'LEARN TO CODE', they said -- 142K Tech layoffs look like a broken promise

I clearly remember the Great Recession, which happened after the real estate crash of 2008-2009.  I had just been laid off in 2006-2007, and when the big Crash happened, I was in college, for the second time, and after 2010 I was working semi-regular in the legal industry through the rest of the Recession.

Many of my boss's clients during the 2010's were bankruptcy cases. We helped a lot of people get back on their feet again.

I also remember driving down the main street of my city during the early to mid-2010's and seeing half of the windows boarded up or covered by illustrations and posters. There were a lot of vacant buildings and empty storefronts, and that only started changing at the end of that decade.

Then, of course, there was a small economic boom before the Pandemic hit.

The lingering nature of the Great Recession in many parts of the US was not widely publicized, for some reason. But there were some articles by some US and UK newspapers concerning the delayed Recovery -- especially in the Rust Belt and in parts of the South, as well as Appalachia and the Rural Western US. Many media observers said that some career fields that were slammed by the Great Recession would never return -- especially coal industry jobs, and other legacy fields like manufacturing, lumbering, mining, and a lot of energy production.

What were all those laid off workers supposed to do?

"Learn to Code," they said.

Just deal with the fact your job is never coming back, go to school, and "Learn to Code."

After all, computer tech is growing, and those jobs will be limitless. Computers and the internet are the future. There will always be jobs in those fields.

Or so they said.

In other words, all those laid off energy, manufacturing, and service workers -- especially those in legacy fields -- were supposed to go to tech school or college and get 'retraining', and the buzz phrase in the 2010's -- just 10 years ago, really -- was 'Learn to Code', learn how to program computer apps, web services, websites, and computer systems.

Being laid off on New Year's Eve 2006, I found out the hard way just how difficult it can be to find employment in your field when your field of work is in decline. According to NAICS -- the job statistic part of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics -- my field was 'Sound Engineering'. And thanks to computer tech taking over in Radio and Recording, the numbers of 'Sound Engineers' in the US was in decline. 

The field of 'Sound Engineering' simply was NOT predicted to increase in numbers. It's one reason that when I went back to college, I had to choose the paralegal field because it most fit my aptitude and previous schooling, and because I didn't have the math capability to 'learn to code' or get into a tech field.

That said, when I kept hearing politicians and news media pundits tell laid off workers that they just needed to "Learn to Code", I was suspicious, because nothing seems guaranteed in this world, especially with job markets. I had learned that in Radio.

After all, when I went to college the first time around in the 1980's, Radio, TV, and Newspapers were supposed to be growing fields that would never suffer massive job losses. It only took around 25 years for those fields to turn into disappearing, 'legacy' fields where annual layoffs are a normal thing. Newspapers folded by the thousands in just one year in 2022. The number of journalists in the US right now is around 10% of what the number was in 1986, when I graduated from the University.

And the number of journalists drops every year now. It's the same in Radio and TV.

LEARN TO CODE -- THEN WE'LL LAY YOU OFF

So -- how did this "Learn to Code" thing turn out?

Well, not so good after all, it seems.

Many of America's biggest tech firms are announcing massive layoffs that make those in Radio look pale. Some estimates of last year's tech layoffs amounted to 245,000 tech workers. 

This year, so far, 142,000 layoffs in Tech have been announced. That is 387,000 tech jobs either lost, or about to be lost, in just a year and a half.

You can read about this here, on Yahoo! News.:

https://tech.yahoo.com/general/article/tech-layoffs-2026-over-142000-jobs-cut-at-meta-linkedin-wix-webflow-and-more-144545455.html

Well known Tech companies like Meta (Facebook & Instagram), LinkedIn, Intuit, Amazon, Microsoft, Wix, CloudFlare, PayPal, Cisco, Coinbase, GM, Nike, Snapchat, GoPro, Vimeo, Disney, Oracle, T-Mobile, Epic Games, and Ubisoft have all announced layoffs scheduled for this year.

Although the US economy has been hit by a war-related boost in energy prices and some industries were hit by the tariffs that were enacted in the Spring of 2025, most of these Tech companies are saying that the adoption of AI is the reason for most of their layoffs.

AI WAS PREDICTED TO KILL JOBS -- in the 2010's, No One Listened

AI was forecast long ago to be a problem for the American worker. I remember reading articles in the newspapers back in 2012, 2013, and 2014 about how AI was going to make 50% of the workforce redundant within 50 years.

There were a lot of people back then saying that would not be true -- AI would just be another form of Tech, and Tech companies would always need people to program the AI.

