How Awful Is the Radio in Your City?

Dave Mandl put together a little quiz (well actually it's quite long) that scores your city in terms of radio quality. To be honest it was too long for me to take the whole test but it was so telling about the FMU'er that probably made the test and just as telling about the state of radio today.

http://wfmu.org/~davem/docs/radio.html

My favorite questions:

DJ mispronounces person or place name
- subtract 25

Excessive time spent reading personnel or session information for a track
-subtract 4 for each minute over 1 minute

Use of the expression "politically correct" by right-wing talk-show creep
-subtract 30

Its a statement about the homogenization that's taken place in radio; ALL RADIO.
give it a browse.

Stunting Part 2

I've discussed stunting before. But in my research I found an outrageous example of a station that perhaps doth stunt too much...

WPUR - 107.3 FM, Atlantic City107.3 was granted the WZZP calls on March 17, 1997 and went on the air in February 1998, with what has to be one of the strangest sign-ons in history:

WZZP signed on with a test broadcast featuring 20 songs, a mix of classic rock, oldies and newer songs.This test broadcast was erratic, mostly heard on weekends, through March 17, 1998.Then on April 9 and 10, 1998, WZZP broadcast a mix of country songs.

And then later on April 10 and going into April 11, we were inundated with hearing the song "Tubthumping" by the group Chumbawumpa over and over.

April 12 to April 14 brought another stunt, this time all classic rock songs, as "ZZ-107."

April 14 to April 17, CHR was featured, with ID's only saying "107.3."
April 17 to April 25, when more CHR songs were added to the playlist and ID's were now "ZZ-107 The Zipper."
April 25, -June 29.. (a two month stunt!) 1998, "Fun 107" and a Rhythmic CHR format,
June 29, 1998, the real format finally debuted: "Cat Country 107.3".

The calls officially changed to WPUR on July 20, 1998.Interestingly enough, during the time the "Fun 107" stunt was on the air, it garnered a 2.0 in the Spring 1998 Arbitrons!

Everybody loves Guglielmo!

I've put off writing about Marconi for over a year. He's the main man of radio, but with all the contributors before and after, I am left wondering why he still gets top billing. There are thousands of pages written about the man, so I wont re-tell you his life story. But let me cover three major highlights that are usually skipped in his lionization. but first ... the obligatory introduction:

Many scientists and inventors contributed to the invention of radio, Oliver Lodge, Hans Christian Ørsted, Michael Faraday, Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, Jagadis Chandra Bose, Alexander Popov, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Alva Edison, Nathan Stubblefield, to name a few...

But it was Marconi's practical system that first achieved widespread use, so gets the championship belt that reads "father of radio." Marconi made his first wireless transmission across water May 13th 1897, from Lavernock Point, South Wales to Flat Holm Island. His famous trans-Atlantic broadcast at Signal Hill in Canada was in 1901. But Marconi's system was based primarily on Nikola Tesla's system. His first test were based entirely on notes from lectures that Tesla had been giving in that era. Later revisions drew on the work of a contemporary radio geek David E. Hughes.

FACT: At the time his contemporaries thought that a radio wave could only be transmitted in the line of sight. No signal could travel between points beyond the curve of the earth. Marconi didn't buy into this. To silence critics he built a spark-gap transmitter to produce a signal with a frequency of approximately 500kHz and a power a peak pulse power of several tens of megawatts. To reach Newfoundland the signal would have to bounce off the ionosphere twice. The supposed success of the transatlantic attempt was recently contested by Dr Jack Belrose. Belrose is no crank, he actually went as far as to reenact the experiment. He believes that Marconi heard only random atmospheric noise and mistook it for the signal. This is pretty believable when you realize that the letter "S" was the message and that in more code that's just three dots. ". . ."

