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Need help with FM UNID

J

jim-satx

On May 3 while driving from NE San Antonio to the NW side of town, I received an unfamiliar station at 88.1. I’m fairly sure it was tropo reception, and on that night decent tropo was coming in from Houston to the east.

The station was playing a soft pop format, and I heard "Stay" by Simply Red, "Time to Grow" by Lemar, "Definitely Maybe Suite" by Clint Mansell (an instrumental), a station ID (link below), and then "In Nome Dell'Amore" by Paolo Meneguzzi before the station faded and was overcome by heavy KPAC 88.3 splatter.

I recorded it on my iPhone, excerpted a 23-second clip of the ID portion, and posted it on Soundcloud.

All I can make out is something to the effect of “BNZT - the testimony radio. Made in ??? special ???. BNZT” The quality is poor, but I did manage to clean up some of the hiss to make it a little more audible. Can anyone with better ears tell me if this ID rings a bell with any radio networks?

The station doesn’t match any of the few soft/easy Texas 88.1 stations or any Louisiana stations (the tropo wasn’t that good anyway). Also, I’m certain it wasn’t Sporadic-E.

For a while I thought maybe I was receiving audio from an FM transmitter in someone’s car, but the drive was too long, the signal was too unstable, and that car would’ve had to made some highway changes with me.

Thanks.
 
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Sounds crazy, but you just might have had the new KQUE-FM from Bay City. While it just changed hands a couple of weeks ago, from Family Radio to Radio Aleluya, The Villarreal brothers (who own the Aleluya Broadcasting Network) have been brokering portions of their time on several properties to some pretty unique programming OTA. Since they've purchased KMIC in Houston, they've begun brokering KJOZ Conroe to Next Level Communications for a progressive talk format, with jazz programming in the evenings. KMIC is airing Church sermons in all English and others in all Spanish. Their stations aren't just Spanish preaching & music anymore. Heck, KRCM was airing Tejano just yesterday, which is certainly peculiar, given they also own the former "Super Tejano 980 KRTX" (now KQUE-AM). Speaking of the AM version of KQUE, it's the only one of the Aleluya stations that I can receive that HASN'T diverted from the regular ABN programming to this point.

Wish I could verify it for you OTA, but I'm too far north in Houston and KQUE-FM is blocked here by another of the ABN 88-1's, in this case the translator over in Katy.
 
Thanks, purpledevil. I logged the Family Radio station during good tropo last summer but never heard it again. Over the past few months I've heard a station on 88.1 doing some weird things and thought maybe it was Radio Nueva Vida in Gonzales. I've heard long periods of just an empty carrier, and other times I've heard non-stop Spanish Christian music in real low quality with no ID. Also, while west of Houston of a couple of weeks ago, I heard Spanish Christian music at very low volume accompanied by an annoying buzz.
 
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