In other words, "Learn to Code."

How's that working out, folks? Not too good.

Needless to say -- I really feel for all the people being laid off. 

Trust me: I know how that feels. 

AI IS KILLING SELF-PUBLISHING FOR A LOT OF AUTHORS

I've said here before that I am an independent author. I don't make much, if any, money from my eBooks, but I do have a strong connection to the independent author forums and author social media, and track what goes on in independent authoring and publishing.

And some independent, eBook authors online are complaining that AI-written books are literally killing their incomes. All the AI competition -- AI-written books, introduced by the hundreds every week, all with AI-produced covers, flooding the eBook marketplace, making eBooks written by REAL authors more and more invisible -- it's killing self-published authors books and revenues.

And this sort of trend is coming to EVERY CONTENT FIELD, and probably most career fields. 

AI has already made photographers, illustrators, journalists, writers, authors, voice talent, models, actors, editors, paralegals, telemarketers, secretaries, receptionists, musicians, video producers, clerical workers, and some educators redundant. And the job losses from AI are just starting.

Lawyers, teachers, analysts, researchers, agents of all types, librarians, professors, historians, middle level managers -- all these career fields and more may be next in line for the AI job loss chopping block.

And if you add in the increase of AI programmed robots in completely automated factories -- and similar robotics-related job losses -- there won't be much left for human employment.

And the AI losses right now are hitting the Tech field, the field that everyone said would always be immune to layoffs and job-killing AI.

So how do we fix this problem? Can we?

I really don't know. But it bothers me to see this happen. Like I said, I was laid off in 2006. My Radio job never came back. My old newspaper job I had in the 80's never came back. If I were to try to find new employment in the legal field tomorrow, I doubt there are jobs available. If I were depending on income from my eBook sales, I'm sure I'd be feeling the pinch from AI-produced competition.

We're in a new era, folks, and it doesn't look all that pretty. And sometimes this merry-go-round of get laid off / get retraining / get laid off again / get more retraining just looks more and more like a broken promise.

IN OTHER LIFE....

I just paid off the last of my late mother's debts. That's a big load of rocks off my shoulders. The weather's been a bit better. My neighbor, who is a mechanic, moved back in across the street with his wife and kids, so hopefully my Lincoln Continental can get fixed and back to 100% so I can drive around a bit once more. It runs. I just need it to run dependably.

I added about 90-100 feet (30 meters, roughly) to my shortwave antenna on the 19th of May, and 25th of May, by running a spool of wire outside to my hawthorn tree. At first I added about 50-60 feet, and then I added some more a few nights later. I know have about 7-8 dbu additional signal strength for my radios.

It's my way of preparing for the Solar Minimum, I guess. Right now there is a Morse Code, ham radio contest going on. I heard the Chatham Islands this morning -- a station called ZL7IO. The Chatham Islands are a part of New Zealand, and they're right next to the International Date Line. Pretty cool to hear, even if it was just Morse Code.

My XHDATA D808 radio is really good with Morse Code, actually. It's also great for MW and LW. It has Airband, which is useful for current, local weather reports from the Renton Airport. FM is good, but I'm not an FM DXer, so I can't say how DX-worthy the FM is on the D808. But the other bands really pull in the signals well.

I've still been riding my bike at nights, when it's cool and quiet out. And I'm still playing my bagpipes, trying to learn an old tune called Blue Bonnets Over The Border. I always wanted to learn it, but never thought I could. I've got it about 80-90% down.

Now it's back to writing my next eBook which won't sell because of AI. :-)

Enough doom and gloom. Here's some 2010's pop to brighten your day. Andy Grammer put out this hit in 2010, right after the Great Recession was kicking in big time. It's a great song. I first heard it on Radio Disney in 2011. Keep Your Head Up!

I miss the early 2010's. Yeah, the economy was still crap, but the pop music was so good, and it was so upbeat and fun.

Until next time, my friends,

Peace.

C.C. -- Sunday, May 31st, 2026.

GM's Removing HD Radio from Car Soundsystems Not Good for HD, or Radio

My Sangean HDR-16, shown playing local rock station KISW-FM's HD2 channel that no longer exists: Their Metal Militia channel, which was taken off the air over 2 years ago. I probably took this pic in 2018 or 2019.

HD Radio was, and is a great idea, that has suffered through lack of promotion, and indifference by the Radio industry. Now it appears that HD Radio is taking another big hit -- it may not be available in some GM vehicles in the near future. If this pulling the plug on HD Radio is followed by other automakers, it won't bode well for Radio.