FACT: Marconi joined the Italian fascist party in 1923. Benito Mussolini made Marconi President of the Accademia d'Italia, which also made him a member of the Fascist Grand Council. This was no technicality. He insisted that his correspondence was addressed to "His Excellency the Senator Marchese Guglielmo Marconi, president of the Royal Academy of Italy, Member of the Fascist Grand Council". He attended pro-fascist rallys, wrote pro-fascist articles, made fascist speeches on the radio in a number of countries. Then in 1935 a greatly ironic turn of events, when Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, Marconi found himself [as a national of a country subject to sanctions imposed by the League of Nations] prevented from delivering a talk about the invasion on the BBC.. the broadcasting corporation he had helped to found. ...They don't teach that part in history class.
FACT : Marconi didn't know Tesla, but he did know David E. Hughes through a man named William Henry Preece. Sometime after 1896, Marconi befriended Preece, both of them were experimenting with transmissions across the Conwy estuary. This is the same site he would later transmit Morse code signals to Australia. Preeca had discovered radio induction while developing a telephone system in 1895. While Hughes did not intend to aid Marconi, Preece certainly did. Preece solicited financial assistance from the Post Office to help expand Marconi's work. He was one of Marconi's most ardent early supporters. More here.

Singin' Sam the Barbasol Man

Singin’ Sam was the stage name of Harry Frankel, who lived in Richmond for much of his life. He began his career as a vaudeville performer and was quite the famous personality in the early days of commercial radio. He was best known for his radio character Singin’ Sam, the Barbasol Man. He was the blue print for semi-celebrity product spokespeople. Not sure what i mean?Ex. that kind of annoying cell phone guy who says "can you hear me now?"

Frankel was born on January 27, 1888, to Sol and Lizzie Frankel, Harry in rural Danville, Kentucky. The family relocated to Richmond, Indiana nine years later. Harry was a musically inclined child eventually singing with local barbershop quartets of singing in local quartets. Eventually he realized his dream and began performing in black face in 1908 with the professional minstrel group; Coburn’s minstrels.

When the great depression started to take a bite out of the vaudeville buisness, he got lucky and got an invite from the Great States Lawn Mower Company to promote their products on air. He accepted and began broadcasting from WLW-AM in Cincinnati. His real name didn’t seem catchy enough for a radio personality, so he adopted the stage name “Singin’ Sam” and billed himself as “The Lawnmower Man.” He was so successful that Great States had trouble filling all the new orders, and his show was voted the most popular on WLW-AM. When an executive of the Barbasol Company heard him, he brought Sam to New York to begin broadcasting for his company. “Singin’ Sam the Barbasol Man” made his debut on WABC-AM in 1931.

From 1937 to 1942, Harry recorded ads for Coca-Cola on 16-inch transcription discs. This was done as a 15 minute program, Refreshment Time with Singin’ Samthat suited him very well. Every other week Harry flew to New York, and in two days he recorded 10 of these shows. The rest of the time he spent in rural life in Richmond.

His career flourished throughout the forties but took a turn in the 50s, perhaps deliberately where he retooled his act for nostalgia stations with a new recorded program reminiscin' with singing Sam. He died of natural causes in 1981.

CONTEST!

Never done a contest before, so this may be too hard for some laypeople, and too easy for radio geeks. Or the prize could be so lame that no one cares.

THE CHALLENGE:
Below is an AM band scan done at midnight (Eastern Standard Time).
Your mission, should you choose to take it, is to identify my location. I will not be including the signal stregnth because that makes it too damn easy. Guesses can be exact or general, city, state, province, GPS... whatever. Entertainingly funny guesses may win regardless.

THE PRIZE:
A copy of the mix CD that I made for the 14+ hour drive to this top secret location.
It's a long ass drive, so It must have been good right? You email your best guess with mailing address to [that42 at hotmail dot com] and I mail out the CD-Rs.

THE RULES:
-One guess per person
-The top 5 best guessses win, if you guess planet earth and only 3 people enter you still win.
-Winners should expect me to procrastinate for at least a week before anything gets mailed
-There is no deadline, the contest is "active" until 5 correct-ish entries are submitted.
-Winners names and addresses will not be revealed, but MSN can be relied upon to hand over all emails to Homeland security for Dick Cheneys personal dystopian gratification.

