the ONLY Hydroelectric Radio Station

This one is a one-of-a-kind. WJFF Radio Catskill 90.5 FM. They play primarily classical, jazz and folk. The only hydroelectrically powered public radio station.
http://www.wjffradio.org/

Malcolm Brown is a former philosophy professor from King's College. It just so happened he was building a house beside Lake Jefferson in Jeffersonville, New York. he couldnt hear any public radio affiliate in his little valley, so he decided to build one. He had already built a small hydroelectric plant above the falls near lake jefferson, so with some modification, he equipped it to power a little public radio station right here in Sullivan County. They went live 12 years ago. It's the world's only hydropowered station. They claim to be the worlds only hydroelectric radio station... and I beleive them. This pic is of Mr. brown himself beside his dam.
They have only two paid employees, the rest is all community volunteers, like it should be. They run a few popular syndicated programs from NPR, PRI and Pacifica.. and a couple unknown ones too. The rest of the week is all locals talking local politics, local news and whatever music they please. They even have an all Australian music program. Beat that!

The Oldest Urban Legend in Radio

It always starts in a different city, and different call letters, but this part is always the same: "...then they attached a cable to the railroad tracks and the station was audible from one end of [insert state] to the other. ...then the FCC shut them down/fined them." It's almost always a college station, and usually in the midwest. I have heard Jersey versions but alas, nothing incriminating yet.

I thought the beleivability was low for years. Then I started meeting engineers that tried similar things. A certain engineer at a certain radio station in New Jersey managed to use the steel frame of the buildings elevator shaft as an arial. It improved their signal tremendously... as long at the elevator was on the ground floor...

The only beleivable claim to this legend was earned by the infamous KDIC in Grinell Iowa. Currently their license is deleted but they were still causing troubel as recently as last year.
The Grinnell College campus is in close proximity to 2 rail lines. I quote: "The college was invited to move to [Josiah Grinell's] newly-founded town, located at the intersection of two major railway lines. Today, one can still experience the effects from this choice of location in the form of a railroad that cuts across the college campus."

The blurb is no longer on their website but of course.. I kept a copy.. this is my favorite part:

"One time, KDIC let some delinquent students convince him to connect his vocal chords to the nearby train tracks, so he could laugh and cry and sing with all his might all across the land. Well, a big mean FCC person from the orphanage heard about this, and the Grinnell students lost their right to play with KDIC for a whole year! KDIC was locked away in the closet and everyone was very sad. They also had to pay a big fine! "Jeepers," exclaimed several of the students, "just who is this big mean FCC person anyways? We just want to rock!" But the big bad FCC person does not rock."

KDIC has been fined a couple times for fairly general naughtiness. I dont have a lot of reason to beleive this one except that they clealy had the opportunity.. and definitely had the inclination.
http://kdic.grinnell.edu/

The Art of Formatlessness

Yes, I know that's not a proper word

So maybe it's not an art. Many radio people would argue that non-commercial stations practice this all the time. I personally would argue that they actually are "block-formatted" most programs in fact have a format. it's somewhat unfortunate that the reggae format the death metal format and the polka format may be in close time proximity.

What I am talking about are the commercial stations that dont really have a format. Some of you are thinking "Jack" right now but that too is a format. For all the hype it's really just deep catalog AC/80s but I digress. I mean actual commercially licensed stations that actually sell ads, that just don't fit conventional format definitions. In previous years the addition of oldies to a standards playlist might have qualified (or vice versa) , like WGUL-AM in Tampa. They ran deep catalog oldies beside overplayed vegas crooners. It had a loyal niche audience, but in that market WRBQ killed them in ratings. I had an inkling that they wouldn't last, and sure enough last month they dropped it for talk. A nice straight standards station might have been able to eek by with the demo in that market.

Anyway I'm on a tangent again. My examples today is New Rochelle 93.5 WRTN. (some of their programming is run on their AM sister station WVOX 1460)

I first heard WRTN over two years ago. They ran a very straight-ahead standards station; lots of Sinatra, a little big band, a lot of Glen Miller As they say "It is what it is." And then they added some reggae programing. It stoof out as kind of random but they blocked it out pretty well with talk programs on each side of the slots.

