RCA Victor score

[AUdubon5425]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

Standard AM/FM radio could disappear tomorrow and I wouldn't miss it.

You obviously don't live where reports on traffic, weather, street flooding or crime scenes are of importance. Cabot Cove I guess.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by AUdubon5425

You obviously don't live where reports on traffic, weather, street flooding or crime scenes are of importance. Cabot Cove I guess.

I live in a small town near Lake Erie, over 30 miles from Cleveland, but not so far out in the boondocks that I, or anyone else living in this area, can afford not to know what's going on in the so-called "big city" of Cleveland. What I meant was I would not miss the gabby disk jockeys and long strings of commercials on today's AM and FM radio stations. Of course the news reports on street flooding, weather, et al. are important, which is why I wish there was an all-news radio station in Cleveland (there isn't anymore, not since NBC's NNIS news service folded in the early 1980s; someone told me some time ago that Cleveland is too small a city to support an all news station, although the city did have an NNIS affiliate -- WERE 1300 AM -- in the late '70s until the service folded).

I do, however, listen to the new NBC News Radio network's one-minute newscasts on the local AM station here (WABQ 1460 AM in Painesville, five miles south of me). I would listen to all-news radio if this area had such a station, but since it doesn't, my clock radio remains tuned to 1460. The irony, however, is that Cleveland does have an all-sports FM station -- WKRK-FM, 92.3 in suburban Cleveland Heights, since a few months ago.

I can't figure that out. Cleveland is too small to have an all-news station, yet it is big enough to support an all-sports one. Maybe the powers-that-be at the all-sports station think that sports matters more to Cleveland people than the news does--no, I take that back. The reports of the school shootings in a city (Chardon) in Geauga County, Ohio several months ago were carried on the all-sports station the morning the shooting took place, and I'm sure the news of the theater shootings near Denver, Colorado was carried over that station and every other talk station in the city as well, so news radio is indeed important. The loudmouth DJs and seemingly-endless strings of commercials on the rock stations, however, can go to you-know-where as far as I am concerned. I realize radio and TV stations need a certain number of commercials to stay on the air, but eight or ten (or more[!]) of these things in a row is too much. There used to be an FCC rule limiting radio and TV commercial time to no more than one or, at most, two minutes in any given hour of the day; that rule was abolished almost 30 years ago when the agency deregulated broadcast radio, and one minute later, all H--- broke loose.

[Sandy G]

Oh, yeah...Our little Angel Modulation kuntry luvin' station, WRGS, is totally "Programmed", nothing live about it, which makes me slightly FURIOUS when we have a terrific snot-slingin' thunderstorm go thru, & you CAN'T find out ANYTHING pertinent. I, of course, know the owner of the station, & if I can remember, I'm gonna fuss at him about this...The canned "Tennessee Mutual News" to me, is NOT living up to the "Community Involvement" clause that I think is part of every station's charter & license...

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Oh, yeah...Our little Angel Modulation kuntry luvin' station, WRGS, is totally "Programmed", nothing live about it, which makes me slightly FURIOUS when we have a terrific snot-slingin' thunderstorm go thru, & you CAN'T find out ANYTHING pertinent. I, of course, know the owner of the station, & if I can remember, I'm gonna fuss at him about this...The canned "Tennessee Mutual News" to me, is NOT living up to the "Community Involvement" clause that I think is part of every station's charter & license...

Sandy, automated radio stations like your town's WRGS don't care about anything other than their own programming; should a thunderstorm or anything else happen these stations don't give a hoot about it, because they are programmed from national networks hundreds or thousands of miles away and are run at the local level by computers. The local talk station here, WABQ 1460, is exactly like that, with talk programming from something called the "Revolution Radio NetworK" and NBC News Radio at the top of every hour, but the only local programming is a 120-minute block of local news early in the morning. Once that is over the Revolution Radio Network comes in and is all that is heard over the station all day and night long, except of course for NBC's hourly 1-minute news summaries. Should a thunderstorm blow into the area at any time during these automated programs, the local station here would not interrupt its national programming for even a minute.

