Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyro
No tuner here.......  |
Rob.......I'm taking it you consider radio boring. Believe it or not, I understand how a person can come to this mind-set. There is a lot of crap on the airwaves, and the ever intrusive drone of advertising. There are the restricted play lists of Billboard's top 20 played over and over. Also, the general creative content of a great deal of new music is so void of genuine talent as to make what is heard more noise than music. I get it.
What keeps my interest in radio piqued is the remaining broadcast jewels that are still out there, still producing interesting programming, and broadcast extremely clean and uncompressed signals. One has to search for these broadcasts, and often they are easier to find at night time than during the day when eveyr other broadcaster's transmitters are cranked full tilt. After sunset the largest majority of radio stations are required to lower their broadcast power and some even have to alter the antenna patterns. It is during these hours between sunset and sunrise that many other stations, drowned out during the day, are able to come through, especially for those of us with high quality tuners and outside mounted antennas. I am a big fan of a jazz broadcast that only happens after 11:00pm broadcast from a PBS station over 50 miles from me. During the day I can barley tune the station, but at night it comes in sweet and clear.
Listening to radio for me is a bit of a passion, and is an additional hobby I enjoy. I also search the airwaves using shortwave, long-wave, and all band receivers, all with outside antennas. So DXing up and down the dial is a sport for me, and there are times when the rewards for the time and effort are remarkable. I often listen to an English speaking broadcast from China, and enjoy Radio Havana broadcast from Cuba. Radio is a blast.
Listening to a tuner can be great fun, but I also realize it can be boring, offensive, and irritating with so many cookie cutter formats that are pushed in our face by corporate broadcasters whose target is more advertising dollars. When the FCC lifted its ban on the maximum number of radio and television stations any one company could own, and corporations like Clear Channel and their like began purchasing every station they could get their greedy corporate claws into, the quality of programming, signal integrity, and the public interest went down the drain. Despite this, there are still privately held radio stations, and even some public radio stations that are programming for a discriminating audience, and broadcasting excellent signals. You just have to hunt for them. It's worth it.