540 - CBT-AM (CBC Radio one)
590 - VOCM-AM (country & talk)
600 - CBNA-AM (CBC Radio one) [also CKCL-AM]
630 - CFCY-AM (country)
660 - WFAN-AM (sports talk)
680 - WRKO-AM (talk)
720 - CHTN-AM (oldies)
780 - CFDR-AM (country)
790 - CFAN-AM (AC)
800 - CHRC-AM (french talk)
880 - WCBS-AM (news talk)
910 - WABI-AM (adult standards)
1010 - CFRB-AM (news talk) [ also WINS-AM]
1030 - WBZ-AM (news)
1050 - WEPN-AM ESPN radio
1130 - WBBR-AM (buisness news)
1140 - CJTR-AM (variety)
1180 - WHAM-AM (news)
1210 - WPHT-AM (talk)
1240 - CJRW-AM (country)
1470 - WLAM-AM (standards)
1520 - WWKB-AM (talk)

I reccomend you use www.radio-locator.com if you are unfamiliar with transmitter plotting. Their maps are simple and user-friendly.

Good luck to all.

Vacay

There will be no posts 6/16/06 -6/26/06. I am on the road for a bit in the great north.
not a lot of radio, but what is there is wild and wooly and what is not there is still probably available at night due to skip.

Clear Channel banned 150 songs

It's been written off as urban legend, but it really happened. In the aftermath of 9/11 Clear Channel responded by directing their 1200 radio stations to yank 150 songs.
http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2001/09/1707.cfm

What follows is a partial list of the songs deemed "lyrically questionable" by Clear Channel:
AC/DC: "Shot Down In Flames," "Highway To Hell," "Safe In New York City," "TNT"
Alien Ant Farm: "Smooth Criminal"
Armstrong, Louis: "What A Wonderful World"
Bangles: "Walk Like An Egyptian"
Barenaked Ladies: "Falling For The First Time"
Beastie Boys: "Sabotage," "Sure Shot"
Beatles: "A Day In The Life," "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," "Obla Di, Obla Da"
Benatar, Pat: "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"
Black Sabbath: "War Pigs," "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"
Clash: "Rock the Casbah"
Dave Matthews Band: "Crash Into Me"
The Doors: "The End"
Drifters: "On Broadway"
Drowning Pool: "Bodies"
Dylan, Bob: "Knocking On Heaven's Door," "Blowin' In The Wind"
Foo Fighters: "Learn To Fly"
Godsmack: "Bad Religion"
Green Day: "Brain Stew"
Hendrix, Jimi: "Hey Joe"
Joel, Billy: "Only The Good Die Young"
John, Elton: "Benny & the Jets," "Rocket Man"
Kravitz, Lenny "Fly Away"
Led Zeppelin "Stairway To Heaven"
Jerry Lee Lewis "Great Balls Of Fire"
Lennon, John: "Imagine"
Limp Bizkit: "Break Stuff"
Martha & the Vandellas: "Dancing In The Streets"
McLean, Don: "American Pie"
Metallica: "Seek And Destroy," "Enter Sandman," "Fade To Black"
Morissette, Alanis: "Ironic"
Peter, Paul & Mary: "Leaving On A Jet Plane"
Tom Petty: "Free Fallin'"
Pink Floyd: "Mother," "Run Like Hell"
Queen: "Another One Bites The Dust," "Killer Queen"
Rage Against The Machine: every single song
Red Hot Chili Peppers "Aeroplane," "Under The Bridge"
REM: "It's The End Of The World As We Know It"
Rolling Stones: "Ruby Tuesday"
Ryder, Mitch and the Detroit Wheels: "Devil With The Blue Dress On"
Saliva: "Click Click Boom"
Slipknot: "Left Behind," Wait And Bleed"
Sinatra, Frank: "New York, New York"
Smashing Pumpkins: "Bullet With Butterfly Wings"
Soundgarden: "Blow Up The Outside World," "Black Hole Sun"
Springsteen, Bruce "I'm On Fire," "Goin' Down"
Steam: "Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey, Good Bye"
Stone Temple Pilots: "Big Bang Baby," "Dead And Bloated"
Sugar Ray: "Fly"
System Of A Down: "Chop Suey"
Talking Heads: "Burning Down The House"
Third Eye Blind: "Jumper"
Tool: "Intolerance"
U2: "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
Van Halen: "Jump"

