Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here

"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here" is actually a phrase from Alighieri Dante's Divine Comedy. thought it is more properly quoted as "All hope abandon ye who enter here." But that's beside my point. I read some news lately that you might have read too. It's not quite time for the white flags but what I'm trying to say is we have met the enemy and the he is us. That's a quote from Pogo.

The gist is that Pandora is kicking radio's ass in markets where bandwidth permits. For radioland this is not good. The RAIN newsletter probably covered this tale of woe better than anyone else so far. Most of the trade s have been suspiciously mum. Link here: Pandora beats all terrestrial stations among A18-34 in top five markets. the markets of the aforementioned whupping are as follows: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston-Galveston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Boston.  Edison hedged their bets a little and excluded the Pandora One customers that pay to omit ads... in other words THE CUSTOMERS WHO LISTEN MOST! Knowing that, I assume these numbers are optimistic.

The only saving grace here is that Pandora is not one radio station but many. So the numbers are a tad misleading. It's sort of like pitting the combined ratings of all the Sirius/XM stations against you instead of just the one you're competing against in your format. The realistic view is that you're only ever competing against similar formats and formats with similar demos. You are not competing WHTZ (Z100) in New York is not competing against my personal Howlin' Wolf Channel on Pandora. But they are competing against the untold number of Lady Gaga channels begin served up to my neighbors kids and all their friends.

The problem is that Pandora can serve up a surprising level of nuance among similar playlists, each tailored to the listener. I set up several channels as a test: Howlin Wolf, Pee Wee Crayton, Louis Jordan, the Black Keys, and Blind Lemon Jefferson. That's three post-war blues artists, one pre-war and two jokers in the deck. Pandora served up similar playlists for those 3 pre-war but not identical. But it also intuitively understood from it's existing listener data the common ground between the Black Keys and Howlin' Wolf. I can even stream it to my home stereo system with a Roku box.  They can tailor a channel to a single listener in a way that a broadcaster absolutely can not and should not try to do. Just hoping that your local cell providers keep it out of the car is not a plan. Their strengths still leave some gaps in the armor.

1. Pandora is not local and can not be local. 
2. Pandora is not geared to deliver local music
3. Pandora (at least for now) has notable catalog limitations
4. Pandora is not live in the same sense that radio can be
5. Pandora cant deliver news, traffic, weather or emergency information

So exploit that where you can and while you can. I'll keep aware of updates.

WLOK-AM is OK

Some claim that WLOK 1340AM in Memphis was the second radio station in the Memphis area to air black programming. That's a little dubious, but when it was purchased in 1977 by Art Gilliam's company Gilliam Communications, it certifiably became the first black owned radio station in Memphis. The gap between those two dates is certainly worth talking about. There was even a documentary released about WLOK-AM in 2002. More here.

If you read the version on their website, the 1,000 watt  WLOK-AM rose to prominence in the decline of WDIA-AM in the late 1950s. The truth is that WLOK adopted it's all-black format on June 18, 1954. But that is the same year that WDIA bumped up the power from 50k watts daytime / 5k nighttime. They covered such a large area there was no real competition. WLOK was a local Memphis station, and they made the best of it.

And another side note, they still under the calls WBCR until 1956, and on the 1480 frequency until 1963.  (It's engineering piffle to an anthropologist, but this is Arcane Radio Trivia. We use real numbers here.)  The truth is that WLOK didn't over-take WDIA in ratings until the mid 1960s. DJ's like Dick "Cane" Cole were tied to artists like Rufus Thomas through alliances with WLOK. members of their bands worked at it's record store. (That odd WLOK logo below is for a football a franchise which operated in 1974 and 1975.)

Their other claim is more certifiable "The station and its personalities were a major source of musical support and information during the trying early '60s, the sanitation-worker strikes and the murder of Dr. King." The studios of WLOK were only a few blocks away from the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. Their ties were cultural and political, and they were certainly involved as a local news source.  But, King never set foot in their radio station. [Source]  Their relationship with Jesse Jackson was much tighter. His organization, Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) broadcast it's meetings live on WLOK starting in 1972.  It probably helped that a few of the founding members of the Operation PUSH were DJs at WLOK. Operation PUSH continues to air today and is the longest-running show on the station. The organization became Rainbow Push in 1996 when the National Rainbow Coalition merged with PUSH.  strangely on their modern website the 1380 WAOK-AM  logo is shown on the front page with no mention of WLOK.

Another notable WLOK DJ was Hunky Dory. I should first note that "Hunky Dory" was actually a couple different DJs, much as Poppa Stoppa was. The Hunky Dory Show was a trademark of the station. Ruben Washington played the role first and Roland Porter took over in 1964. It was programs like these and their connection to Stax records that kept their programming hot.  The co-owner of Stax, Al Bell, even had his own show. They were fully immersed in the Memphis sound. But the Soul sound didn't last forever. WLOK-AM dropped the soul, and the rock n' roll and went all gospel in the mid 1980s. In 1997 the station was recognized by the Tennessee Historical Commission as a Historical Landmark.

MOVIE NIGHT

The Complete Guide to FM Radio:


Complete Guide to Building an FM Broadcast Station from Free Radio on Vimeo.

Homebrew TV Antenna

A slight detour from radioland.

Everyone who reads Make Zine or Instructables is handy enough to at least think about making a TV antenna.That's my own home-brew HDTV antenna above. If you look online you'll find several different versions of the same basic antenna descended form the old fashioned "bowtie" model. they're all made with scrap wood, coat hangers, screws, washers and the same $4 radioshack 300Ω-to-75Ω balun. That's standard issue. Mine is not unique. But what's specific is that I actually know why the aerials are a certain length and spacing. Different configurations will all work, but all work differently.

The old UHF and VHF antennas don't work terribly well you may have noticed. After the digital transition channels 53-69 are now gone and in many markets also channels 2-6. So the spacing and frequencies the antennas were designed for has changed. Which is how you get my home-brew model. It's not perfect, but it performs well for what it is. I get 16 channels with that cobbled bit of scrap wood and coat hangers. The place to start is TVFool.com You need to know what stations you can get and where they are. Just throwing up an antenna will get some, but you want to get as much as you can out of all your hard work. I have to re-do mine because I miss-spaced the bays. Oops.

