First radio note from the weekend:
On the way to my parents’ house, on Friday night, we listened to the Cardinals game. We first picked it up just north of Champaign-Urbana on a previously unknown AM station. When that signal faded, Stacey hit the scan button, and the next AM station the radio found had the Cardinals game on. When that signal began to fade, she did it again, and again the next station the radio found was carrying the Cardinals. The fourth time, we got a station carrying some other programming, but the fifth time, we got the Cardinals again. We eventually switched to KMOX, once night had fallen, but later, when we had problems with KMOX, we were able to find an FM station carrying the game. We ended our night with a Cardinals win heard on AM 1460 WROY, Carmi, which only seemed right.
Now that’s broadcasting in the public interest! I don’t understand why the FCC’s so worried about the state of radio.
Second radio note from the weekend:
Stacey and I drove back from a visit to my parents on Sunday. We listened to the end of the Cardinals game on KMOX. My iPod had frozen up strangely earlier in the day, so after the Cardinals lost, we were stuck trolling central Illinois radio, which is a desert that would even the Old Testament God wouldn’t be willing to force on the ancient Israelites. A lot of bad religious programming, even more Nashville crap, and not much else.
Then, as we were sitting in a ten-mile bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go mess of a merge, we hit upon WHOW AM 1520, Clinton, Illinois. And there we stayed, because their programming was like a gauntlet thrown down, a chip being knocked off our shoulders, a triple-dog dare: could we bring ourselves to keep listening until they went out of range?
What, you ask, was their programming? They were playing “The Superbowl Shuffle”. Over and over. Every couple of times through, a recording played of a guy imitating Harry Caray, saying that starting Monday, WHOW would be sports programming. “But now, let’s get back to ‘The Superbowl Shuffle!'”
So we listened to “The Superbowl Shuffle” at least fifteen times. We couldn’t turn the dial. Eventually, we got through the traffic and the signal faded. But Monday as I was bicycling to work, I kept thinking of Walter Payton informing us that “We aren’t doing this because we’re greedy./The Bears are doing it to feed the needy.”
Third radio note from the weekend:
This will be of interest only to those of you who lived in the Communications Residential College at Northwestern University. I saw a bumper sticker for WCRC FM 95.7, Fairfield, Illinois. That reminded me that the dorm’s station changed its name to WXRU a few years ago after getting a complaint from 104.5 FM WXLO, Worcester, Massachusetts.
Original comments…
Steve: How awesome that Bob is the face of CRC even today!
Levi: Yeah, I decided not to point that out just to see who was interested enough to click on the link.
Toby Brown: What Levi didn’t tell you is he used to engineer Cardinal games at WROY as a teen-ager.