New Jersey Shore Trip

Sitting out a rain storm I flipped on the radio in Ocean City, NJ.I did a band scan and was reminded of the fly-over status that New Jersey is stuck with. With radio powerhouse markets on each side of the state they are left with a lot of spill-over.

At the bottom of the dial 88.1 WJPG and 89.9 WJGH simulcast religious talk 24/7. Right now WJGH has a construction permit to bump up the juice form 550 watts to 1500 which would leave the two stations coverage overlapping along the shore line. When I tuned in I could hear both airing some tepid country music. 92.7 WLOM-LP appears to be airing the same program as well but that could have been bleed. A little further up the dial 90.5 WXGN is airing christian rock. They've been on and off air since first constructed in 1996 at Eagle Academy School. The station was off air for most of 2012 due to funding problems. I never caught a station ID or a live DJ, but I did hear a very tasteful Hurricane Sandy ad.

But a chunk of the local radio dial isn't local. Since the sad sell-off of the New Jersey Public Radio chain 89.7 WNJN has simulcast Philadelphia's WHYY and of course 91.3 WRTQ is just a simulcast of WRTI from the same metro as it has since 1993. Up the dial I caught 94.3 WIBG airing oldies and 95.1 WAYV spinning CHR. Nothing new there in a long time. Those are some stable book ends there. 100.7 WZXL was playing the Offspring's "Self Esteem" which warranted a short stop. As a result of that I discovered today that band is still together and has released six albums since the last time I cared what they were up to. The last thing I caught on the FM dial was 103.7 WMGM giving away Alice in Chains tickets at an Electric Factory show in Philly.

Tuning into the MA band I was thrown at first catching the station tag line "Cool 98-3" on 1490 WBSS That's the ID for WTKU on the FM band. The Geator himself still has a gig there. This makes a little more sense when you know that both stations are owned by Longport media. It's a branding faux pas but who listens to AM anymore anyway?  WMIB-AM 1260 was rocking oldies as was 1400 WOND-AM. the rest of the week WOND airs New Talk so it was serendipity. 1020 WIBG-AM was running a strange Spanish tropical program. I am no expert in salsa but I know that Eminem isn't salsa. 

The following morning I caught Champ and Company on 1450 WPGG-AM. The crew was doing a Trivia bit. Very confident and very wrong callers kept calling in and trying to answer questions from half an hour earlier.. guessing wrong. But not just wrong hilariously wrong. Someone actually guessed the bailiff on Night Court was played by Al Martino! This has to be heard to be believed. And to think they only dropped their ESPN simulcast of 97.3 WENJ back in October 2012.