I am guessing these shows were popular because they added more., lots more. Today the station runs reggaeton, reggae, tropical, dancehall... all sorts of Caribbean music and then few straggling hours of standards. But this new format is a little awkward.

If they played more rap you could call it Hurban. If they homogenized it more they could call it tropical or even Reggae. But they don't. The playlist is all over the place in terms of genre. but in terms of demo it's not. They don't appear on the recent Bridgeport or Stamford Arbs but I dont think they participate to be honest. They've found a community that clearly wants them to be there. And the community has found a station that wants to be there for them. I cant argue with that.

The president of Whitney Radio the parent Co. to both stations, William O'Shaughnessy is a bit of a willful crank who reminds me of other brilliant wilful cranks that ran massive media groups on to great success. men like like Ahmet Ertgun, Ted Turner and the like. His impressive bio is here: http://www.wvox.com/wo/index.htm including where to buy his book.

Nothing explains why he runs WRTN station the way he does. I hope that they keep it up. But like so many eccentric gems out there, I can only beleive that ineviably the big money offer will come and it will be sadly swallowed up by some large multi-national conglomerate.

The Long Road Home

I drove south From Albany yesterday. I bought bags of Jada Red and Ginger Gold Apples, and a bag of Apple Cider Doughnuts and started south on Route 90. It was warm out, but there were big clouds on the horizon and the breeze was cool. I ate warm apples and hung my arm out the window until the sun went down.
http://www.jerzyboyz.com/gingergold.htm
http://www.nyapplecountry.com/redrome.htm

I listened mostly to 90.3 WAMC in the Albany area switching to a couple affiliates as if got weaker. As I got nearer to 287 South, I could hear a fantastic rock program on WVKR 91.3 Poughkeepsie, and I heard the LOST & FOUND OLDIES SHOW with Sam Tallerico. It was outstanding. Tons of Rockabilly and pre-Beatles garage rock/pop. Fantastic. Then Jazz junction on 88.1 WDIY in Allentown, A classic hardcore program on 90.3 WXLV out of Lehigh Carbon Community College.
http://www.wamc.org/
http://www.wvkr.org/
http://www.wdiyfm.org/
http://www.wxlvfm.com/

WFMU was clear through some of this time but that particular program wasn't grabbing me.

Across most of New Jersey I listened to 89.7 WDVR. They play a mix of Americana, Folk, Triple-A and old Country. They never come off slick or trite; always straddling that middle ground of genuine provincial hominess, never parodying themselves. ...And that Jimmie Rodgers-style country yodel station ID is ABSOLUTELY KILLER . Long live the Country Store.
www.wdvrfm.com

Oh I've been a Traveling Man

I thought I'd stop my historical tirade of trivia for a moment and tell you about some of the amazing radio I've heard in the last couple weeks. I've been to Seattle, Houston, Miami and a lot in-between. I am in a Miami hotel right now, its about 105 degrees and everybody is taking a siesta waiting for the sun to go down.
WTIP 90.7 FM Grand Marais, MN  - Link.

WHSA 89.9 Brule, WI ...I heard this great Jazz show, whose Dj had that classic ashtray voice that so belongs to Jazz radio. - Link.

WVUM 90.5 Miami, FL ...In the sweltering Miami heat after work I did nothing but hide in my hotel room and crank the radio and the AC. I heard so much music that I will be buying next week. Great goddamn station. - Link

CKUA 97.3 Medicine hat Alberta CANADA ...an amazing blues show "The Long Weekend". Just amazing. I hit 97.3 and heard Tampa Sed singing Juicy Lemon Blues. You just can't beat that. I was just awed. They focus on music between 1918 and 1939. - Link.