So here are the rules:

1. Size matters

2. Elevation matters.

3. More bays = More better

4. Reflection is directional

• 1. Size: The length of the aerials in each bay is specific to the frequencies you're seeking to tune in. In a 4 or 8 bay antenna the aerials or whiskers could be 9.5 "inches with 9" bay spacing. That's tuned for the middle of the VHF band. In a 4 or 8 bay set up, a 10" whisker should be spaced 9.5 inches for lower VHF and channels.  In a 4 or 8 bay antenna the  9" whisker bowtie with 8 1/2" bay spacing works best in the the upper VHF band. This website has many of these configurations drawn out. This is recommended if you want to avoid math. Some designs will have evenly spaced bays, some have them unevenly spaced, but none of them are staggered. See this one here.

•  2. Elevation: The second floor is better than the first floor, the attic is better than the second floor. Outdoors is better than indoors. Every barrier, every wall and every shingle is an obstruction to your TV signal reception. This is elementary.

• 3. Bays: These are are the "Vs" made from bent coat hangers you see in my picture above. There are designs with 10, 16, or even 32 bays. These get very large and are effectively all outdoor antennas. It's called ganging. When two identical antennas (bays) are mounted together, wire together and pointed the same way, in the same direction you can get up to a 3 dB improvement in signal strength. as I covered previously dB are logarithmic so that's twice the signal strength. In reality in combining systems there is always some loss in the wiring and connectors.More bays is better, but you get less of an increase in strength each time. I don't see any significant reason to try much more than 4 - 8 bays.

• 4. Reflectors: Radio waves reflect off of a large conducting plane like light off of a mirror. It's not focused liek a parabolic reflector, but it still improved gain. Mine does not have a reflector. That's a coincidence of placement. All the stations I am trying to receive are in the same direction, and all of them from behind the TV. This means I can use the rear of the TV as a reflector. You may or may not pull off this kluge solution. TV signals are directional, and if you use a reflector you are only improving signal strength in one direction. In short it has pros and cons.

Radio Self-Censorship

In 2001 it was widely reported that Clear Channel banned 150 songs in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th. (I claimed that here too.)  Snopes currently lists this as false. That's a bit cut and dry considering the actual turbid tale. Snopes goes on to admit that

"...several of Clear Channel Radio's stations, compiled an advisory list of songs which stations might wish to avoid playing in the short term..."  

Perhaps in their free-wheeling dot com world they don't realize that in the corporate world... that's the same things as a ban. When you get an email from corporate making a gentle suggestion, you obey, or you seek employment elsewhere. To their credit, perhaps that wasn't the right day to play Van Halen's "Jump." Whatever. Snopes did what snopes does. Even if their verdict was dubious, they gave an honest back story. What I want to get to is  a historical precedence for this type of action. It's called self-censorship, and unless you're really dogmatic about free-speech (like me)  it makes some sense.

So let me tell you about the deaths at The Who concert on December 3, 1979. It was in Cincinnati, Ohio at the Riverfront Coliseum.  It had the highest body-count of any  rock concert incident in the United States. Eleven rock fans were crushed to death and 26 were seriously injured. the youngest was only 15. It was not a riot, or a stampede. In the mad rush to get good seats in the "festival seating" about 18,000 people tried to push to the front of the line.  Two objects things cannot occupy the same space at the same time. It's called the continuity principle of fluid dynamics. When 18,000 people try to occupy the same space at the some time some of them get compressive asphyxia (the mechanical limitation of  lung expansion.) More here.


The video above is from an actual 102.7 WEBN-FM newscast following the event. WEBN first went on air in 1967, owned by Frank Wood. (The calls previously were in Buffalo) It started as a classical and Jazz station but slowly became an AOR station, though still owned by Mr. Wood. This is important as Wood was still the owner  well into the 1980s. his son Frank Wood Jr. had moved on to WLS-FM by 1971. In the aftermath of the tragedy WEBN The book Are The Kids Alright? (1981) by John G. Fuller explained

"Frank Wood worked with WEBN staff to assure that programming remained at low key. Album selections for the next day were carefully screened. One song was quickly removed from the list. It was Led Zeppelin's Trampled Under Foot."

WEBN had been promoting the show, and maybe they felt some guilt, or remorse. Or maybe they just thought they were being considerate. Regardless, The Who continued on tour, WEBN continued broadcasting and strangely both exist today much as they did then. Today WEBN is a clear channel owned station and have have been since the Jaycor acquisition in 1999. To my knowledge, they had no air staff remaining from 1979 in 2001 to tell them about the last time they felt the need to self-censor.

WOSU Radio Lectures from OEJRC

The OEJRC (Ohio Junior Emergency Radio College) is obscure beyond obscure. Ohio University was way in the lead for pushing radio as a teaching medium. In 1935 George W. Rightmere, University President was already mourning its misuse. He thought the FCC (then only 1 year old) could mandate some high-brow educational use. To quote him exactly:

"Most of the public are articulate, and must be so concerning their objections to programs and somehow it seems to me to be within the province of the commission [FCC] to give voice to these people thru  prescriptions and regulations of a sensible and constructive kind."

He wasn't alone. John C. Futrall the president of U. Arkansas in Fayetteville and George Norlin, president of the University of Colorado were both as vocal, perhaps more so. In that environment their campus stations were encouraged to innovate in this arena. This was critically important in the great depression, when affording education was an impossibility, a distant priority behind food, water and clothing. That's the "E" in OEJRC . It stands for Emergency, because from their point of view, it was. Thus came into being the Ohio Junior Emergency Radio College (OEJRC ).  It was set up set up in January 1934 at the Ohio State University as a part of the Ohio emergency schools program.

They broadcast college level classes on WOSU-AM with university staff such as the above Prof. Arthur H. Noyes (who also wrote a couple history books). I can affirm the 1934 date as those calls were introduced on Sept.1, 1933 prior to that their callsign was WEAO, on 570. [They moved to 820 in 1941] Their mimeographed lessons were distributed free by request. Over 1,700 students enrolled. One source claimed that only 55 passed the course requirements. Ohio kept up the program anyway. the were home to The Institute for Education by Radio which held it's Annual Conference at Ohio State University from 1930 to 1953.