Broadcasters, especially AM Radio station owners, took a hit when some automakers decided to install auto, dashboard soundsystems without AM radio capability. And that caused a bill to be written in US Congress to mandate AM radio in cars. 

That bipartisan bill is still in never-ending limbo in Congress.

Well, now it looks like Radio is taking another hit from the auto industry: GM has announced it will stop installing HD Radio capable radios in its dashboard soundsystems. It is not presently known if any other US carmaker is thinking of doing the same thing.

Here is an InsideRadio article on it.:

https://www.insideradio.com/free/gm-s-hd-radio-retreat-highlights-growing-dashboard-challenge-for-radio/article_8a249ed3-3b56-417b-a30e-0c63898d17b6.html

Being that one third (or more) of all Radio listening is in the vehicle, this is worrisome news for Radio companies and Radio fans. Not all Radio people are gung-ho about HD Radio technology, but it does sound good, both on AM and FM, and on FM you get the extra channels (that is -- if the station has HD2's and HD3's).

The issue isn't really just HD. It's worrisome for Radio in general, because who knows when FM and AM radio will be removed from car soundsystems? After all, the modern car is turning gradually into an AI bot. I'm not exaggerating by much -- there have been reports online about new vehicles having surveillance capabilities, where they will monitor the drivers, including tracking your eye movements. 

You can read about that here.:

https://autos.yahoo.com/policy-and-environment/articles/every-car-could-become-surveillance-164837608.html

That turning of cars into spyware-on-wheels was written into the 2021 Infrastructure Act, passed by US Congress that year. It just hasn't been implemented yet.

And don't forget that some automakers have reportedly shared driving data and other data with who knows? 

And GM apparently has already pulled the plug on Apple CarPlay and the Android Auto app, forcing GM owners to use a GM app that comes with the dash system.

You can read about that here.:

https://www.cars.com/articles/gm-to-remove-apple-carplay-android-auto-from-future-vehicles-517813/

Many in the media believe that this is just the beginning of the era of your car being yet another AI bot-driven, data mining operation and pay-to-play content provider. In other words, the auto industry, knowing that the dash system is up front and center in cars and trucks, is slowly switching all in-vehicle entertainment to a subscription model.

They -- like everyone else, it seems -- want you to subscribe to get content.

I tell ya. I get sick of reading those increasingly annoying words "content" and "subscription model". They're so last decade. Unfortunately, those words and phrases are becoming an all-encompassing reality.

What's more disturbing, however, is moves by some in government to mandate that your vehicle spies on you, to where it possibly could even pull you over to the side of the road and switch off your vehicle -- if the AI bot determines you're not driving "safely" enough. Now, some of these reports may contain a certain amount of paranoia. But just look at the world around you -- and see how much that everyone of us is under surveillance, be it our phone use, devices with cameras and microphones, and even 'smart cars' tracking our data.

I don't have a new vehicle, personally. But would I want a car or truck that spies on me, and then sells my data to other people? Not on your life.

I'm not personally surprised that these surveillance and peeping-tom like moves are taking place in many industries. Spyware is power. That's why the hackers and malware creators came up with spyware back in the 90's and 00's. Now legitimate businesses and industries are going in that direction. Your phone probably can spy on you. Your smart TV can probably spy on you. Many apps you use can probably spy on you. So now your car will be able to spy on you also.

As one 'expert' I saw interviewed on a YouTube channel stated about a month and a half ago, we are entering a world where the dominant economic model is 'surveillance capitalism'.

BACK TO THE SUBJECT AT HAND: HD RADIO

HD Radio was a terrific idea. I still think it has a lot of potential. It wasn't released effectively, the technology was under patent, and a lot of broadcasters don't want to pay the subscription fees to go HD. But most of the big FMs in my city, Seattle, have HD1's (the main channel in HD mode). And it sounds good.

HD's peak seemed to be the 2010's. When I got my first HD Radio in 2017 there were two HD AM's and nearly every commercial and large non-commercial FM had HD, as well as an HD2 or HD3. By 2018 the number started to dwindle (that's the year Radio Disney yanked all their HD2's from stations all over the US). And after the Pandemic hit, the number dwindled even further (local station KISW pulled the plug on their Metal Militia HD2 channal, and local country station KKWF pulled the plug on their Delta Blues HD2, and the local NPR station pulled their BBC HD2 or 3).