Here is the playlist: The Long Weekend: Program #39:

1. Tampa Red: "Through Train Blues" (1928)
2. Ma Rainey: "Blame It On the Blues" (1928)
3. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom: "It's Tight Like That" (1928)
4. Tampa Red's Hokum Jug Band: "Come On Mama, Do That Dance" (1929)
5. Tampa Red: "Juicy Lemon Blues" (1929)
6. Tampa Red: "You Got To Reap What You Sow" (1929)
7. Tampa Red & Georgia Tom: "New Stranger Blues" (1931)
8. Tampa Red: "Bumble Bee Blues" (1931)
9. Tampa Red: "I'll Kill Your Soul" (1934)
10. Tampa Red: "Sugar Mama" (1935)
11. Tampa Red: "Denver Blues" (1934)
12. Tampa Red and the Chicago Five: "Maybe It's Someone Else You Love" (1936)
13. Tampa Red and the Chicago Five: "Rock It In Rhythm" (1938)
14. Tampa Red: "Travel On" (1937)15. Tampa Red: "Anna Lou Blues" (1940

In Houston I kept getting lost and doing laps of Route 610. I listened to a lot of radio: KJIC a quintessential Gospel station, KSBJ a real taste-maker for christian CHR, KPFT a strong and intelligent left-leaning talker, KTSU's great late night jazz programs and KTRU!!! holy Taquitos that station rules. I heard hours and hours of programming that just lined out song after song like a brilliant mix tape. Then I ate Taquitos from Whataburger.


In flight I was able to catch KZZY in North Dakota.  They have a whole set of station IDs and breakers totally milking their slickly-named city of license: DEVILS LAKE! ...Now that is a city for a rock station. I heard so many other cool snippets but I couldn't readily identify their calls. If I figure out more, I will let you know as always.

MULTICASTING

The initial purported purpose of IBOC was greater fidelity. As FM triumphed over AM so was HD.... Well that lasted about five minutes. When the consultants got ahold of the idea they realized what everyone else already knew, but knew was a bad idea. PAY RADIO.

Each HD station has the option of brodcasting one clear signal or multiple inferior signals. Currently they broadcast one analog signal and one HD signal. These hybrids are supposed to be phased out and radioland go all-digital but the FCC keeps pushing back the deadline.
The multicast idea starts innocently enough. The first HD multicaster was WFAE 90.7 Charlotte, NC. As usual Public Radio paved the way. They experimented with up to 11! channels one day last April. There were only a few models of HD tuners at that tie and I am uncertain if there were ANY that were multicast-capable. The initial talk is about splitting talk programming and music programming into seperate channels, or to have channels of all local traffic information. It all seems so idealist at the time, stations would provide programming because they could, because they wanted to, because their listeners would like it. NPR promises 24 more multicasting outlets by the end of this year. [It's rumored that Phillys local 90.1 WRTI intends to split Their Jazz and Classical programming into two seperate channels eventually. ]

Then came the consultants. At the time of this writing WRAL, WUSN and WJMK all have second channels of differnt music content. The second channel in this case becomes a testing ground for new music, an outlet for a dropped format etc... but the big talk is that the other channel could be subscription only. Let me say that again SUBSCRIPTION ONLY!

Oy Vey. So the model is that people will pay for local radio. So it's kind of like satellite radio except there are ads, and it you cant receive it 30 miles away... Normally I give technology the benefit of the doubt. People like new toys, more bells and whistles, more pomp and flash but this does not wow me. The idea of paying for local FM channels of low quality audio does not grab me. If any of you find it compelling please let me know why because right now I do not get it.

Radio Brands Part II

I see radio brands used and misused all sorts of ways. I will post more about thsi in the future for certain but let me focus the microscope on this bit of minutea. Today's lesson is about call letters being used to carry a brand name.

There was a classic case in the 1980s right here in Philadelphia. When WDVR was flirting with the beautiful music format decided the station should beknown as Easy-101. They changed calls to WEAZ but the air staff only refered to the station as EAZY101. At the top of the hour, they would sneak in the legal ID .. but it was typically burried in programming tags. The four letters W-E-A-Z were never used on air in a correct legal ID. They were using the calls in conjunction with the brand.
more here: http://www.nrcdxas.org/articles/hmr0796.txt

WDVR was certainly not the first. I have only anecdotal evidence on the following so please add salt. if you know something I don't, please fill me in!

The story goes that the first call flip ever was in Boston. I have assumed this excludes all call flips required by early name regulations. In the Korean war this station took an anti-war position. As the war drew out it killed its ratings. Over the years even after the war ended the reputation stuck to the call letters regardless of format or ownership change. They filed with the FCC for special permission to change their calls... and got it.

