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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Van Hoy, who shares the following item from WFAA:
GAINESVILLE, Texas — A North Texas radio station that the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles determined had call letters that were too “vulgar” to put on a personalized license plate finally has those formerly vulgar letters proudly affixed to its one station vehicle.
It’s a victory thanks to a Gainesville-area lawmaker who decided a bit of common sense was in order.
Late last year KGAF station manager Steve Eberhart started the process, applying to have KGAF on a personalized license plate for their company van. The station has been a fixture in Gainesville since 1947. But in a modern world that sometimes communicates in OMGs, LOLs, IDKs and IMHOs, the state told him that KGAF might mean something, too.
“Well, I’ve been told that it’s an acronym or a slang for social media for ‘can’t give a (expletive),” Eberhart said. “But certainly we never intended that,” he told me several weeks ago. “I can assure you the people in 1947 did not intend for it to mean that!”[…]
Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio
Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors, William Lee, Stana Horzepa, Rich Cuff, and Marty for the following tips:
This iconic Los Angeles landmark has been emitting secret messages since it opened. However, only those with a keen eye for Morse code can decipher what they say.
It was the former president of Capitol Records, Alan Livingston, who got the idea to have the light on top of the building send out a signal in Morse code. The word chosen for this secret message was “Hollywood.” When the building opened in 1956, Samuel Morse’s granddaughter Leila Morse had the honor of turning the light on.
Some are interpreting this as meaning that – every – AM will be switching to digital leaving a Jillion AM only receivers with nothing to listen to (except for electrical gizmo noise). I give more credit than that to the owners of AM Radio Stations. I would highly doubt if any market would see all of their AM’s go digital. Perhaps in an ownership that had two AM’s it might make sense to have one of each.
[…]Other question is, what will the company that owns HD Radio (EXPERI) want to extract from the owner of an AM station that’s willing to put everything on the line and go all digital?
The bottom line is there appears to be a lot of interest in this proposal. The FCC’s process will likely draw a number of comments, pro and con. This will be an interesting process to watch. I can say one thing, never did I ever dream that we would be debating this issue![…]
Numbers stations—shortwave radio transmissions of monotone coded messages—are inherently creepy. But call sign UVB-76 has outcreeped them all by playing the same jolting tone from Russia since 1982. Similar broadcasts are useful for sending messages where snoops might intercept digital comms, so “the Buzzer” could simply assist spies. But it plays far fewer words and digits than confirmed espionage outlets, so some suspect it’s a science project that bounces radio waves off the ionosphere to detect solar flares. The most intriguing theory posits that it’s a doomsday device that will go silent should Russia suffer a nuclear attack, thus triggering retaliation.
My theory is that these mysterious sounds are actually the intro to a Pink Floyd song, possibly from their 1969 album Ummagumma. Because the early Floyd albums, before Dark Side of the Moon, are no longer heard on-air, the Russians stole this music knowing we’d never notice. Ooh, gotta go… I hear the black helicopters coming…[…]
When iHeartMedia announced this month it would fire hundreds of workers across the country, the radio conglomerate said the restructuring was critical to take advantage of its “significant investments … in technology and artificial intelligence.” In a companywide email, chief executive Bob Pittman said the “employee dislocation” was “the unfortunate price we pay to modernize the company.”
But laid-off employees like D’Edwin “Big Kosh” Walton, who made $12 an hour as an on-air personality for the Columbus, Ohio, hip-hop station 106.7 the Beat, don’t buy it. Walton doesn’t blame the cuts on a computer; he blames them on the company’s top executives, whose “coldblooded, calculated move” cost people their jobs.[…]
Amateur radio enthusiasts have proved themselves useful during the recent bushfires after traditional telecommunication channels broke down.
Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is a skill and international hobby whereby enthusiasts use specific radio frequencies to communicate with each other.
In Australia, users must complete an exam to obtain a license through the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
It was volunteers with these skills who were called in to assist during the recent New South Wales bushfires.
Neil Fallshaw is vice-president of WICEN NSW Communications, a group of volunteers with amateur radio licenses who can help in emergency situations.
