Strange Radio Stations….

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mr natural

mr natural

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1 night when I was a kid, the radio got stuck on 2 stations at once. I am not even sure that’s possible. The radio was on its way out so maybe the antenna insulation was frayed or something. 1 station had an evangelical preacher preaching hellfire and brimstone. The other station was Jamaican dancehall. It would crossfade randomly like the 2 stations were fighting and sometimes both would be going at the same time. I taped about 10 minutes before the phenomenon stopped. That tape had some crazy stuff on it including part of a thunderstorm I taped in stereo, Maggot Brain by Funkadelic, some Mahavishnu Orchestra and solo John Renbourn off of college radio and just random crap. I wish I still had that tape.
 
RoscoeElegante

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When I was about 10, I inherited--or rather, swiped--the old early-'60s Admiral tabletop radio that was gathering dust in the garage. My seriously toxic big brother was away a lot that summer, so I had our room to myself. I loved, just loved, lying in bed and listening to the distant AM stations slowly become clear. Those exotic Big City names: Toledo, Cleveland, Cincinnati. Then Fort Wayne, Des Moines, Detroit, Milwaukee, and...Chicago. A few times, even Memphis, St. Louis, and Tupelo. Was that even in America? And who the heck is this Beelzebub bub that I'm supposed to be so worried about? And sins of the flesh--I really could look forward to repenting of those one day?

On that day, I'd go to those gorgeous places! Until then, the radio brought me there. Sermons, news, weather, the vivid gumbo of music, and the glorious baseball games, washing in like surf sounds, with their rhythms of excitement and lull, fan-yowps like gull cries, then whoosing away like the tides, only to come back if I just waited it out. I'd drift off toward sleep on a raft of visions.

And ZAP!, would wake right back up. The radio had been stashed 'cause its tuning dial's string had busted, and you had to reach inside the back of it to move the dial. When I'd drift off, my hand would slip onto something very angry.

That may explain many of my flaws. But it was worth it. Especially when the French-language CBC would come in. "RAH-dey-oh Ca-na-DAH." If that was Canada, I was ready to go. How could such beautiful sounds even be a language?

Once my brother re-colonized our room, I just slept downstairs on the couch. Between a bed's comfort and a cramped couch's late-night radio stations, I would take the clonk of foul balls ricocheting near Tiger Stadium's Ernie Harwell--"That one sure came our way"--any time.
 
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archetype

archetype

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In Indianapolis, IN in the 70s we could very occasionally receive an NYC AM jazz station, faintly, but listenable. The night DJ could win the Laid Back Award, easily. A song would play out, then... dead air for a few minutes. He'd show up again and say "Sorry. I was in the can." He'd be talking and cueing up a record and say "Uh. Hold on. I gotta find my smokes." and be gone for minutes.
 
Frisco 57

Frisco 57

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"Andy", was one of my son's friends and one of the kids that used to hang around our house when they were all in high school. These days, She has her own internet one hour radio show from Portland call "Did You Hear That?"

These "high school kids" are now in their 40's so It's fun to tune in and hear her voice and song selection. There's a chat line connected to her show and we've communicated during her one hour show. Andy gave me a nice shout out and referenced a band I was in back in the day.

Thanks Andy, Great show!
 
2HBStrat

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bowman

bowman

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My experience a a kid was a bit like the one Roscoe described above. I had a 2-speaker tube table radio in my room- AM - and it was always on. I’d listen at night to every station I could, and I kept a log of every station’s call letters and frequency and the city it was in on a yellow legal pad. I had dozens and dozens of stations listed. We had a TV antenna on our chimney on the roof, and I knew that the wire for it went through my bedroom wall on the way to the living room downstairs. I disconnected the built-in AM antenna in the radio, cut a hole in the wall, and tapped into the TV antenna instead - instantly I started to get stations drifting in and out from places like Detroit and Chicago. A long way from Massachusetts. I thought it was so cool. One day my dad saw the hole in the wall with the wire coming out of it. While he was getting mad, I told him what it was for. He paused and said, “Good idea. If your mother sees it, I’m gonna tell her I didn’t know.” Dad was a gadget-loving electrician, and the basement workshop was full of TV and radio parts and other cool stuff. We were all encouraged to solder and connect those things together however we thought they should go, to learn, so I think he was actually proud of me for cutting open the wall.
 
Toto'sDad

Toto'sDad

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trandy9850 said:
I just found this one…it’s nothing but theatre organ music 24/7.


I didn’t know that something like this would appeal to a lot of people…goes to show what I know.

I recently downloaded the radio.garden app…been having a ball with it as I explore the world’s radio stations.
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Somewhere, somehow, sometime, I ran across that thing, or its cousin! Nothing but the top one hundred played at your local mortuary!
 
Peegoo

Peegoo

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Get yourself an SDR kit (dongle and antenna) and you can reel in any radio signal and listen to it on a computer--from CW to HF, short wave, to VHF, TV, CBs, UHF, to you name it. About $50 or so for a USB dongle and an antenna. Download a freeware program called SDRsharp and you're up and running.
 
edvard

edvard

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Back in the day, we had a college radio station that would barely come in, and sometimes you'd hear the night time DJ play punk rock and weird metal when such a thing wasn't just a Youtube search away, and the daytime DJs played crazy, but more laid-back stuff and gave me my first taste of "alternative" music back in the mid-80s when such a thing was just bubbling under the surface. These days when I want to explore un-planned musical vistas, I go to WFMU.org. I just heard an electro-latin version of "The Sound of Silence". Crazy, man, crazy!

WFMU-FM 91.1/Jersey City, NJ; 90.1/Hudson Valley, NY

wfmu.org wfmu.org
 
Toto'sDad

Toto'sDad

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trandy9850 said:
Well…the station is in Elk Grove, Ca….just 246 miles from you. ;)
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I don't remember for sure, but when I read about the station, I somehow associated listening to it in a truck. That makes perfect sense since I used to run north a lot when hauling heavy equipment. Probably heard it then. The thing I remember most was how creepy it was. I don't think it was one of my favorites! ;)
 
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