My only problem with this is that I am fairly sure that call flips preceded the Korean war. but... It's probably got some truth in it.

Below are some nice and obvious examples of a call sign serving the brand
K-Love
KLOV, KLUV, KLVE
Jack-FM
KJJK, KJCK, KJJK, KJKK

K-Rock

KROQ, KROK, KROC
Progressive Talk
KTLK-AM, WLIB-AM,
Conservative Talk
WGOP-AM (fact: Republican Party nickname GOP stands for Grand Old Party)

Nice history of some Philly call flips here:
http://phillymemories.tripod.com/id15.htm

Radio in Comics

There isn't a whole lot of radio in comics. In the 1930s it was the point of every technology joke the dailies came up with. We now see these recycled as PC jokes. This modern one is from 2003 by Jeff Harris. It's basicly a childrens educational cartoon, but it's still worth the read.

Click the header for this winner as a pdf..

KRUD RADIO COMIC STRIP

To my knowledge there is only ONE ongoing comic strip about radio. Its right here.

These are all jokes only for radio people. If you dont work in radio most of these will seem absurd. They wont be funny to you. I repeat: These are for trained radio professionals.

James Maxwell's EM Wave

"I have the capacity of being more wicked than any example that man could set me"
-James Clerk Maxwell [1853]

He was a brilliant electromagnetic theorist a apparently very naughty man. Maxwell calculated that the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic field is approximately that of the speed of light. He proposed that the phenomenon of light is therefore an electromagnetic in origin. Because charges can oscillate with any frequency, Maxwell also concluded that visible light forms only a small part of the entire spectrum of possible electromagnetic radiation. (see post on frequency allocations 6/15)

The theoretical basis for the propagation of electromagnetic waves was first described in 1873 by James Maxwell in his paper to the Royal society in London A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field, which followed his work between 1861 and 1865.

Maxwell had unified the work of previous electromagnetic and optical experiments reducing their results into a set of equations. These equations with his own work have become the basis for transmitting. he produced the actual laws of electromagnetism most importantly electromagnetic radiation. The equations are fundamental to the broadcast of radio and television.

bio here: http://www.phy.hr/~dpaar/fizicari/xmaxwell.html

He was also a notorious late-night carouser. When informed at Cambridge that cumpulsory church services began at 6:00 am he relpied "Aye, I suppose I could stay up that late." Spoken like a true radio man.

KPH: The Wireless Giant of the Pacific

Every year on August 12th KPH returns to the air for one night...

According to the Maritime Radio Historical Society, the station would have been 100 this year. It began in 1905 as Morse station "PH." (Remember back then call letters were voluntary. You could make up anything you wanted.) The call letters referred to the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, where the station was located. Later, regulators later added the K to the call sign. KPH was once known as the "Wireless Giant of the Pacific."

For almost a century, marine wireless operators heard steady dots and dashes of the KPH signal in their earphones. At KPH some of the best Morse operators in the country listened for calls from ships. Most messages were routine. But occasionally an S-O-S would come in and KPH operators would jump to respond. The station went silent in 1997; two years before the formal end of commercial Morse Code use in the United States.

The annual event is July 12 this year; it is held at Point Reyes Station in California. Organizers have invited the public to watch professional Morse operators, including several original KPH operators, work the station. The station moved its transmitters and receivers to West Marin in the 1920s. The Maritime Radio Historical Society keeps it alive, with cooperation of the Point Reyes National Seashore. The Point Reyes National Seashore currently owns the land and buildings and all the artifacts of KPH.

Pedal Radio

In 1907 Alfred Traeger a farm boy in Australia amazed his family by building a phone between their house and a barn 50 yards away. He had no professional hardware. His magnets were made from pitch fork prongs, the diaphragms from tobacco tin lids, and the charcoal for carbon granules came from the kitchen stove. his parents decided to send him to electrical engineering school. Before he was 20, Traeger had built a transmitter and was sending Morse code.