So, what is the future of HD Radio? If GM indeed pulls the plug on HD Radio in GM cars and trucks, that's not the end of the world. They may be the biggest US automaker, but they do not sell most of the new cars in the US. Here we have many different carmakers selling vehicles -- Toyota, Subaru, Honda, Hyundai, Ford, Mercedes, BMW, Tesla -- there are many brands of vehicles for sale in the US.

GM has about 17% of the US new car market. So this new move affects only 17% or so of new cars in the US. 

But GM's dropping HD is probably the shot across the bow. Soon after that it may be AM radio (which has already been dropped by some carmakers), FM radio, and other soundsystem features that get the chopping block. There may come a time you won't be able to Bluetooth your phone into the car system. And GM may only be the first company to implement these sorts of changes in dashboard soundsystem access.

Think about it: if you Bluetooth your phone into the car soundsystem, no one is getting paid for the use of that service. That could be seen as leaving money on the table for a company that put a fancy looking soundsystem and screen on your dashboard.

This is mentioned in the Cars.com story I have linked earlier in this article. Under the heading "What's This Really About?" the writer mentions that automakers can make more money off of forcing you to use their own proprietary music and entertainment playing systems, and they also can make money off of the user data.

Remember, we are entering an age where everything is "content", everything has a subscription price attached to it, it all may spy on you, and -- as the 'expert' on YouTube said -- we're in an era of 'surveillance capitalism'.

All this said, this move is bad for HD Radio, and it's bad for Radio in general. Radio is in the midst of a struggle to survive in a world where "legacy" media's revenues, listener numbers, viewer numbers -- and in the case of newspapers, readership numbers -- are all dropping. It's tough to be in Radio these days. 

So any chipping away of Radio from the place where one third of listening takes place -- i.e. the car -- is bad for Radio. Such a move shows how little importance Radio is seen to have these days, when everything audio is increasingly online and streaming-based. And streaming, my friends, that is where the money is anymore.

As for my own use of HD Radio, I don't listen to it much anymore, ever since the Metal Militia channel was yanked from KISW's HD2. Local Classical FM station KING has a Christmas Classical Music HD3, and I sometimes listen to that -- it's a wide mix of choral, symphonic, and chamber music, all Christmas hymns, some of them dating back to the baroque era. 

But HD Radio seems to have been this awesome idea whose time has come and gone. 

I remember when it was being rolled out, in the mid 2000's. I was still working in the Radio industry, and the people running the company I worked for were excited about the idea of digital radio delivery, and the idea of stations having multiple channels -- HD2's and HD3's. It would make for more variety and service to the Radio listener -- and, naturally, more channels for the programmers (at the format factory I worked at) to program.

But it never took off, really. The radios were expensive, you couldn't really hear the HD that well inside the box stores where the radios were sold, and apparently some radio stations never could figure out a way to monetize HD Radio very well.

And it seemed that the stations didn't really promote the HD2's and HD3's very well, either. KISW never really pushed their Metal Militia channel on their website, for example. And the Metal Militia channel was great -- it was an awesome mix of heavy metal from Gojira to Mudvayne to GNR to System Of A Down toSlipknot to Disturbed to Arch Enemy to a lot of other metal bands in different metal genres.

Then the plug was pulled.

It seems to be yet another instance of American Radio holding out a technology that has a lot of promise, and then dropping the ball.

Such is the case of the industry I worked in for 20 years.

And with that, my friends, 

Peace.

C.C., May 16th, 2026.

Addendum, May 28th, 2026:

I added a short paragraph about cars being turned into spyware-on-wheels -- I had not included the fact that the law mandating the spyware in cars was part of the 2021 Infrastructure Act, passed by Congress that year.

American Radio Giant IHeartMedia lays off more Radio workers in latest round

In Radio, there's an old adage that 'everyone gets fired sooner or later'. 

For years it was a running joke at radio. I used to hear 'I was fired' stories a lot during my 20 year stint in the industry.

When I lost my first radio job -- I was an intern at a local classic rocker in October-December of 1987 -- the Program Director said "Hey, don't worry. Radio people won't think you're bad news because you got fired. I got fired from my first radio job, too!"

It just happens in Radio. 

Lately, it's been happening more and more.

The problem is that with the financial woes hitting my former career field lately, layoffs and 'Reductions-in-Force' are getting more and more frequent. And this time it's apparently hitting a lot of middle management and sales people -- including some programmers -- at American radio media giant IHeart.

IHeartMedia has announced a series of layoffs that hit various operations all over the US. Even a programmer in Seattle (at Sports radio station KJR-FM) is being laid off.