According to the book Growth Of An American Invention by Thomas Diener, Classes were taught in psychology, Home-making, French, English, Philosophy, Education, Engineering and Art appreciation. But I just got a hold of two of those mimeographed lessons and those are for History and Spanish lectures dating to 1934. Clearly Mr. Diener does not have a complete list. I have begun scanning them and the first is below. It runs 32 pages and comes in at a tidy 3 MB 60 MB. 

**************UPDATE**************

I re-uploaded the doc at a much higher resolution to improve readability. 

OEJRC Lecture: HISTORY 

by Prof. Arthur H. Noyes

DOWNLOAD HERE

Cranks on WYIS-AM

In 1988 the 690 WPHE-AM was sold by its owner, B. Sam Hart, to a Reverend Sarait Salva from Puerto Rico. Mr. Salva was worked in at Radio Redentor which UI think was carried on 1530 WUPR-AM in the 1980s. Today, WYIS-AM in Phoenixville, PA airs only Spanish religious programming. But prior to it's sale in 1988 it was a local station airing local programming, with both secular and varied religious content.  they even had a whole day of Portuguese programming. (There isn't much of that outside of WJFD in Providence, RI.)

So I recently found these airchecks on Youtube for WYIS-AM circa. One is from July 23, 1980 the other from March 23, 1981. It's a real odd-ball.

But Hart's sale of the station is actually a bit sad. In 1984 his son Bradley and wife were brutally murdered by a man they hired to do home improvement work. Hart sold the station four years later but remains active in his ministry.

Rise and Shine with Salty Brine

Salty Brine aka Walter L. Brine died back in 2004. Outside of Rhode Island he is a total unknown, but in that small state, he was a celebrity. He was a veteran broadcaster, and a host of a popular children's television program: Salty Brine's Shack. He's best known for that time spent on TV with his collie Jeff, but he was in radio both before and after his tour on the tube. More here.

He was born in 1918 in Boston, and  in 1941 he graduated from the Staley College for Radio in Brookline, MA. After spending time at a few Boston are stations, notably WNAC-AM, WESX-AM and WCOP-AM he became an announcer on 630 WPRO-AM in 1942.  Some sources say as early as 1938. This is erroneous. Over time, his program just became a part of Rhode Island culture. A 1976 issue of Billboard quoted station manager Jay Clark about Mr. Brine:

"...Salty Brine, a 35-year veteran of WPRO is a much a part of Rhode Island life as fishing and johnny cakes. Brine may play as few as 2 records an hour, but he provides news [traffic,] sports, ski reports, and is totally service oriented."

His morning show ran from 5:30 AM to 9:00 AM Monday through Friday. he maintained the show through many format changes. He began the children's program on WPRO-TV Channel 12 in 1955 and it continued into 1968. When the TV program ended and Salty stuck with WPRO-AM. He retired in 1993 but  remained on air part tie here and there at least into 1999. His legacy was immortalized in an unusual way in 1990. The state legislature named a stretch of beach in Narragansett as Salty Brine State Beach.. There is a nice obit here. He is survived by his son Walter Brine Jr. who goes by the name Wally Brine. Wally went into radio as well, spending time on both WVBF and WROR.

The Weight of Media

Having recently moved and had to move my audio library I happened to notice it's really heavy. Books are heavy and records are heavy.  Cassettes are light and CDs seem light until you're stacking boxes of hundreds of them. 78s are heavy, but steel-core acetates are heaviest. So I have been thinking about large-scale digitization, and the cloud since I closed the door behind me. The cloud may have it's downside, but it'll never give you a hernia. (I am taking recommendations.)

So to that point I have begun to work out the weights of various audio media.  I have begun with a list of mostly media I already have, and I've added in a few additional sizes and types which I presently do not. rather than calculate these in some very precise minor unit I'm using a postal scale to provide the weights in units that we would all be more familiar with. (Please excuse the awkward columns)

MEDIA TYPE                                             WEIGHT
10.5 inch open reel tape, 1/4 inch and box =   33 ounces
7 inch reel-to-reel tape (1/4 inch) with box =   11 ounces
5 inch reel-to-reel tape (1/4 inch) with box =   6 ounces
Fidelipac Tape (A size)  =                               4.5 ounces
Cassette and case =                                       2 ounces
DAT with case =                                            1.5 ounces
CD in jewel case =                                         4 ounces
78 with sleeve =                                             8 ounces
Edison Diamond disc =                                  10 ounces
Edison cylinder with tube =                             6 ounces
LP with sleeve =                                             6.5 ounces
LP with gate-fold sleeve =                               7 ounces
45 with sleeve =                                              2 ounces
6.5-inch paper core acetate disc with sleeve = 1.5 ounces
6.5-inch metal core acetate disc with sleeve =  17 ounces
10-inch paper core acetate disc with sleeve =  2.5 ounces
10-inch metal core acetate disc with sleeve =   26 ounces
12-inch metal core acetate disc with sleeve =   31.5 ounces
16-inch metal core acetate disc with sleeve =   42 ounces

*scale image from PSDS images by permission.

Phonograph, Telephone and Streaming Audio

In many ways this was the first streaming music. How is this different than your modem dialing up Pandora or Live365?  Well there are a few more A-to-D conversions. But in the intervening century most of those analog components have been replaced with solid state components. The tubes, capacitors, resistors and twists of wire have been replaced with processors, but the tasks they perform are largely unchanged. So with that in mind I take you to Popular Mechanics circa 1910.

In December of 1910 Popular Mechanics published one in a string of articles about transmitting music by phone. In California, experts had transmitted music over a distance of 500 miles by telephone wire. The two-hour concert was performed in Los Angeles, and it was listened to in In San Francisco. They used "12 ordinary receivers" for the project. Within the year a Delaware company tried to take make a business out of the idea. Another notable Popular Mechanics article in 1909 described music and phone subscriptions by phone for an annual fee of $7. But the daytime programming included no requests, the day opened with news, stock prices, business etc. and military music ran from 4:30 to 6:30 PM. In the evening a subscriber could choose between opera, theater or a orchestra. But that was in Budapest.

The earliest related reference I've found was in the January 1892 issue of the "Phonogram." Edison was working on a "telephonic phonograph." It however was more of an answering machine. But by 1904 the Cahill Telephonic Company was raising money in Baltimore to attempt a telephone-based music service in America. (The company founder Thaddeus Cahill previously invented an electric keyboard-like device he called a "Dynamaphone."  It played over the phone of course.)