Radio in Australia (like the US) took off in the 1920s. The problem was reaching the masses. Australia is a big place. Its land area is four-fifths that of America U. S., and it is rightly its own continent. Only eighty-five percent of the country's population lives in urban areas, mostly on the eastern and southern seaboards. So when radio got popular, it was hailed as the solution for rural loneliness in the outback. The rural residents of "the interior" couldn't afford the sophisticated 5-tube radios. And Even when they did, they usually didn't have AC power (let alone plumbing) to use it!

Alf invented The pedal wireless radio. By 1927 he was demonstrating two way pedal wireless. The user simply pedals to power a generator while sending Morse code. This was a hit with lonely homesteads, remote mission stations, and even aboriginal communities "The Bush Network" as they called it, quickly grew to cover much of the remote center and northern areas.

Then in 1931 Alfred invented an automatic Morse code keyboard! It was like a normal typewriter. Resembling a typewriter, each key was connected to a pivoted steel bar with notched spacings corresponding to the Morse alphabet. he was determined to make radio available to everyone. In 1995 Fred McKay wrote a book on the man... i haven't read it yet, But I fully intend to.

KISL Island radio

Catalins island is 63 miles off the coast of Los Angeles, California. There is one lone radio station on that island. KISL-FM operates at 88.7 Mhz with 200 watts ERP. It covers the city of Avalon quite well, and can be heard 26 miles away along the coastline and also in the mountains of Southern California as well.

check out their webcam:
http://www.cipaf.org/javawebcamwindow.htm

KISL's tower is on a hill above the town of Avalon and the Avalon Harbor. It was a hot July 5th when I took the one-hour trip by jet boat to Catalina Island with installation gear and Ken Horton as my able assistant. David Markowitz and Ron Thompson formerly of the legendary KLON built this little gem pretty much by themselves I am told.

check out their webcam
http://www.cipaf.org/javawebcamwindow.htm

antenna pics here: http://www.well.com/user/dmsml/kisl/

The Radio Merit Badge

Honestly I am not sure I could pass this test. I have sampled some of the questions for the Boy Scouts of America Radio Merit badge exam below. click my header for the full test in PDF or
go here: http://www.meritbadge.com/mb/093.htm

1. Explain what radio is. Include in your explanation: the differences between broadcast radio and hobby radio, and the differences between broadcasting and two-way communicating. Also discuss broadcast radio and amateur radio call signs and using phonetics.

2. Sketch a diagram showing how radio waves travel locally and around the world. How do the broadcast radio stations, WWV and WWVH, help determine what you will hear when you listen to a radio?

3. Do the following:
a. Draw a chart of the electromagnetic spectrum covering 100 kilohertz (kHz) to 1000 megahertz (MHz).
b. Label the MF, HF, VHF, UHF, and microwave portions of the spectrum on your diagram. Locate on your chart at least eight radio services such as AM and FM commercial broadcast, CB, television, amateur radio (at least four ham radio bands), and police.
c. Discuss why some radio stations are called DX and others are called local.
d. Explain who the FCC and the ITU are.

4. Explain how radio waves carry information. Include in your explanation: transceiver, transmitter, amplifier, and antenna.

5. Explain to your counselor the safety precautions for working with radio gear, particularly direct current and RF grounding.

6. Do the following:
a. Explain the differences between a block diagram and a schematic diagram.
b. Draw a block diagram that includes a transceiver, amplifier, microphone, antenna, and feedline.
c. Explain the differences between an open circuit, a closed circuit, and a short circuit.
d. Draw eight schematic symbols. Explain what three of the represented parts do. Find three electrical components to match to three of these symbols.

holy frijoles.
I want to meet just one boy scout with this damn badge.

On The Road.

I will be on the road over the next two months.
Will be returning irregularly with more Arcane Radio Trivia. I'll be back daily upon my return. I promise.

If you need a radio fix try visiting these gentlemen:
http://radiosutton.blogspot.com/
http://futureofradio.typepad.com/
http://www.fybush.com/nerw.html
http://www.fybush.com/links.html

NOT LICENSED FOR RADIO BROADCAST

In the 1920s the RIAA sued broadcasters to get them to STOP playing music. That's right kids. The record industry's "anti-airplay" platform lasted well into the 1930s.

