Antidote for Radio Mediocrity

I grew up in a fair sized city. At one time (circa 1979) there were close to 15 AM stations and approximately 15 FM stations local to the area. A good receiver could pick up a few more AM stations outside of the metro area. At night most of the local AMs would sign-off, but the skies opened and I could catch the 1-A stations from as far west as Denver.

Each and every station had a distinct tone. I spent many a Summer just sitting with a radio in my lap, tuning up and down the dial. I got to where I could identify a station just by the way it sounded, regardless of the programming or personality.

Radio (and a Rand McNally road atlas) opened up my world.

My love affair with broadcast radio ended sometime with my arrival in Dayton. In short, Dayton radio sucks. The variety isn't there. Hell, half of them are so programmed that you can tell the time of day by the song - "Oh, 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot' is on. It must be 3:00 P.M."

The one or two good music stations here are cluttered with commercials. Car dealer commercials. Screaming-in-your-face car dealer commercials. It's so bad that I've sought sonic refuge at the classical music station when I drive.

At home I would limit myself to my meager music collection. The Pareto principle applies - 80% of what I listen to comes from just 20% of the CDs in my collection.

But there is a wealth of good, new music out there. And there is value in having a professional music critic, in the guise of a disk jockey, selecting and playing the new with the old. Unfortunately, the radio personalities of today are pretty much automatons. They play what they're told to play, say what they're told to say. A kind of living hell, if you ask me. (And your listeners aren't happy, either.)

The antidote to this radio miasma is the internet.

At about New Castle, Indiana, westbound on I-70, I could pick up WTTS at 92.3 MHz on the FM dial. It would be the most pleasant radio I'd hear until I reached Saint Louis. I figured with just a 175-foot tower on top of my apartment building and a 21-element Yagi aimed west, I could pick them up full time.

Which is to say, while in Dayton I was stuck with Dayton radio. Dayton radio sucks.

But within the past month I finally got a broadband (read: fast) connection to the internet. And oh! What joy to discover that WTTS has streaming audio. It's the actual broadcast audio, although they replace some commercials with instrumental music (why?).

I suspect at some point the owner will have no choice but to charge for all those folks listening via the internet. And I suspect at that point I'll have to fork over some cash to them. But for now it's free. And I'm enjoying music "radio" again.

If your musical tastes grew up in the 80's, when rock became fun and new and innovative again, when MTV would follow The GoGos with Quiet Riot, then you just might find WTTS an enjoyable listen.