"It consists of a number of alternating current dynamos, all of different frequencies, producing tones of different pitch, and manipulation is by a keyboard resembling that of a piano or organ. The music Is distributed over telephone wires to any number of receivers and megaphones may be attached to the receivers."

The Dynamaphone may or may not have and anything to do with the real launch of "Phonograph Selections by Telephone"  But Cahill and his company did. You could call him the father of streaming audio. The way it worked was that a subscriber needed a "special receiver to which a phonograph horn is attached." This is not an amplifier. That was only invented a year prior by DeForest in 1909. The image above does show a wire leading to the special receiver, however there is almost no way that wire includes power. (In that era, a battery would have been much more common.) Electrical amplification then was so new, and so revolutionary, that the amplification here was almost certainly acoustic. The wire is merely a phone cord. The article goes on:

"At the central telephone exchange is a music room, which contains a number of phonographs, and an operating board to which the wires of the music subscribers are attached. each subscriber to the music service is supplied with a special directory giving names and numbers of records. When music is desired, the subscriber calls the music department on the telephone, asks for a certain record, and screws the horn into position. The music operator plugs up a free phonograph to the line, slips on a record and starts the machine. At the conclusion of the piece the connection is pulled down, unless more records have been requested."

As you can see in the second picture (below) there are a number of desk model phonographs on a counter for the ladies. The image is too grainy to guess a model. To the left are two operators, and at least 4 phonographs running, though the picture was surely staged. They could have been cylinders or discs in 1910. I cant tell for sure. While the article calls them "records" both discs and cylinders were called records in that era. At that time an Edison or a Zonophone would have been most likely. What gets me about the image is that I don't see horns. What means they were using an electromagnetic pick up of some kind to make the electrical conversion directly at the phonograph.

Pricing was per song at 3 cents per song and 7cents per operate with a minimum commitment of $18 per year. In modern dollars that works out to a total of $415.85, but that' because 3 cents in 1910 is almost $7 today. Today you can download an MP3 single for 99 cents. [Thank you inflation calculator.]  So corrected for inflation, the cost of music has gone down in the last 100 years.

MOVING DAY

I'm moving today. The blog however, stays put. Me and my record collection have to move to a new residence. If we all survive and I get my network connection working posts will resume Monday.

FCC Station Class Codes

This is a bit dry and technical, but it's relevant to understand the jargon we throw around.Every license class has it's requirements. You're all probably familiar with the AM and FM class codes. The basic requirements for those are as follows:

Class A FM radio stations: operate at up to 6,000 watts @100 meters
Class B1 FM radio stations: operate at up to 25,000 Watts @ 100 meters
Class B FM radio stations: operate at up to 50,000 Watts @150 meters
Class C3 FM radio stations: operate at up to 25,000 Watts @ 100 meters
Class C2 FM radio stations: operate at up to 50,000 Watts @ 150 meters
Class C1 FM radio stations: operate at up to 100,000 Watts @ 299 meters
Class C0 FM radio stations: operate at up to 100,000 Watts @ 450 meters
Class C FM radio stations: operate at up to 100,000 Watts @ 600 meters

Classes of AM stations are defined differently, with consideration for hours of operation and the different stages in which the band was extended. More here.

Class A radio stations: operate 24/7on a clear channel at no less than 1,000 watts and more more than  50,000 watts.
Class B radio stations: operate 24/7 at no less than 250 watts and no more than 5,000 watts. If it operates in the expanded band (1610 to 1700 kHz), the maximum power is 10,000 watts.
Class C radio stations: operate 24/7 on a local channel at no less than 250 watts and no more than 1,000 watts. (There are some Class C stations that are grandfathered in at up to 100,000 watts.)
Class D radio stations: These can operate 24/7 or pat time but only with a power less than 250 watts and an equivalent RMS antenna field less than 141 mV/m at 1 km for the actual power.

But then there are the class codes that are used less often. FB base transmitters are a bit pedestrian and the FX fixed relays are pretty common as well. But every single licensed transmitter has a license class. So the traffic stations, the park service stations, search and rescue,  and radiolocation transmitters all have their own license class. Maybe it's a bit overkill. The list is quite long and even I don't recognize all of them, but here is everything else:

