Globe: Getting Howard Stern off WMBR

[raccoonradio]

Subject has popped up here before, and here it is again: stations like WMBR getting complaints from
listeners whose reception of the station is suddenly infriged upon by Babba Booey.

http://www.boston.com/business/personaltech/articles/2006/12/21/getting_howard_stern_off_npr/

>>But that is exactly what 88.1 WMBR Cambridge listeners began to notice at the beginning of this year, as Howard Stern on Sirius Satellite Radio would "bleed" into the music line up on shows like "The Breakfast of Champions" when they were stopped in traffic.

 

[Varulven]

Free Satellite Radio. I want to know what we're going to do with the radio signals when all the transmissions become internet based. Howie Carr will have ZERO audience when people can tune in to http://www.radioparadise.com or http://www.airamericaradio.com or college stations from around the world.

Jay Severin will have less than zero. Right now there are car radios with limited functions - and tired talk show hosts that don't know how to reinvent themselves. I say Howard bleeding onto WMBR is a good thing.

 

[raccoonradio]

Imagine this situation (the libs on this board are probably salivating at the thought): considering that while
some of these FM re-transmitters can do the entire FM dial...

A conservative is listening to Jay, Michael G., or Laura I. on WTKK in their car when suddenly a car gets near them and the radio signal changes...
"...you're listening to Randi Rhodes--THIS is Air America on XM!!"

But the same thing could happen in the other case...someone listening to NPR's Talk of the Nation would
suddenly get Sean Hannity via satellite (I think he's on Sirius or XM)...

Or a classical (WCRB) listener suddenly gets their music interrupted by someone with a mp3 player,
broadcasting anything from country to rap...

 

[HHH]

This will probably happen less and less as dedicated inputs on car entertainment systems replace those little FM transmitters. Some car entertainment systems already have inputs just like a home stereo system.

In the meantime, I wish that the Sirius and XM car xmtrs would be defaulted to 87.9. That would not effect anybody regardless of market, and the more savvy (of which most consumers are not) would switch frequency if need be. Most people just plug and play with the default (88.1, I believe).

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Right now there are car radios with limited functions - and tired talk show hosts that don't know how to reinvent themselves. I say Howard bleeding onto WMBR is a good thing.

Why would you want interference to WMBR? It's an all-volunteer college/community station which allows programmers a good degree of freedom on the airwaves. You've praised some of their programming in the past.

In the meantime, I wish that the Sirius and XM car xmtrs would be defaulted to 87.9. That would not effect anybody regardless of market, and the more savvy (of which most consumers are not) would switch frequency if need be. Most people just plug and play with the default (88.1, I believe).

Yes, they do. Most of them have no idea what a frequency is, let alone that they can change it. Some of them in Cambridge call WMBR complaining about the opposite problem, that WMBR is interfering with their Stern reception. Invariably, when we try to explain that they can change their transponder frequency, they have no idea what we're talking about.

I bought one, and it came defaulted to 88.1, but it took just a second to press a button and change it to 88.5. I have no satellite radio or iPod, though. I plug my early 90's Sony AM Stereo Walkman into the FM transponder so that I can hear WJIB in full stereo through my FM car stereo, without having to install an old 1980's AM stereo car receiver (which didn't have as good FM sections as today's car units) into my dashboard. So, anyone next to me in traffic can hear WJIB in full stereo on 88.5. (White VW Golf, WMBR sticker on the rear bumper). I leave it on even when I tune the FM to another station.