Here's a couple articles from online media newspaper Barrett Media.:

https://barrettmedia.com/2026/04/08/iheartmedia-begins-round-of-layoffs-affecting-management-sales-staffs/

https://barrettmedia.com/2026/04/15/marc-james-departs-kjr-as-iheartmedia-continues-ongoing-layoffs/

Other people at IHeart stations are being let go, including some air talent. It's like February 2020 all over again -- seeing social media posts by morning DJ's and the like who are saying good bye to their loyal and faithful listeners.

Here's a news story about a veteran morning host in Connecticut who's being let go.:

https://www.ctinsider.com/news/article/allison-demers-layoff-ct-radio-whcn-22208013.php

It's all very sad, really. The vast majority of those laid off will never work in Radio again.

A lot of us who used to work in the industry look at this debacle with a mixture of sarcasm and chagrin. Many of us -- who no longer work in Radio -- know exactly how it feels to be laid off, and never work in Radio again. Every guy I was laid off with -- all seven of us, when they eliminated our entire department in December of 2006 -- never worked in Radio again. 

That's the chagrin part.

The sarcasm part? That's when you read of yet another round of layoffs at a radio company and you wonder if there is anybody left at that company to lay off.

IHeartMedia has a mixed reputation in Radio. Many credit the company for trying to move their operations online, where the future seems to lie. The IHeartRadio online platform has been a success. 

But many Radio fans also dislike the company for the consolidation, homogenization, and sometimes heartless appearing actions, like when the company got rid of 10% of its radio staff in early 2020 -- including many DJ's and airstaff who loved their jobs, and found themselves laid off, with little chance of working in Radio ever again.

Some of the social media posts by laid off DJ's were heartrending. They were working at a dream job, relating to people, connecting with their communities, and -- as far as many of them knew -- they were still getting ratings.

Then the axe came down.

To many who used to work in Radio, these rounds of layoffs that seem to occur every year -- not just at IHeart, but at the other big American Radio companies too -- are just another indicator of the downward slide that the industry is taking. 

Less people on the airwaves, more automation, less local content, and the medium seems less and less personable.

Although the Radio industry is hitting some hard times, there still are a lot of cool and diverse radio stations on the night time airwaves. KBBR 1340, out of North Bend, Oregon is one of them. KBBR plays an interesting mix of oldies and classic hits. North Band, and its sister city, Coos Bay, are on the Southern Oregon Coast, where the weather is in the mid 60's F year around.

IHeart has famously adopted an anti-AI stance, with commercial announcements and some PR releases announcing that the company is anti-AI, and that the voices and songs you hear on their stations are 100 percent human.

Now the jokes about this latest round of layoffs is 'where are the humans? They're all being laid off!' and the like.

However, there is a revenue problem that is behind a lot of these layoffs.

One other large American radio company, Cumulus, is going through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. During the proceedings, Cumulus reported that its broadcast radio revenues declined 15.9% in 2025. Network revenue (including WestwoodOne) was down 22.5%; Advertising revenue from Radio was down 12.9%. The company as a whole lost $200 Million last year.

Here's a report on Cumulus's revenue declines from RadioInk.:

https://radioink.com/2026/04/10/cumulus-reports-200m-loss-for-2025-as-chapter-11-continues/

The drops in broadcast radio, spot advertising, and network revenues are indicators that Radio's revenues, industry wide, aren't in terrific shape. Many who work in the business side of Radio believe that what Cumulus is facing isn't a rarity. After all, CBS Radio News is being eliminated because of revenue losses.

Online there are plenty of folks who claim that these nosedives in revenue are because Radio isn't 'live and local' anymore, or because the music stations have short playlists, or because big Radio companies like IHeart 'ruined radio'.

The fact is the internet has damaged radio. There is no getting around that. I have no idea what Radio is going to sound like in 2036, but my guess is that there will be even less human voices on the airwaves, more syndication and consolidation, and less AM and less FM stations on the airwaves. 

In fact, the number of Radio stations in the US continues to decline. RadioInk reports that even FM is in decline -- in the past four months 19 commercial FM stations in the US shut down (there were 32 AM stations shut down during the same three month period).

https://radioink.com/2026/04/10/radio-loses-ground-in-q1-2026-as-license-decline-continues/

These station shutdowns and the recent layoffs are just more symptoms of the issues the Radio industry is facing. And Radio is not alone in this. Newspapers, Magazines, Broadcast and Cable TV -- all these media that used to be taken for granted as important and vital media are starting to feel the pinch.