AOX Operational Fixed
APC Alaska Public
APX Alaska Private
APX2 Alaska Private (Temporary)
AX Aeronautical Fixed
AX1 Aeronautical Fixed (Mobile)
AX2 Aeronautical Fixed (Temporary)
DGP Differential GPS
ELT ELT Test
ELT1 ELT Test (Mobile)
FA Aeronautical Enroute
FA1 Aeronautical Enroute (Mobile)
FA2 Aeronautical Enroute (Temporary)
FAA Aeronautical Advisory (Unicom)
FAA1 Aeronautical Advisory (Unicom) (Mobile)
FAA2 Aeronautical Advisory (Unicom) (Temporary)
FAB Automatic Weather Observation
FAC Airport Control Tower
FAS Aviation Support Instructional
FAS1 Aviation Support Instructional (Mobile)
FAT Flight Test
FAT1 Flight Test (Mobile)
FAT3 Flight Test (Itinerant)
FB Base
FB2 Mobile Relay
FB2C Mobile Relay With Interconnect
FB2I Mobile Relay (Itinerant)
FB2J Mobile Relay (Temporary) With Interconnect
FB2K Mobile Relay (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FB2L Mobile Relay (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FB2S Mobile Relay (Stand-by)
FB2T Mobile Relay (Temporary)
FB4 Community Repeater
FB4C Community Repeater With Interconnect
FB4I Community Repeater (Itinerant)
FB4J Community Repeater (Temporary) With Interconnect
FB4K Community Repeater (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FB4L Community Repeater (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FB4S Community Repeater (Stand-by)
FB4T Community Repeater (Temporary)
FB6 Private Carrier (profit)
FB6C Private Carrier (profit) With Interconnect
FB6I Private Carrier (profit) (Itinerant)
FB6J Private Carrier (profit) (Temporary) With Interconnect
FB6K Private Carrier (profit) (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FB6L Private Carrier (profit) (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FB6S Private Carrier (profit) (Stand-by)
FB6T Private Carrier (profit) (Temporary)
FB7 Private Carrier (non-profit)
FB7C Private Carrier (non-profit) With Interconnect
FB7I Private Carrier (non-profit) (Itinerant)
FB7J Private Carrier (non-profit) (Temporary) With Interconnect
FB7K Private Carrier (non-profit) (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FB7L Private Carrier (non-profit) (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FB7S Private Carrier (non-profit) (Stand-by)
FB7T Private Carrier (non-profit) (Temporary)
FB8 Centralized Trunk Relay
FB8C Centralized Trunk Relay With Interconnect
FB8I Centralized Trunk Relay (Itinerant)
FB8J Centralized Trunk Relay (Temporary) With Interconnect
FB8K Centralized Trunk Relay (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FB8L Centralized Trunk Relay (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FB8S Centralized Trunk Relay (Stand-by)
FB8T Centralized Trunk Relay (Temporary)
FBA Small Base
FBAC Small Base With Interconnect
FBAI Small Base (Itinerant)
FBAJ Small Base (Temporary) With Interconnect
FBAK Small Base (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FBAL Small Base (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FBAS Small Base (Stand-by)
FBAT Small Base (Temporary)
FBBS Base
FBC Base With Interconnect
FBCT FBCT
FBGS Ground
FBI Base (Itinerant)
FBJ Base (Temporary) With Interconnect
FBK Base (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FBL Base (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FBS Base (Stand-by)
FBSI Air-ground Signaling
FBST Standby
FBT Base (Temporary)
FC Public Coast
FC2 Public Coast (Temporary)
FCA Marine Support-Testing & Training
FCA2 Marine Support-Testing & Training (Temporary)
FCL Private Coast
FCL2 Private Coast (Temporary)
FCU Marine Utility
FCU1 Marine Utility (Mobile)
FLT Auxilary Test
FLTC Auxilary Test With Interconnect
FLTI Auxilary Test (Itinerant)
FLTJ Auxilary Test (Temporary) With Interconnect
FLTK Auxilary Test (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FLTL Auxilary Test (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FLTS Auxilary Test (Stand-by)
FLTT Auxilary Test (Temporary)
FLU Aviation Support Service
FLU1 Aviation Support Service (Mobile)
FMA1 Aircraft Flight Test Station
FX Fixed
FX1 Control
FX1C Control With Interconnect
FX1I Control (Itinerant)
FX1J Control (Temporary) With Interconnect
FX1K Control (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FX1L Control (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FX1S Control (Stand-by)
FX1T Control (Temporary)
FX2 Fixed Relay
FX2C Fixed Relay With Interconnect
FX2I Fixed Relay (Itinerant)
FX2J Fixed Relay (Temporary) With Interconnect
FX2K Fixed Relay (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FX2L Fixed Relay (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FX2S Fixed Relay (Stand-by)
FX2T Fixed Relay (Temporary)
FX3 Secondary Fixed
FX3C Secondary Fixed With Interconnect
FX3I Secondary Fixed (Itinerant)
FX3J Secondary Fixed (Temporary) With Interconnect
FX3K Secondary Fixed (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FX3L Secondary Fixed (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FX3S Secondary Fixed (Stand-by)
FX3T Secondary Fixed (Temporary)
FX5 Temporary Fixed
FXC Fixed With Interconnect
FXCO Central Office
FXCT Control
FXDI Dispatch
FXI Fixed (Itinerant)
FXIO Inter-office
FXJ Fixed (Temporary) With Interconnect
FXK Fixed (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FXL Fixed (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FXO Operational Fixed
FXOC Operational Fixed With Interconnect
FXOI Operational Fixed (Itinerant)
FXOJ Operational Fixed (Temporary) With Interconnect
FXOK Operational Fixed (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FXOL Operational Fixed (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FXOS Operational Fixed (Stand-by)
FXOT Operational Fixed (Temporary)
FXRP Repeater
FXRX Fixed Relay
FXS Fixed (Stand-by)
FXSB Fixed Subscriber
FXT Fixed (Temporary)
FXTS Auxiliary Test
FXV CTS Exceeding 20'
FXW CTS Meeting 20'
FXY Interzone
FXYC Interzone With Interconnect
FXYI Interzone (Itinerant)
FXYJ Interzone (Temporary) With Interconnect
FXYK Interzone (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FXYL Interzone (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FXYS Interzone (Stand-by)
FXYT Interzone (Temporary)
FXZ Zone
FXZC Zone With Interconnect
FXZI Zone (Itinerant)
FXZJ Zone (Temporary) With Interconnect
FXZK Zone (Stand-by) With Interconnect
FXZL Zone (Itinerant) With Interconnect
FXZS Zone (Stand-by)
FXZT Zone (Temporary)
GCO Ground Communications Outlet
LR Radiolocation Land
LRC Radiolocation Land With Interconnect
LRI Radiolocation Land (Itinerant)
LRJ Radiolocation Land (Temporary) With Interconnect
LRK Radiolocation Land (Stand-by) With Interconnect
LRL Radiolocation Land (Itinerant) With Interconnect
LRS Radiolocation Land (Stand-by)
LRT Radiolocation Land (Temporary)
MFL Aeronautical Multicom
MFL1 Aeronautical Multicom (Mobile)
MFL2 Aeronautical Multicom (Temporary)
MFX Marine Ops Fixed
MFX2 Marine Ops Fixed (Temporary)
MLSB CB Station Class Code
MO Mobile
MO3 Mobile/Vehicular Repeater
MO3C Mobile/Vehicular Repeater With Interconnect
MO3I Mobile/Vehicular Repeater (Itinerant)
MO3J Mobile/Vehicular Repeater (Temporary) With Interconnect
MO3K Mobile/Vehicular Repeater (Stand-by) With Interconnect
MO3L Mobile/Vehicular Repeater (Itinerant) With Interconnect
MO3S Mobile/Vehicular Repeater (Stand-by)
MO3T Mobile/Vehicular Repeater (Temporary)
MO5 Mobile & Temporary Fixed
MO6 Private Carrier Mobile Operation (profit)
MO6C Private Carrier Mobile Operation (profit) With Interconnect
MO6I Private Carrier Mobile Operation (profit) (Itinerant)
MO6J Private Carrier Mobile Operation (profit) (Temporary) With Interconnect
MO6K Private Carrier Mobile Operation (profit) (Stand-by) With Interconnect
MO6L Private Carrier Mobile Operation (profit) (Itinerant) With Interconnect
MO6S Private Carrier Mobile Operation (profit) (Stand-by)
MO6T Private Carrier Mobile Operation (profit) (Temporary)
MO7 Private Carrier Mobile Operation (non-profit)
MO7C Private Carrier Mobile Operation (non-profit) With Interconnect
MO7I Private Carrier Mobile Operation (non-profit) (Itinerant)
MO7J Private Carrier Mobile Operation (non-profit) (Temporary) With Interconnect
MO7K Private Carrier Mobile Operation (non-profit) (Stand-by) With Interconnect
MO7L Private Carrier Mobile Operation (non-profit) (Itinerant) With Interconnect
MO7S Private Carrier Mobile Operation (non-profit) (Stand-by)
MO7T Private Carrier Mobile Operation (non-profit) (Temporary)
MO8 Centralized Trunk Mobile
MO8C Centralized Trunk Mobile with Interconnect
MO8I Centralized Trunk Mobile (Itinerant)
MO8J Centralized Trunk Mobile (Temporary) with Interconnect
MO8K Centralized Trunk Mobile (Stand-by) with Interconnect
MO8L Centralized Trunk Mobile (Itinerant) with Interconnect
MO8S Centralized Trunk Mobile (Stand-by)
MO8T Centralized Trunk Mobile (Temporary)
MOC Mobile with Interconnect
MOI Mobile (Itinerant)
MOJ Mobile with (Temporary) with Interconnect
MOK Mobile with (Stand-by) with Interconnect
MOL Mobile with (Itinerant) with Interconnect
MOS Mobile (Stand-by)
MOT Mobile (Temporary)
MOU1 Aeronautical Utility Mobile
MR Radiolocation Mobile
MRT Marine Receiver Test
MRT2 Marine Receiver Test (Temporary)
MSC Shore Radar Test
MSC2 Shore Radar Test (Temporary)
MSR Shore Radionavigation
MSR2 Shore Radionavigation (Temporary)
RCO Remote Communications Outlet
RLA Aeronautical Marker Beacon
RLA1 Aeronautical Marker Beacon (Mobile)
RLA2 Aeronautical Marker Beacon (Temporary)
RLB Aeronautical Radio Beacon
RLB1 Aeronautical Radio Beacon (Mobile)
RLB2 Aeronautical Radio Beacon (Temporary)
RLC Shore Radiolocation Test
RLC2 Shore Radiolocation Test (Temporary)
RLD Radar/Radar Test
RLD1 Radar/Radar Test (Mobile)
RLD2 Radar/Radar Test (Temporary)
RLG Glide Path (Slope)
RLG1 Glide Path (Slope) (Mobile)
RLG2 Glide Path (Slope) (Temporary)
RLL Localizer
RLL1 Localizer (Mobile)
RLL2 Localizer (Temporary)
RLO Omnidirectional Radio Range
RLO1 Omnidirectional Radio Range (Mobile)
RLO2 Omnidirectional Radio Range (Temporary)
RLR Shore Radiolocation/Racon
RLR2 Shore Radiolocation/Racon (Temporary)
RLT Radionavigation Land Test
RLT1 Radionavigation Land Test (Mobile)
RLT2 Radionavigation Land Test - Temporary
RNV Radionavigation Land
RNV1 Radionavigation Land (Mobile)
RNV2 Radionavigation Land (Temporary)
RPC Ramp Control
SAR Search And Rescue
SAR1 Search And Rescue (Mobile)
WDX Radiolocation Weather Radar
WDXT Radiolocation Weather Radar (Temporary)