We begin at the beginning... By the early 1920s, RCA was mass-producing commercial radios. While the radio didn't sound as good as the phonograph, it was still free. The recording industry was incensed and attempted to sue the radio stations to prevent them from playing recordings on the air. The first judges presented with this issue decided that if the radio station had purchased a copy of the recording they had a right to play it; since there was no law preventing it. It was a big set back for the RIAA.

In general, the 1930s were a tough period for the record industry. It was competing against the free content offered by radio stations in the great depression. The industry, dominated by 78 RPM records with a playing time of as little as three minutes per side, hit bottom around 1935. The juke box offered them something of a last minute reprieve. Yet the situation continued to be hampered in the 1940s by the wartime shortage of raw materials. The record industry concluded that they suffer when stations broadcast pre-recorded music. Their conclusion rested on two primary assumptions:
ONE - Consumers will not buy records when they could hear them on radio.
TWO - U.S. copyright law required that radio stations pay royalties to composers, lyricists, and publishers but not to record companies.

First, the New York Supreme Court ruled that if radio stations purchases a record, they were free to broadcast it ­ even when it bore a "Not Licensed for Broadcast" inscription. Displeased with this ruling, the dominant record firms pursued plans for obtaining fees from stations that broadcast pre-recorded music. To this day, they have still failed to get radio to pay the record labels for airplay.
In 1942, arguing that the new jukeboxs were putting live musicians out of work, the American Federation of Musicians declared a ban on recording. The AFM went on strike on August 1, 1942 in an attempt to get record companies to establish a fund for unemployed musicians. Most of the smaller and independent companies signed new contracts almost immediately; Decca signed a contract in September 1943, and the other major labels followed suit in November 1944.

Moving against the popular corporate wisdom, Capitol Records believed that broadcasting recordings would stimulate rather than harm sales. In search of airplay, Capitol promoted its records at radio stations. It was the first record firm to service free recordings to disk jockeys. it caused a dramatic increase in record sales. Unable to ignore Capitol's successful "pro-airplay" model, other dominant record firms followed suit.

Sounds familiar yet? The free music, doesn't sound as good as the original recorded media, but its popular, because its free. The then RIAA tries to sue the "offender" into submission...etc. A lots of bright folks see a parallel between the RIAAs recent desperate assaults on P2P platforms and their previous 1930s foolishness. I tend to agree. They've had a long history of resisting change, litigious zeal; and selective perception. Great article here.

The Incarceration Station

Angola Prison has had an illustrious but sad history in music. Many Blues artists were imprisoned here. Alan Lomax even recorded some of them while still serving their sentances: Bukka White, Harvey Knox, Charles Neville, Leadbelly, Jack Dupree, Robert Pete Williams, and many others. Several albums have been cut as well: Angola Prison Spirituals, Angola Prisoners Blues, Prison Worksongs and others.

KLSP is the only FCC licensed radio station to operate from within a prison by inmate DJs. KLSP 91.7 Algola, Louisiana is known as the "Incarceration Station." It operates at 100 watts and reaches approximately 6,000 people including staff, inmates, visitors and parts of the surrounding community. They signed on August 12, 1986.
Site here: http://www.corrections.state.la.us/lsp/KLSP.htm

Initially KLSP was envisioned as a emergency communication system. The Prison officials wanted to communicate to whole the inmate population simultaneously. An FM radio station appeared to be the right answer. The implementation was a little different. The Angola Education Foundation arranged for inmates to become DJ's and to entertain the masses with gospel, jazz, blues, rock-n-roll, country, and oldies.

But the original purpose worked in later emergencies. During the flood of 1997, Warden Burl Cain broadcast nightly over KLSP. The evacuation of over 3,000 inmates occurred without incident or injury.

I am told that the prison administration is actively seeking avenues to enhance capabilities of KLSP-97.1 FM. Thsi probably means "We want to make money."

Locally Originating Progamming

I dislike non-commercial stations that run exclusively satillite fed syndicated programming. The worst offender in this catagory is the religious broadcaster. (Fybush calls these satcasters) My main objection to is not to the content. It's the source of the content to which I object.

follow me on this detour:
The radio spectrum, like any physical property, or natural resource is finite. Each city can only contain so many broadcasters, so a government body exists to manage the space, the FCC. It's no different from your town council deciding who gets to develop the waterfront property. The point being; if the radio band is the property of a community, then content on the radio that originates from outside the community is, in a sense... stolen from them.