The world is changing, folks. It's all internet content.

The Internet is killing Radio.

I'll end this with the most positive note I can: If you're a Radio fan, keep tuning those radios, and enjoy the fact that there are still stations on the night time airwaves to listen to.

Quit bitching and griping about the fact that it's not 'live and local', or that the stations don't play every one of your favorite songs. The industry is having money problems, and the listeners and advertisers have increasingly drifted online. TikTok, Instagram, X, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, et. al. are the new "radio". 

Online podcasts are the new 'talk radio', just as streaming is the new 'music radio'.

It's just the reality. 

Right now I'm going to return to my fiction writing, and listen to my GE Superadio 1, which sits near my writing desk in my den, and it is playing a bunch of stations on 1400 kHz. It's a wild mix of sports, Classic Hits, and a bunch of other stations all mixed in.

Until next time, my friends,

Peace.

C.C. -- April 16th, 2026.

Back to the World

A pic of my little pal Squeakers from 2018? I'm not sure. She was telling me that my guitar amp was now her chair. I still miss that cat.

Just a note to say hello again. I am not sure how long this new, cell system-based internet connection will hold up. Understandably, I do not trust tech companies. But so far it seems to work. It's a wireless internet company, and the modem is a fancy one.

Right now I'm also having to clear a lot of files off my computer, to make space for the endless, resource hogging updates, which seem to increase if you have faster internet.

Isn't tech fun?

I just noticed that my last blog post had no title. Which is weird, because the first thing I did while writing it was typing in a title up at the top of the page. The title obviously did not save. That is how undependable my internet connection was. I have since corrected it. It has a title now.

Nothing else is going on here. My Fuji Camera -- the one that fixed itself -- broke again. I put new batteries in it -- brand new, fresh AA's -- and it turned on and then froze. Once again, I have a Fuji camera that won't take pictures and is frozen with the lens extended, immobile. It's too bad, because it took great pictures. My trusty Nikon L32 still works. I just put a new SD card in it, so I hope to take some pics again soon.

The weather is slowly getting warmer. The trees still have not greened out fully on the hills. Usually they're green by April 5th, but the last few years -- as I've said on this blog several times now -- the trees have been late. Of course, being an SWL and MW radio DXer,  I'm intrigued by the possibility of a possible effect of the Solar Cycles on plant growth. I found an article a few years ago that suggested that Solar Cycles influence plant growth -- it was a university study from the 1970's, that showed a correlation between Solar Maximums and higher crop yields. A recent search on UV and plant growth brings up a few, hard to read articles that are somewhat inconclusive. Here is one of them.:

Editorial: Ultraviolet Radiation: Friend or Foe for Plants? - PMC

If UV affects plant growth, then perhaps the Sun's gradually and slightly diminishing UV output (UVA and UVB -- UVC, which is eUV, is absorbed by the ionosphere) may be part of the reason the trees have been late since 2017. Or it could also be something else that is completely unrelated to Solar activity. Correlation (late trees / Solar eUV diminishing) does not always equal causation.

Either way, I just hope that before the ionosphere dives to the bottom on us, there are a few more months of good conditions for SWL's and Long Distance MW listeners and DXers.

I have plans to put up a longer, outdoor antenna this Spring or Summer. It's just a matter of deciding where to put the wire, as I have plenty of wire. It will be temporary, but hopefully it will help as the Solar Minimum increases. I have good radios. Just need a bigger antenna to make up for what the Ionosphere isn't giving me. :-)

I'm closing this with a video, by the Australian, 70's glam rock band Hush. Hush were very popular in the mid-1970's Oz glam rock scene. I first heard them on Radio Australia, on 5995 kHz, around 2 a.m. in the morning my time. Radio Australia's Countdown program, hosted by Glynnis Dixon, played all the Oz bands from that scene -- AC/DC, Hush, Supernaut, Skyhooks, Sherbet, Dragon, Ted Mulry's Gang, the Angels, Redhouse, Pussyfoot, Air Supply, and a few others I've forgotten.

It was a great period for rock music. The ABC TV show Countdown sort of caused the entire Oz scene to explode, and Radio Australia's own Countdown show was an offshoot of that. Radio Australia's Countdown show had a lot of listeners in India and South Asia, as they'd write letters to Glynnis Dixon, asking her questions and making requests.

It was really fun listening, all on my transistor multiband AM-FM-SW radio and 60 feet (20 meters) of wire going from my bedroom window to the back fence.

Until next time, 

Peace.

C.C. -- April 12th, 2026.

