR station through the 80's. It was not even CHR for the first 4 or so years of the decade, and its dominance only lasted about 2 years.

 

[gar hi]

If we're talking shortwave radio too, I remember something very unusual from when my older brother liked to listen to shortwave when we were in New Jersey in the late 60's.

The station was from Cuba and it was nothing but a constant repetition of tones that sounded like bagpipe music.

We nicknamed it 'the bagpipes'. The last time I ever it was in the early 70's and we always wondered exactly what the station was about.

Probably coded messages within the sounds?

Anyway, I finally found a video on YouTube from a couple years ago someone did who also heard the 'bagpipes'.

This is a simulation, not an original recording, but this is exactly what it sounded like.

Anyone else ever heard this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TzPx2_Q7n0

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Yes, I remember this, not the exact notes or tones, but very close. Sort of like an audio frequency oscillator or Theremin, but with discrete tones like a keyboard. I thought it might be like the "chimes" that preceded a shortwave broadcast. Then, later in the 1970s, the number letter broadcasts began, with a series of 5 numbers, with spaces in between the five number sequences, with a female voice reading them. Too bad the late WICC and KNX personality Bob Crane wasn't around to get that girl to give him the "code book".

 

[CTListener]

If we're talking shortwave radio too, I remember something very unusual from when my older brother liked to listen to shortwave when we were in New Jersey in the late 60's.

The station was from Cuba and it was nothing but a constant repetition of tones that sounded like bagpipe music.

We nicknamed it 'the bagpipes'. The last time I ever it was in the early 70's and we always wondered exactly what the station was about.

Probably coded messages within the sounds?

Anyway, I finally found a video on YouTube from a couple years ago someone did who also heard the 'bagpipes'.

This is a simulation, not an original recording, but this is exactly what it sounded like.

Anyone else ever heard this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TzPx2_Q7n0

Yes! I remember that very well from the same time period. For some reason, I always thought it had something to do with AT&T, whose "This is a transmission for circuit adjustment purposes" transmissions from White Plains ("near New York City," as the announcer said) were heard on several frequencies. Has it been confirmed that the "bagpipes" station was Cuban? I doubt any message was contained in the tune, which never varied, but you'd think that if the station were Cuban, it would pause occasionally for numbers to be read, which was the normal way those stations operated.

 

[cyberdad]

Anyone else ever heard this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TzPx2_Q7n0

Wow! I actually don't remember this one specifically, but it definitely sounds like the sort of stuff you'd hear before program beginnings on international shortwave services. But, from what you guys are saying, it appears to have been used for something else. As for Cuba, I know they've used odd-sounding jammers down through the years, but this doesn't sound like something that would be used for that purpose.

 

[CTListener]

Wow! I actually don't remember this one specifically, but it definitely sounds like the sort of stuff you'd hear before program beginnings on international shortwave services. But, from what you guys are saying, it appears to have been used for something else. As for Cuba, I know they've used odd-sounding jammers down through the years, but this doesn't sound like something that would be used for that purpose.

You're thinking of interval signals. They were more sophisticated than the synthesized "bagpipe" tune, usually orchestrated excerpts from national anthems or folk tunes, although RAI (Italy) used a loop of chirping birds and the BBC World Service used the clanging of bells (the Bow Bells, IIRC) or a solo drum pounding out the Morse Code "V." There are several good collections of those on YouTube that you can find by searching for "interval signals."