We all know perfectly well that many religious stations receive all programming via satillite. They then time-shift this programming and rebroadcast to meet some obtuse, nominal and ultimately impotent local programming requirement. Let me stop right here and point out that not all religious broadcasters are like this. Right near me is WNAP-AM 1110 who runs almost entirely local programming. http://wnap1110am.com/ It's a fine station who serves Norristown and the surrounding community just fine.

By comparison WKDN 106.9 Camden runs zero local programming. http://www.familyradio.com/index.htm

That RF belongs to the Camden Philadelphia Area, yet zero of their programming content originates locally. The FCC would tell you that somehow they serve our community. I would debate that strongly. That same signal could belong to any civic, religious or community group and serve Philadelphia more fully.

Out of fairness let me examine my local NPR affiliate: WHYY 90.9 FM Philadelphia, PA Look at their schedule Monday thru Friday: http://www.whyy.org

35 hours of BBC between the overnights, the news hour and the world

31 hours of NPR nationally syndicated programming from talk of the nation, morning edition, all things considered, News and Notes, Creators at Carnagie... etc

6 hours of Here and now & Sound Print from MPR

5 hours of Marketplace from American Public Media

1 hour of This American Live from Public Radio International

In the end, only these local programs run Monday thru Friday. Out of a total possible 120 hours 16 originate locally. That's about 14%. It's not a lot. but it's more thant zero. These local shows are:

5 hours of Radio times

10 hours of Fresh air (counting the afternoon rebrocast)

1 hour of Voices in the family

That being said, the WHYY weekends are a smorgasbord of local shows.

I have a radio in my tooth

There are some rare cases where the fillings in peoples molars got radio reception. It's possible for any non-linear electrical circuit can demodulate AM radio signals. Slightly corroded metal fillings, or even an electrolytic connection could potentially do i. It's not that different from a crystal radio set. I repeat, it is possible for your tooth fillings function this way. It's just highly unlikely. If you were in close proximity to the transmitter and all the planets were aligned... There have been reports of this phenomenon since the early 20s. The names below have been changed because I keep bad notes...

John Smith of Evanston IL, lost a front tooth in 1961, he was fitted with a cap that was attached to the tooth stump with brass wire. Thereafter he began hearing music in his head, generally popular tunes of the day, usually while he was outdoors. He described the music as soft but distinct. He never heard an announcer's voice or commercials and was unable to identify what radio station, if any, he was hearing. After a year or two of this a new dentist put in a cap without a wire and the tunes stopped. BELIEVABILITY: 3 of 10

JANE SMITH also of Suburban Chicago, says in 1947, while she was riding a train from Cleveland to Rhode Island she heard radio in her head. The experience lasted maybe 10 minutes. She couldn't tell what station she was listening to but recalls hearing commercials and an announcer's voice. She had recent silver tooth fillings. BELIEVABILITY: 2 of 10

WFIU 103.7 Bloomington, IL
Due to the location of WFIU’s 100 foot transmission tower in the center of campus and its impressive 75,000 watt signal strength its RF "wake" became notorious. Students who lived in the surrounding dormitories reported they could pick up WFIU on their dental fillings, eyeglasses, electric shavers, etc. People claimed they could hear WFIU on their stereo speakers, even when their stereo was off.  More here. BELIEVABILITY: 8 of 10 

Today the toothradio actually exists. It was "invented" by a man named Andrija Puharich. He also was visited by space aliens and regularly ingested Psilocybin mushrooms and hung out with timothy Leary. He is not a complete loon, most of his other inventions relate to hearing aids.

The invention comprises an element applied to a viable tooth, for receiving RF signals and a transducer and a receiving element. It uses live nerve endings of the tooth for converting the electromagnetic signals to electric signals at audio frequency. It has US Patent 2995633. He made numerous improvements to the design until it was as popular among Russian spies as their trusty micro-dot camera.

In my world, things like these are called celibacy devices.