 

STILL ALIVE AND WELL.... AGAIN

This is just a note to say hello again and I'm doing OK. I haven't posted anything in the past week or more for a couple reasons.

The first reason is the most important one. My internet and DSL connection has been spotty lately. I've had about 80 to 100 cut-offs over the past three weeks, where the DSL cuts off (and the internet along with it), and this is after I've had at least 7 tech visits -- to my house, the pedestal outside, and even the main pedestal in the middle of the neighborhood -- over the past 2-3 years.

The techs will sometimes try to install a new connector in my house's junction box, and claim it will solve the problems, because it has 'filters' in it. It doesn't fix anything. The company's AI bot / customer service reps will try to troubleshoot the line from their end -- it never fixes anything. Even a new drop line from the pole and pedestal outside to my house didn't improve anything for longer than a month.

The issue seems to be the phone company's infrastructure is decaying, and they aren't doing enough to keep it in good repair. The fact that much of their wiring is underground, and impossible to service, probably doesn't help. But I have friends who have cable and their internet connection also cuts off from time to time. Not as much as what I'm seeing, though.

I suppose 5G wireless is the only way to go?

Meanwhile, the pricing for my internet services has gone up by over 50 percent in the past 10 years, while the services I pay for have nosedived. I started getting outages right after the Pandemic hit, and it only got worse after that. I have written about this in blog articles before -- it's just that over the past month it's to the point that it's almost impossible to use the internet for longer than 15 minutes to an hour without it cutting off again.

So I'm going to be changing internet service providers over the next couple of weeks. I don't really have any faith in internet providers, being that my experience with internet companies has been so abysmal. But we'll see.

But when you have internet cut-offs and slowdowns, it doesn't make it easy to publish a blog, shop online, or do other things that have become necessary for modern day living.

NUCLEAR WINTER SHORTWAVE RADIO CONDITIONS

Otherwise, life has been fairly normal. The ionosphere appears to have entered Solar Minimum mode, being that the SW bands have been mostly dead here where I live. I know that in the Eastern section of the US and Canada there still is some SW activity, but here in the NW and regions north of 47 Degrees latitude it's already Solar Minimum. 

This morning when I tuned every SWBC and HF ham radio band they were all dead, dead, dead, except for two weak conversations on 17 Meters and a couple SW stations that were barely readable in the 31 and 21 Meter band (Marti, Radyo Pilipinas, North Korea, and CNR-1). 40, 20, 41, 25, 19, 15, 12 and 10 Meters were all dead.

That's the shakes, though. I am going to rig up a longer antenna, and I will run it outdoors, and see if that helps. My indoor antenna worked great during the early 2010's, and it was working well during the 'Peak' SW conditions in Summer and Fall of 2024, when I was hearing bicycle ham radio guys from Blackpool, UK and hams from the Orkneys, Pitcairn, Rarotonga, and similar places.

So it's not my antenna that is the issue. The ionosphere is fading. It is what it is.

My health is OK, my cat is doing OK. The weather is getting better. It's 75 degrees F outside right now. The trees are late, of course. They always used to be green by April 5th. Now they're just starting to bud in the hills. They'll probably be two weeks late, as it's been since 2018. Whether this is related to the reduced solar activity since the 1990's is a good question. It's probably due to other, meteorological factors.

But I'm still alive and kicking. I'm still playing the bagpipes, nearly every day. I still ride my bike at night, or in early mornings. I still work out with weights most days.

Life goes on.

Until next time, my friends.

Peace.

C.C., April 6th, 2026.

NOTE, April 11th, 2026.:

I originally put a title on this blog note, and it didn't save. That's because the internet was so bad. So I've just titled it. Hopefully the internet will be more dependable with a new service. I suppose I'll find out soon enough.

CBS Radio News, 99 years old, to be shut down in May -- & Na Na Hey Hey, the hit that wasn't supposed to happen

CBS News Radio, RIP. They're 99 years old and having their plug pulled.

America's CBS Radio News, a top-of-the-hour news program on hundreds of radio stations across the US, is shutting down in May of this year, according to several reports and a memo from the head of CBS.

The reason for pulling the plug on the 99 year-old news service is apparently economic. The heads of CBS, in a memo to CBS Radio News employees, said that "a shift in radio programming strategies" (whatever that means) and "challenging economic realities" (lessening revenues) have "made it impossible to continue the service."