This is the way most if not all AM radio stations (except, of course, the big network-operated all-news ones in big cities like New York, Washington, Philadelphia, et al) are operated today, like it or not. They are automated, with no (or very, very little) live programming whatsoever, so Heaven help us if an emergency situation such as a severe thunderstorm pops up. The warning will almost certainly be seen and heard over local TV stations (because of the Emergency Alert System), but again, heaven help anyone who happens to be listening to a small automated AM station when the storm comes, unless the station's automation equipment is set up to cause the EAS warning to break in to the automated program if the need arises; however, I doubt that most automated stations are that sophisticated -- yet, anyway.

Television does a better job of informing the public of natural disasters (the local TV stations in Cleveland will begin a scheduled newscast with a weather bulletin if conditions are bad enough to warrant such action), but unfortunately, if such warnings are posted during working hours, most people will not see them as they are at work at this time. This is as good a reason as any to have a NOAA weather radio operating at all times. These radios will respond to emergency warnings (via a special signal sent from NOAA weather radio stations) and can be programmed to respond only to weather emergencies for specific areas such as individual counties. Some of these radios can even be set up to break in, if need be, to programming over a local FM station, replacing said programming with NOAA weather bulletins and/or emergency information; I have a Midland all-hazard weather warning receiver which will do just that in the event of a weather emergency.

This is, IMO, a much better way to keep informed of weather emergencies or severe weather than relying solely on AM or FM broadcast radio, or even TV. Television is not always accessible, and as I said, most automated AM stations cannot interrupt national programming for weather warnings unless an engineer is present in the control room at all times. Since many small-town stations run on a shoestring budget, they may not and likely do not have near the funds available to hire a 24-hour engineering staff. Some stations may get around this problem by hiring a person who will monitor the station during overnight hours, and who will be ready to override the automated programming on a moment's notice, replacing it with a warning or alert in case of a severe weather event such as a thunderstorm, snowstorm, etc. There is a talk station near where I grew up (western Lake County, Ohio, near Cleveland) that will be in the same situation if/when a severe weather event takes place, although that station may be much better prepared to broadcast severe weather alerts than the local station near where I live today.

[Sandy G]

Yeah, but, dammittall, it SHOULDN'T be like that, Jeff...We had a tornado hit here a year or 2 ago, & it SURE WOULDA BEEN NICE to know WTH was going on...

[ctc17]

I will pdf this, pm me your email if you want a copy.

[Kingfisher]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Yeah, but, dammittall, it SHOULDN'T be like that, Jeff...We had a tornado hit here a year or 2 ago, & it SURE WOULDA BEEN NICE to know WTH was going on...

Don't you guys down there in Tenn. have sirens? There isn't any here where I live, but we're an exception. Virtually every county surrounding mine has a siren system in place. In Battle Creek, they even got HAM radio people watching them for malfunctions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W_w0...feature=relmfu

(check yer volume...rockin' and rollin' starts around 4:00)

[ctc17]

In most major natural disasters amateur radio is going to be the only real form of communication. The problem is there are so few hams operators these days, in fact people general preparedness is an fing joke.

During that major power outage in sandeigo last year most people were sitting outside in their cars listening to their car radios trying to get information.
All the local am/fm and tv stations tied to one feed, one of the local am stations talk show hosts. He did a great job of keeping people informed and the way the commercial stations all worked together was amazing. I can get some of those stations up here.

I just cant imagine not having a working battery operated radio in the house.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I wish there was an all-news radio station in Cleveland (there isn't anymore, not since NBC's NNIS news service folded in the early 1980s; someone told me some time ago that Cleveland is too small a city to support an all news station, although the city did have an NNIS affiliate ....

I would listen to all-news radio if this area had such a station....

I can't figure that out. Cleveland is too small to have an all-news station, yet it is big enough to support an all-sports one.

Can you receive the WKSU repeater WKSV? It should cover your area well:

http://maps.google.com/?q=http://tra...26state=OH.kml

It has 24/7 news on one of its digital sub-channels, same as WKSU:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WKSV

jr

[Sandy G]

Originally Posted by Kingfisher

Don't you guys down there in Tenn. have sirens? There isn't any here where I live, but we're an exception. Virtually every county surrounding mine has a siren system in place. In Battle Creek, they even got HAM radio people watching them for malfunctions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W_w0...feature=relmfu

(check yer volume...rockin' and rollin' starts around 4:00)

Why, shit, no...We USED to have a Fire Siren, but, come to think of it, I haven't heard THAT in a long time...