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

Apparently CC is riddled with anti-American programmers

http://pajamapundits.powerblogs.com/posts/1159907711.shtml

The blind twins of WWVA

Radio stations strive for something unique to hook listeners with. WWVA had a wildly popular blind singing duo named the Newcomer twins, both could play piano and violin..

In the year 1925 in Jeanette, Pennsylvania, Maxine and Eileen Newcomer were born. They sadly lost their vision gradually by the age of four. But they were bright, and talented and despite their blindness, they did well in school. They learned to sing in harmony and in 1941, they got a contract with the radio station WWVA.

Today WWVA is just another news outlet. But back then the Wheeling, West Virginia based radio station was a force to be reckoned with. Their 50,000-watt signal could be heard clearly throughout the East Coast. Their Jamboree was known coast to coast as well as the Grand Ol' Opry as the place to go for country musicians. The Newcomer Twins appeared on WWVA during the 1940's, and appeared on the station's live Jamboree many times. At the height of their fame, the Newcomer Twins received thousands of letters from fans throughout Appalachia. They were considered one of WWVA's biggest stars.

When the Newcomer Twins died in the 1980s in their belongings were found hundreds of homemade acetate records. These were live recordings of them on WWVA. since these are masters of live performances, each of these acetates are one-of-a-kind recordings by Bing Crosby and Gene Autry and Spike Jones and the Andrews Sisters; and acetate recordings of WWVA regulars like Len Clawson and Don McNeill and Elmer Squeezix. 

There were news reports of the World War II Japanese surrender; and of the wedding of England's Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. And every record was carefully labeled on the jacket as to its contents and the performer and the date of recording. and the kicker? It's all printed in Braille. The LPs are currently in the hands of the Country Music hall of fame in Nashville.

The girls had purchased a Presto disc cutter, and had been quietly making records for decades. More WWVA history here and here.

The radio map you never see.

We normally see these types of maps in the summer as we approach november elections. They are normally red and blue. Its a density map, but these are for radio density, not voter density.

This map here is for state-by-state FM radio density. More info Here:

The Evils of Automation!

Ok so automation isn't all that evil. even as a DJ I found some of it to actually be convienient.

In 2002 Paul C. Schafer, president of Schafer won the NAB Engineering Achievement award for his pioneering work in Radio automation. He was a pioneer in early development of automation systems for radio stations. He founded Schaefer Electronics in 1953, Schafer International in 1969 and the Schafer Digital Project in 1986. For better or worse, he is recognized by almost everyone as the father of automation.

He personally designed and installed the first automation system at KGEE, Bakersfield, CA, in 1953. Testing continued that same year the first station to test out his invention was 960 KROW-AM (now KQKE-AM 960) in Oaklands. Following these succcesses NAB performed field tests with his equipment in 1955 to show the viability of unattended remote control for radio transmitters. As a result of the these tests the FCC amended their rules in 1957 to permit the remote control of all radio transmitters. 1230 is now KGEO a simulcast of KERN http://www.kernradio.com/

it seemed to all go down very fast. But Schafer had put his money where his mouth was. To prove it could work, Schafer bought and automated a radio station. The station, 1230 KDOT-AM in Reno, NV operated with a staff of three people. The manager did the selling, the engineer was also the announcer and one office manager ran everything else. 1230 is now KJFK a local talker. http://www.1230kjfk.com/

Stupid DJ Tricks Part 5

Naked DJs on the highway, DJs parachuting, Djs leveling death threats.. where does it all end? It never does end, DJs are continually crying out for more attention. Installment five is not the topper; it just has the best nicknames.