Radio Row

I read this interview with Richard Matthews of Leeds Radio and I read the following sentence: "In New York I don't think I have any competition, all the Radio Row stores are closed, all the electronic stores on 45th Street are gone."  I thought Radio Row? Was that a real place?  Yes it was.  the most famous was the one in Manhattan. It was a warehouse district on the Lower West Side of Manhattan centered around Cortlandt Street. This wasn't just a couple shops, a report from the 1961 by the New York City Planning Commission estimated that there were 800 businesses in the area. In the book The Battery by Henry Schlesinger described it this way.

"...an area of a few blocks flooded with war surplus equipment, the overflow from the dusty boxes spilling out onto the sidewalk in bulging cardboard boxes. Hobbyists would scrounge the boxes brimming and bulging with old tubes, dials, transformers, and equipment with serious looking faceplates, mysterious dials, and toggle switches."

The famous New York radio row wasn't the only one. There was another in Chicago which was home to WBKB-TV and the Chicago Radio Club and a Naval radio School. That sprung up in about 1940. The image below is from a Billboard article in 1945 centered around the clustering of KUTA-AM, KUTA-FM, KDYL-AM, KSL-AM and KLO-AM. But there was another in Hollywood, CA. It was centered around the KECA Playhouse on North Highland Avenue at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard. Programs for both KECA-TV and 790 KECA-AM were produced there. the building was formerly known as the Hollywood Playhouse and was operated independently by Earl C. Anthony.

Radio Row in New York was started by a man named Harry Schneck. He opened a shop named City Radio on Cortlandt Street in 1921.By all reports this was the first electronic store in the neighborhood.  Later that year Charles Avnet, founded another early  electronics distributor focused on ham radio. While that little store folded in the great depression he alter incorporated Avnet, Inc. and though he passed on the company continues to work in aviation today.  City Radio was torn down in 1966 to make room for the construction of the World trade center. While there were no longer the 800 businesses in the neighborhood, there were still 530. As construction loomed most stored just closed with no plans for relocation.  More here.

The words "radio row" came into use quickly I found usage in 1922 and 1924 in some sales literature. The New York Times made an early reference to "Radio Row" in 1927. In 1929 The magazine Popular Mechanics was using it. By 1930 the New York Commissioner of Health was using the term "radio row" complaining about the noise on Radio Row from loudspeakers.

 The Great depression took out a lot of the 1920s grandeur from the neighborhood. WWII produced a scarcity of goods that also made for lean times. While the end of WWII produced a lot of surplus military electronics, the new generation of sold state hardware was  moving electronics in another direction. Ultimately we can never known how long this neighborhood would have lasted; construction of the World trade Center destroyed it. While some banded together and tried to sue their way out of eminent domain, those appeals were exhausted by 1963. Following demolition, the rubble was used as fill to extend Battery Park.

