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NCIS Meets Rural Radio

O

oldiesfan6479

From tonight's NCIS (8/7 on CBS)...

Rural U.S. radio station 86.9 FM?

A rack of carts on the wall? And on the wall in the talk studio, not the control room?
 
They must have digitally altered the station frequency so memorabilia collectors and anachronism fans wouldn't be coming by asking the secretary/dj/account exec to see the public file.
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
From tonight's NCIS (8/7 on CBS)...

Rural U.S. radio station 86.9 FM?

A rack of carts on the wall? And on the wall in the talk studio, not the control room?
Click to expand...
...so? In the 1978 theatrical film FM, the Los Angeles radio station it's about has the call sign QSKY and the frequency 71.1. Not a new idea at all...
 
Ultimajock said:
...so? In the 1978 theatrical film FM, the Los Angeles radio station it's about has the call sign QSKY and the frequency 71.1. Not a new idea at all...
Click to expand...

But NCIS is usually so high-tech correct (as in FM freq.) and contemporary (as in no carts).

One recurring "continuity error" is that all references to phone numbers--while they use the
correct area codes--always seem to have the "555" prefix. But I guess you can't avoid that,
since you don't want someone's real number shown and then they keep getting wacko calls.
Remember Jenny and 867-5309? ;D
 
Other fake radio station tricks I've seen in TV and movies: 5 letter call signs, and American FM frequencies with even numbers after the point - as in 99.4 or 101.6. Yes, I know these FM frequencies exist in other parts of the world, but not in North America.
 
It seems like "Midnight Caller" had an even-numbered frequency too. I can't find any "Midnight Caller" trivia that answers that question though....

All right, two people say it was 97.3 KJMC, so I guess that was a faulty memory.......
 
I believe the fictional radio station in the movie "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" called itself "109 FM". (Pee Wee had gone on the radio station to inform listeners to be on the lookout for a missing bike.)
 
Lkeller said:
American FM frequencies with even numbers after the point - as in 99.4 or 101.6. Yes, I know these FM frequencies exist in other parts of the world, but not in North America.
Click to expand...

I know this is probably an engineering question, and it's on the TV board, but why in North America, the frequencies don't end in an even number?
Just so this question don't get moved, I'll ask a TV question... What was WKRP's frequency?
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
A rack of carts on the wall? And on the wall in the talk studio, not the control room?
Click to expand...

I get that same feeling every time they walk into a drug store on Seinfeld.
Anyone who actually set their Lozier shelving planograms and end caps to look
like the ones in that show would get fired immediately!
 
WKRP's frequency was 1530 ;D .. I'm interested to hear about the odd-numbered stepping in North American FM broadcasting, too. I know the AM stations (or Medium Wave "MW" as they sometimes call them) in Europe use a 9 kHz step versus the 10 kHz step used in North America. It makes a few more frequencies available, but I'm not sure this is the rationale or if it has something to do with different electrical standards (North America uses 60 cycle while Europe uses 50).
 
There probably isn't a technical reason for frequencies to be on .1, .3, .5, .7, .9 instead of .0, .2, .4, .6, .8, it was probably more arbitrary, because the 10kHz stepping had to occur somewhere. Back in the days before digital radios, it was more of a guessing game on where your dial was set anyway, so it was probably just decided by some engineer in the process and evolved from there.
 
notalkallstatic said:
Just so this question don't get moved, I'll ask a TV question... What was WKRP's frequency?
Click to expand...

Was it ever mentioned? I do know in the pilot episode the lobby wall map had 'KRP as
50,000 watts, however in subsequent episodes the map showed 5,000 watts.

I don't think it was 50 kw-D, 5 kw-N, DA-2. Better ask Bucky! ;D
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
notalkallstatic said:
Just so this question don't get moved, I'll ask a TV question... What was WKRP's frequency?
Click to expand...

Was it ever mentioned?
Click to expand...

RadioDaze said:
WKRP's frequency was 1530 ;D
Click to expand...

WKRP's frequency was never given in the original series, but it was given in "The New WKRP". Oddly, the 1530 frequency was an actual frequency in Cincinnati -- WCKY (today known as "ESPN 1530").
 
And WKRP currently exists in Cincinnati as a TV station*.

* - The actual legal callsign is WBQC-LP.
 
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