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

Can you receive the WKSU repeater WKSV? It should cover your area well:

http://maps.google.com/?q=http://tra...26state=OH.kml

It has 24/7 news on one of its digital sub-channels, same as WKSU:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WKSV

jr

My area is an FM fringe area. I have a hard time hearing some Cleveland FM stations, let alone out-of-town ones. Never heard of WSJV-FM, or whatever that station is you just mentioned (I had an accident several years ago, and ever since then have had problems with reading numbers and letters properly; sometimes I get them completely backwards, so I may have that callsign mixed up badly).

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

My area is an FM fringe area. I have a hard time hearing some Cleveland FM stations, let alone out-of-town ones.

I should have posted the frequency (it was shown on the coverage map that I linked to). WKSV is at 89.1 Mhz, and according to the FCC website is 50 KW. The transmitter is "out of town" in your direction, almost in your backyard, perhaps 8 to 10 miles from your location. It should be nearly melting the front end of your receiver!

On an analog receiver you will only hear the main program, which is a mix of classical music and NPR programming. The news is on a digital sub-channel (HD-4).

jr

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

I should have posted the frequency (it was shown on the coverage map that I linked to). WKSV is at 89.1 Mhz, and according to the FCC website is 50 KW. The transmitter is "out of town" in your direction, almost in your backyard, perhaps 8 to 10 miles from your location. It should be nearly melting the front end of your receiver!

On an analog receiver you will only hear the main program, which is a mix of classical music and NPR programming. The news is on a digital sub-channel (HD-4).

jr

It should be very strong in this area, but it isn't. I can barely hear it on my stereo system (Aiwa bookshelf unit, circa 1999); the hash from my computer (the stereo is very close to the CPU) just about covers up the signal completely. (My stereo has one of the worst digital FM tuners on earth; all but useless in anything other than very strong signal areas.) On my other FM radios, this station does not come in at all. There is next to nothing in this area below 92 MHz, so I never bother with it.

I never heard of such a thing as -HD anything in connection with FM broadcast radio. That is, I have heard spots on local FM stations, ones I can get here (mostly stations owned by Clear Channel) advertising something called "HD radio", but I never hear any of those stations' "HD" programs. Besides, I read somewhere just recently that HD radio, whatever it really is, is just about dead in this country anyway. Maybe the large media conglomerates (such as CC) that operate such stations are beginning to realize this, and have all but given up on this format, not unlike AM stereo and four-channel (quad) audio, both of which died a quiet death in the 1980s and '90s, in reverse order.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I never heard of such a thing as -HD anything in connection with FM broadcast radio. That is, I have heard spots on local FM stations, ones I can get here (mostly stations owned by Clear Channel) advertising something called "HD radio", but I never hear any of those stations' "HD" programs.

No, you won't hear the digital sub-channels unless you have a HD radio.

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

Besides, I read somewhere just recently that HD radio, whatever it really is, is just about dead in this country anyway. Maybe the large media conglomerates (such as CC) that operate such stations are beginning to realize this, and have all but given up on this format, not unlike AM stereo and four-channel (quad) audio, both of which died a quiet death in the 1980s and '90s, in reverse order.

Hard to tell, it is pretty early yet (remember, it took decades for FM to "catch on"). Many listeners appreciate the extra sub channels, as in many cities they provide listening options not found on the regular outlets, such as "smooth jazz", "real oldies", blues, jazz, "all news", classical, "new music", "local music". At this time, most of the sub-channels are commercial free. Time will tell, I guess.

jr

[Jeffhs]

Why didn't I think of this before? WKSU, and most other classical stations, have audio streams over the Internet. Even WKSU's news channel is streamed live online, but I haven't been able to download its .pls (playlist) file yet for Winamp (the media player I use with my computer and stereo system). Find this station's main audio stream, with links to the others, at www.wksu.org.

Problem solved. I may not be able to receive WKSU or its translator over the air, but the Internet audio streams are audible all the time, with no interference, fading, etc.

BTW, I found a stream as well for another station I like in this area, WKHR-FM 91.5. It is a small, non-commercial station operated by the Geauga County, Ohio school district; the station plays older music from the '30s to about the '60s and possibly the '70s, is student-run during school hours, and is 100 percent automated after school lets out (and until the beginning of the next school day, usually around 8 or 9 a.m. EST). The Internet stream for this station is available at www.wkhr.org. On weekends and holidays, and during summer vacation, the station is run by adult volunteers because of legal issues concerning underage children operating the station without supervision.