He said about 30 members provided a temporary radio system in the Bega, Cobargo, Narooma, and Bermagui areas after some of the local radio infrastructure was damaged or had lost power.
“We deployed one of our radio repeaters on the mountains. We put a radio repeater system on that mountain to cover a portion of the south coast,” Mr Fallshaw said.
He said that radio system assisted the NSW Volunteer Rescue Association and Bega Valley Shire Council staff to communicate from bushfire-affected towns like Bermagui and Cobargo.
“They normally use just mobile phones, but the mobile phones in the area were down because of fire damage,” Mr Fallshaw said.[…]
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares the following note posted by Paul McClane at Radio World:
For those who want to sound off to the FCC about using all-digital on the AM band — either “fer it” or “agin it” —- the comment deadlines now are set.
Comments are due March 9, reply comments are due April 6.
As RW has reported, the FCC recently released a notice of proposed rulemaking to establish rules governing all-digital broadcasting by AM radio stations in the United States.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill (WD9EQD), who writes:
You probably have already seen this, but from The ARRL Letter, November 21, 2019:
Art Donahue, W1AWX, of Franklin, Massachusetts, has posted his “Tribute to a Century of Broadcasting” video in recognition of the centennial of formal radio broadcasts. The video features a complete scan of the AM broadcast band (530 – 1700 kHz), with station IDs for all 118 AM radio channels.
It was a lot of fun to watch the video, hear the on-air id checks, and compare what he heard to the list of stations that I have heard.
Thanks for sharing this, Bill–I missed reading about this in the newsletter. This goes to show you that the AM dial is chock-full of stations here in North America. Those who complain that it’s “dead” simply aren’t listening.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bruce Atchison, who who shares this short video from the early 1980s showing a glimpse inside Radio Venceremos:
Radio Venceremos (Spanish; in English, “‘We Shall Overcome’ Radio”) was an ‘underground’ radio network of the anti-government Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) during the Salvadoran Civil War. The station “specialized in ideological propaganda, acerbic commentary, and pointed ridicule of the government”. The radio station was founded by Carlos Henríquez Consalvi (Santiago).
Despite the end of the war in 1992, the network continues to broadcast. The war years of the station and its national and international influence were documented in the Spanish-language book Las mil y una historias de radio Venceremos and its English translation, Rebel radio: the story of El Salvador’s Radio Venceremos, by the author José Ignacio López Vigil (translator: Mark Fried), a book recorded by the American Library of Congress. An exhibit honoring Radio Venceremos, including a studio room with original equipment, forms a prominent part of the Museum of the Revolution in Perquín, Morazán, El Salvador.
I also found this film on YouTube (The Radio Venceremos Story) which sheds a little more light on the station. The recording is low-resolution, but the subtitles are legible:
(Source: The Guardian via BJ Leiderman and Kris Partridge)
America’s rural radio stations are vanishing – and taking the country’s soul with them
When I arrive at the radio station, Mark Lucke is standing in the doorway, looking out at the spitting, winter rain. He’s slim and stoic, with sad, almost haunted, eyes. The first thing he asks is if I’d like to see “the dungeon”. Who wouldn’t?
Lucke pulls on a Steeler’s jacket and a baseball cap over brown hair that falls halfway down his back, and leads me across the five-acre yard. Out here, 90 miles east of Tucson, the desert is a long sweep of brush the color of beach sand. Lucke seems to slip through the rainy day like a ghost.
The radio station, whose call letters are KHIL, has long been the daily soundtrack for this frontier town (population 3,500) that prides itself on its cowboy culture and quiet pace of life. But six decades after the founding of the station, the property is in foreclosure, with utility disconnect notices coming nearly every month.
Small-town radio is fizzling nationwide, as stations struggle to attract advertisement dollars. And as station owners are forced to sell, media conglomerates snap up rural frequencies for rock-bottom prices, for the sole purpose of relocating them to urban areas. In a more affluent market, they can be flipped for a higher price. With limited frequencies available, larger broadcasters purchase as many as possible – especially those higher on the dial – in a race not dissimilar to a real estate grab.[…]