It was in Jacksonville, North Carolina on the Northern edge of the Wilmington market. On August 1, 2003 this Dj went door to door... naked. (I dont know about you, but I'd call the cops)

Shock Jock "Fat Boy" from WXQR 105.5 sent his sidekick, a show member known as "Waffleman" covered in mud to ring doorsbells at the homes of rich folks, requesting permission to use their shower. as you might expect, the cops were called numerous times and residents complained a lot.

WXQR did make the gesture of offering to suspend Fat Boy and Waffleman, but Fat Boy opted to resign. The fate of Waffleman is currently unknown.

Stupid DJ Tricks Part 4

This is a tad more recent. It all starts with a candy bar, and all ends with pregnant woman suing a radio station for $100,000 dollars in civil court.
Twenty eight year old Norreasha Gill was very excited about winning the contest. Unfortunately when she marched down to WLTO studios in Lexington, they were only prepared to Offer A Candy Bar. Gill was informed to show up at the Central Bank building the next day to receive her prize where she was then told it was simply a prank, that the contest was a “joke” and that she would not be receiving the money.

According to the complainant, DJ Slick, from WLTO-FM announced the 10th caller would receive “100 Grand”. Gill “reasonably believed she would receive $100,000 if she were the 10th caller”, according to the lawsuit. It's fair to say that DJ Slick knew the prize was really not $100,000 and falsely represented the prize with the intention to “cheat, defraud, and play a malicious joke upon plaintiff”.

Gill’s attorney, Lee Van Horn, filed the suit on Gill’s behalf and is seeking not only the $100,000 dollars but interest, punitive damages, her costs, and a trial by jury.

Sadly enough this is not the first time this particular radio stunt has been pulled!

Stupid DJ Tricks Part 3

Remember a couple posts back when I explained the anti-Castro politics of Miami talk radio? I was not exaggerating. Nobody crank calls the Ayatola Kohmeni, nobody crank calls George Bush. (Dad dosent let him use the phone yet) But these guys dogged not one, but two presidents of latin american nations.

The crap began on January 6 in 2003. Noboday at breakfast thought two DJs that morning would try to cause an international incident . Enrique Santos and Joe Ferrero from WXDJ-FM 95.7, a tripical music radio station in Miami, FL called Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez. In the call they pretended to be Cuban President, Fidel Castro. Chavez is not amused. WXDJ was fined $4,000 for airing a caller without their knowledge. The Audio is here: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/fidel/castro-chavez.wav

Six months later, having had no penalty for harassing the leader of a soverign nation, they decide to top it by cranking on Fidel Castro on June 18. Enrique Santos and Joe Ferrero of WXDJ-FM this time impersonate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and call up Fidel. Castro got pissed. The audio is here: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/fidel/chavez-castro.asf
Its in spanish of course so I understand nada. What I do understand is that they were fined ANOTHER $4,000 for airing a caller without their knowledge. No extra penalty for mocking the leader of a foreign nation. I understand Dick Cheny plays this tape for a laugh before bed.

Here is a transcript from the climax of their stunt:

Ferrero: "Your agents that were with you in Argentina must make an extensive and detailed search. And the people that are responsible for this must be told. Are you informed that this is a number one issue?"
Castro: "I am informed and absolutely in agreement."
Ferrero: "So you agree with the shit that you have done to the island, assassin?"
Castro: "What?"
Ferrero: "Enrique Santos and Joe Ferrero from Miami, El Zol 95.7. You fell just like Hugo Chavez."
Castro: "What did I fall for come mierda (shit eater)? ¨
Ferrero: "Enrique Santos and Joe Ferrero from Miami."
Castro: What did I fall for maricón (faggot)?"
Ferrero: "All of Miami is listening to you."
Castro: "What did I fall for, mariconzón (big faggot)?"
Ferrero: "What do you have to say?"
Castro: "ni cojones (no balls)"
Ferrero: "What do you have to say?"
Castro: "I haven't said anything, (vete para el coño de tu madre) go screw your mother."
Ferrero: "All of Miami is listening to you, Fidel Castro."