Black Radio Tag

A couple weeks ago, I had a conversation recently with the esteemed media historian Donna Halper. [Bio here] I learned that others (wildly more qualified others) were also researching black radio history. I came into that part of radio history because of my taste for early rock n' roll. Donna reminded me of how much I've written. So I was inspired by that call to parse my old posts about black radio history and tag them all as "Black Radio" so they can be searched more easily.  (I think I found them all)

I've been writing this blog for over 5 years, and in that time created over 1,500 posts. Without tagging it's almost impossible to find related entries spread out across that data set. Google helps, but without the right keywords, it's all chaff. So old posts, new tags... have at it. Click below, or in the tag or any post with the tag, past present or future.

BLACK RADIO

The End of NJN Radio

It didn't get nearly enough press. Last week an entire public radio chain was snuffed out. It was like there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.  The whole process took abotu 6 months if you start with the actual papers and not just the stumping. Their last day was last Thursday, and that day was the end of the New Jersey Network; a Public Radio and Television Broadcasting Network. Gov. Christie [R] of New Jersey chopped his state in half, more-or-less drawing the line at Interstate 195, and only letting the networks butt heads around Brick Township. The Northern territory went to New York's 93.9 WNYC, and South Jersey for the Philly gang at 90.9 WHYY. The television network was spared and reorganized as NJTV now owned by WNET.org, the parent company of WNET-TV and WLIW-TV.

I'll now callously skip over the massacre of the TV stations and focus on radio as I am known to do and go straight for the radio. WNJT 88.1 Trenton NJ, WNJY 89.3 Netcong NJ, WNJP 88.5 Sussex NJ and WNJO 90.3 Toms River NJ, and even the repeater W285EE have become "New Jersey Public Radio," owned by New York's WNYC. Only a year ago New Your Public Radio (WNYC) owned just WNYC-FM on 93.9 and WNYC-AM on 820 kHz. Then they picked up 105.9 WQXR for a classical service Even W228BI, their 93.5 repeater in Smithtown, NY. It is being replaced by another on 105.7  but I don't' think it's on air yet. This purchase effectively doubles their number of transmitters,

WHYY was the much smaller entity, consisting of just the one FM and the one TV station. (Maybe WRTI was giving them an inferiority complex.) But now they're audible clear to the shoreline. They have assimilated WNJB 89.3 Bridgeton NJ, WNJM 89.9 Manahawkin NJ, WNJN 89.7 Atlantic City NJ, WNJS 88.1 Berlin NJ and last but not least, WNJZ 90.3 Cape May Court House NJ. I broke it out on a map roughly estimating coverage area. Blue is WHYY, red is WNYC . Here's what that looks like:

(You can zoom in for a bit more detail if you want) The stations were sold at bargain basement prices to say the least. Why BIA/Kelsey would put their name to this trash I cant guess. The stations they compared them to for price reference were in podunk markets, some even in unrated market areas. It stinks of bias. The total market value was estimated to be $4.2 million for the entire network. And while none of these stations was KTRU or WRVU... I maintain they were undervalued in this estimate. The whole NJ treasury doc in pdf is here, but I'll cut to the chase.

WNJB - $469,000

WNJM - $144,000

WNJN - $563,000

WNJO - $496,000

WNJP - $403,000 (includes W285EE)

WNJS - $142,000

WNJT - $1,572,000

WNJY - $581,000

WNJZ - $219,000

But now it's gone. Ultimately that means a lot of  "NJ" call signs will be changing in the immediate future. It also means both of these networks will be working hard to round up new donor/members to pay for both the acquisition and the operating costs.

Change the Channels!

More politicking I know. But it doesn't take a media researcher to know that communities are getting less local news than ever before. If they air the exact same news-piece on several stations, fewer viewpoints are represented. It wastes bandwidth on redundant information. In my opinion, the FCC should consider this as bad stewardship when it renews licenses.  I see this as not overt, but covert consolidation. Ben Bagdikian predicted most of this back in the 1970s.

Expose Covert Media Consolidation Now from Free Press on Vimeo.
SaveTheNews.org, a project of Free Press, is leading the search for new public policies to support quality journalism and ensure communities are getting the news they need. Learn More.

Around the country, broadcasters are using sneaky legal deals and loopholes to evade the FCC’s media ownership rules. This “covert consolidation” takes many forms, but the results are the same: Media companies pad their bottom line by sacrificing local journalism, competition and diversity. FCC reviews its media ownership rules, tell it that you won’t stand for stations polluting your community with photocopy journalism and junk news. Covert consolidation has to go. It’s time to change the channels. Learn More
Please put an end to broadcasters’ abuse of the FCC’s media ownership rules. The rules are supposed to protect localism, diversity and competition on the public airwaves, but in almost 80 markets across the country, these rules have been circumvented. Media companies have taken advantage of loopholes to covertly consolidate more than 200 stations, colluding rather than competing in order to cut costs.

MORE HERE

How To Solder

This is a great and simple instructional on soldering.

The Radio Control of "Little Boy"

Most people assume that bombs work in real life like they do in Looney Tunes cartoons—they fall out of a plane and they explode upon impact. Those are ballistic bombs.  That is not how all bombs work.  Many operate by radio control. I am not referring to missiles that are steered by radio control. Many times of bombs used by the U.S. military detonate depending on their distance to the ground and that is determined by radio. More here.

On Monday, August 6th, 1945, at 8:15 AM, the Atomic Bomb "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima by an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay.  The code names of the first two nuclear bombs were "Fat Man" and "Little Boy."  I only read recently that they were radio controlled. the book E=MC² by David Bodanis detailed the whole arming mechanism. I quote it here at length:

"...Weak radio signals were being pumped down from the bomb to the Shina Hospital directly below. Some of the radio signals were absorbed in the hospitals walls, but most were bounced back skyward. Sticking out of the bomb's back, near the spinning fins, were a number of whiplike thin radio antennae. Those collected the returning radio signals, and used the time lag each took to return as a way of measuring the height remaining to the ground. At 19,000 feet the last rebounded radio signal arrived."

He doesn't mention it above, but another plane flying in formation with the Enola Gay dropped measuring instruments by parachute. I found aversion of the story in the New Yorker that incorrectly describes this device like a timer. "...wires on top of the device were attached to a solenoid unit on the roof of the bomb bay. When the bomb dropped out, the wires came loose from switches inside the clock-box—the brain that told the bomb to drop for forty-five seconds before detonating."  It's correct that a solenoid switch started the sequence, but the count down clock was a back up system. More here.

The radio described by Bodanis was the AN/APS-13 radar unit.  While I can't find a source on the frequencies used by the equipment in this case I do know that a standard AN/APS-13 operates at 410 - 420 MHz with a receiver IF of 30 MHz. The British called these "Archies." One source I read claimed that it detonation was triggered only when two AN/APS-13 radar units identified the critical altitude. They were trying to prevent premature detonation. With the score of the number of other back up systems that seems totally plausible. Some sources claim there were as many as four. More here. They were used as tail radar in allied planes in WWII. This is the device that actually triggered the altimeter fuse. The Duxford Radio Society has pictures of a restored unit here. The device is automated and self contained.

Some of this is still classified today, and I suspect this was not an off-the-shelf AN/APS-13. That device wasn't designed to measure distance. It was a tail warning device, i.e. it warned a pilot that an aircraft was approaching him from the rear. It's effective range was given as 2,000 to 2,500 feet transmitting and receiving a fan-shaped beam behind the airplane. More here. You know the rest of the story but let me quote this from the Yale Avalon Project, and recommend that you visit their website.

"At 8:16 A.M., the Tokyo control operator of the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation noticed that the Hiroshima station had gone off the air. He tried to use another telephone line to reestablish his program, but it too had failed. About twenty minutes later the Tokyo railroad telegraph center realized that the main line telegraph had stopped working just north of Hiroshima. From some small railway stops within ten miles of the city there came unofficial and confused reports of a terrible explosion in Hiroshima. All these reports were transmitted to the Headquarters of the Japanese General Staff."

Transcription Mystery Disc # 29

Duralite recording blanks were made by Musicraft, a independent  record label which was active in the 1930s and 1940s. They went bankrupt in 1949 and their catalog was bought by Discovery records. They didn't really have a niche, they pressed classical, jazz, calypso, folk, and vocal pop songs and a number of ethnic sides. (I have several.) Some of their catalog was very edgy. They infamously pressed "Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine" by Harry the Hipster. More here.

On the side the also marketed 8-inch, metal-core transcription blanks under the name Duralite. I know these were in circulation in the late 40s at the earliest because there are two speeds marked on the label 78, and 33. But I also found a few ads confirming they were being sold as early as 1939. This one of course is unmarked, that's just how it usually goes.


One side is a few girls singing together, the sound quality is poor, and I cant seem to clean it up. On the other side is a man singing a bit monotone. He sings a Navy drinking song called "Bell Bottom Trousers" then a bit of "Chattanooga Choo-Choo." Then he follows that singing a version of "It had to be you" with a woman who's sense of key is a bit better. In harmony he sings a bit better. But as he warbles on it becomes clear that he's completely drunk, and so is she. This is the 1940s equivalent of drunk dialing.

I was able to clean up the bed noise on the drunk duo pretty well and is posted above. The songs dont help date the disc much. The sea shanty is as old as sailing probably. That last one, "It Had To Be You"  still has a pretty well circulated Sinatra version, but  actually dates back to 1924. But, Cattanooga Choo-choo only goes back to 1941. So that's our time window, 1941 to 1949. It was a Billboard #1 hit in December of that year and was featured in the film Sun Valley Serenade. I favor a recording date around that year.

4th of July Holiday

It's our patriotic duty to grill something. No post today.

Jelli not Jelly

On May 5th Tom Taylor wrote about Jelli, and I was sort of looking forward to the chaos that would obviously ensue. For those that are unaware, Jelli is a listener interface that lets people like and dislike songs on a playlist via the Jelli website or their iPhone app. It's like live response polling. We used to pay consultants for this kind of data. Of course here is the first problem. Any system with a public face can be easily hacked. A small organized group could rick-roll their playlist at any time.

More effectively these results can be used as a source of listener feedback for a music director or in the case of KXLI, as the sole source of programming.  Jelli bills itself as "100% user-controlled radio."  This is somewhat disingenuous, as no one before KXLI dared to actually do that.  Early adopters include KITS, WKRL, WPST, KISN, KENR, KTRS, KDOT, WJYY, KSMX, WCYY, KEEY, WKLS, WPST, WBLI, WBOS, and WYSP. It's over 20 markets in all. But let me get back to quoting Mr. Taylor here:

"A couple of caveats - Nobody really knows what a fulltime social web-powered (and automated) station might sound like on the air. And these FMs (KVBE, Moapa, NV and KHIJ, Bunkerville) aren’t the biggest of signals. In fact, they both citygrade St. George, Utah and are rimshot signals to Vegas."

He's right, and the ratings on KVBE weren't' exactly enviable. Jelli replaced the format that 94.5 carried since it's debut in 2008 as KMOA. So on the 30th at Midnight KVBE played some unremarkable instrumental dance tune which petered out to a short stretch of silence at about 12:05 AM.Then about 10 seconds of the song "She hates me" by Puddle of Mudd, which was followed by their first Jelli ID. KHIJ flipped to a "pop" version of Jelli and became KYLI more or less simultaneously.
94.5 KXLI first Jelli ID:


The first adopter of "Jelli" was KITS in San Francisco who launched a Sunday night program in June of 2009. They took it six nights a week in January of 2010. That's about the same time that Triton media began distributing Jelli. Triton is a perfect match as they tried to create this "format" back in 2005. In May of that year 1550 KYCY-AM became "Open Source Radio" and began broadcasting listener-submitted podcasts on air. WBEW aired another podcast-like format prior to their Vocalo branding. Ken Freedman at WFMU has some claim to the idea as well. Just to make things clear, Jelli isn't alone in their space. There's also Blendella,and a couple others.

But there are a number of conceptual precursors.  Back in 2008, 100.5 WXMM in Norfolk debuted a listener-based online interface. It seemed to fade away before May of 2009. If you go all the way back to 1966, KRLA billed itself as "All-Request Radio" as did many Top-40 stations. These in fact did program a lot of their playlists from requests. You might find that contrasts with the use of Jelli on KXLI and KYLI but the fact that the pair in Vegas are planned to be "rock" and "pop" stations respectively. This thinking indicates some external forces beyond the apps. It's not 100% use-controlled radio.  I'm sure there have been more. The repeated failure of similar concepts does not bode well for this latest, jellied attempt.