Stupid DJ Tricks Part 2

It was a lovely summer day on July 9 in the year 2003. But then a naked, fat DJ ruined it and was subsequently arrested for public exposure. This was not a simple, juvenile streaking incident or a simple skinny dip among friends. This was something special. http://www.989therock.com/
A classy gentleman going by the moniker "Tard" aka T-Bone ( real name Dennis Jordan) from KQRC 98.9  "The Rock", in Kansas City, (syndicated on KFH-AM in Wichita) taped 100 Powerball lottery tickets to his naked body. Then he went out to the intersection of Shawnee Mission Parkway and I-35, and stood in the median strip. He timed this at 7:30 AM local rush hour! On air co-conspirator Johnny Dare, encouraged listeners to pull over their cars and take tickets off him. He was arrested for public nudity and disorderly conduct.
Tard was in communication with the in-studio cast via cell phone and his exploits were being described to the listeners over the air. According to the Kansas City Star, Tard was arrested at 7:40 a.m. with only about 15 tickets remaining taped to his body. In their defense the Powerball jackpot was almost a quarter of a billion dollars that week.

In 2004 a different DJ on the same station KQRC caused another ruckus over a little public nudity. Johnny Dare, host of the "Dare and Murphy Show" featured a session of "Naked Twister" with local strippers and graphic interviews with porn stars. The FCC proposed a $220,000 fine for owner Entercom Communications. More here. It's sometimes difficult to make these fines stick. As one Howard Stern fan once quipped "How does one 'sound' naked?" Welcome to radioland.

Stupid DJ Tricks PART1

This week will be a series of posts about the most amazingly destructive and/or stupid things that any American DJ has ever done. When I began my research, even I gew amazed at some of these. what is more amazing is that the absolutely "best" ones didnt' occurr in america and I feel I have to exclude those for a later post.
Todays post is about a pair of DJs that managed to cause a riot on April 1, 2003. It was april fools day and a dangerous day to beleive a DJ. Minnesota Radio personalities, Troy Shannon and Riggs from 98.1 WWJO thought it would be a funny prank to broadcast a fake concert announcement for Eminem.

So they announced on their show that multi-platinum selling rapper "Eminem" would be appearing for a free concert on the lot of the Brainerd Rd. 'Big Lots.' Hundreds of people left work and kids even left school early to see the advertised concert. It caused city-wide gridlock that prompted dozens of emergency calls. The police contacted WWJO at 9:30 AM that day and asked them to call off the gag. They did not relent. Then hours later at infront of the crowd, at the height of anticipation, the Djs broke the news that Eminem was not coming, that it was a joke. Boy that pissed 'em off. The police were also needed to protect the DJs from their hundreds of enraged listeners, who at one point surrounded the patrol car they were in and beat on the windows trying to get at them, police said. It took 13 police cars to disperse the rioters.

Troy Shannon and Riggs were both charged with disorderly conduct for creating a public nuisance.

Feedburner

I am now offering subscriptions for those that use Atom and RSS.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/ArcaneRadioTrivia

If you dont know what that means, dont worry. Neither do I.

The warm glow of the AA5

The AA5 (All American 5) was possibly the longest lived electronic consumer marketed products of the 20th century. The product design was a simple, stable five tube "AC/DC" AM radio. Some images Here.

Virtually every household in America has had at least a few since it's "invention" in 1934. They were cheap And it's simple design eliminated the power transformer which made them also very light compared to prior models.

Early versions of the five tube radio used the same small signal tubes like 6A7, 6D6, 75, 6F7 and a "tuning eye" 6E5 tube in some models. American manufacture of the AA5 radio petered out in the early 1970's, as stocks of tubes and related parts were depleted. After that, solid state radios and "hot chassis" models gained dominance. More here.

Early versions of the five tube radio used the same small signal tubes across the circuit. Later versions that were developed to use less power and take up less space required the development of smaller and more specialized tubes. Previous to them the Armstrong designed super-heterodyne was only available in the most expensive radios. This was the device that made radio explode into the golden era. More details here.