The complete notice sent from the CBS heads to their employees can be read here.:

CBS News Radio To Shutter Amid News Division Cuts

CBS Radio News presently is broadcast on the top of each hour on approximately 700 radio stations in the Unites States. It's long been considered one of the premiere news services in the country. There aren't that many radio news networks in the United States -- aside from CBS Radio News, there is ABC Radio News, Fox Radio News, Townhall, and a few smaller services, some of them regional.

And, of course, on the Public Radio side of things, there is NPR.

So why, really, did CBS pull the plug on its vaunted CBS Radio News broadcasts?

Money, that's why -- at least according to a few Radio experts and observers. There really isn't enough money in Radio news anymore to keep the lights on at the news department. CBS Radio News was a commercial service, and with Radio revenues down across the industry, having a large Radio news department doesn't pencil out the way it did in 2006 or 1996. 

Radio revenues nationwide are down around 50-60% or more since 2005. Radio took a big hit during the Great Recession after 2008, and the Pandemic economy during Corona didn't help, either. Internet competition has hurt Radio, which doesn't help radio news. Many stations went under after the Pandemic faded, and this economic malaise affecting Radio in general hurts the news services, too.

Competition from the internet has affected all 'legacy' media -- Radio, TV, Cable networks, Newspapers, Magazines, etc. The large advertising agencies have more media choices than ever -- they not only have what's left of Broadcast and Print media, but they have an infinite number of websites and apps to use for their advertising purposes. All those ads you see on YT vids, and the large number of ads popping up on news websites are replacing commercials that used to run on Radio and TV.

When the news of CBS Radio News impending closure hit the Radio side of social media, most reaction seemed to be mixed -- there is a lot of sadness over the coming demise of the network of news greats like Edward R. Murrow, which also had the longest running Radio news program in US history (CBS Radio's World News Roundup). 

Also, there are those who say it's just another day in Radio -- another network shut down, another heritage broadcaster pulls the plug. "The money just isn't in it anymore."

And it may very well be true. Some observers who still work in the industry say that Top Of The Hour Radio Newscasts just don't make money. You can't sell those commercials to the big advertisers anymore -- not like in the past. It's one reason that virtually no music radio stations in the US have news anymore. They can't monetize newscasts.

When I was a child, even the Top 40 music stations had newscasts, usually starting at five minutes before the hour. During the 1980's that all disappeared. To hear Radio news, you had to tune to the actual News stations, and those were all on the AM/MW band. Today, most News stations are still on the AM band, and are part of what is keeping AM alive (along with ethnic programming, Sports talk, conservative talk, and religion).

But every few years or so, another News station bites the dust. In Canada, some News radio stations have combined some operations with other stations, in other metros, even 500 miles away. CFFR 660, one of Calgary's news radio stations, runs some traffic and news reports for Vancouver, as it has combined night-time operations with CKWX, 1130. Consequently, you can hear Calgary news and traffic on CKWX at night, too.

WCBS 880, once a great all-News radio station in New York City, had the plug pulled, and it's now syndicated sports shows. KGO San Francisco, a well known News-talk station during the 1960's-2010's, went to Sports-Betting talk, and then the station was shut down, its transmitter now being used by conservative talker KSFO (which moved to KGO's 810 transmitter from their old frequency at 560 kHz).

WCBS, interestingly enough, made a LOT of money. They were the #10 station in the US (AM or FM) in revenues up until their owners pulled the plug on the News programming in 2024. Observers in the industry kept saying "the News format cost too much money to run."

But they were NUMBER TEN in the country. 

"But the News format still costs a lot of money to run, so the owners are saving money by running sports." Or so they said.

It still looks a bit odd, that any Radio company would ditch a #10 billing station to run Sports on the cheap, but hey -- when I worked in radio, I was first a newscaster, then a news director for 3 years (at a small public radio station), and then I was a sound engineer for around 16 years -- I wasn't working on the business side of things. So what do I know?

Either way, the movers and shakers at CBS believe that CBS Radio News is costing them too much to produce to keep the shows going out to the 700 affiliates.

I'll end this article with my own feelings. I am really saddened by the death of CBS Radio News. I used to listen to the local CBS news station a lot. During the early Sunday mornings I'd hear The Takeout, with Major Garrett, which was a really good interview show (it's now on YT as a podcast, with 6.9 Million subscribers, but the recent episodes have 6-10K views). I'd also hear the World News Roundup, and sometimes the Weekend version.

Like most Radio aficionados, I remember when network radio was vital. In the 2010's, when I rediscovered the night-time Radio DX hobby, I heard a LOT of network radio -- CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox Radio newscasts, NPR (from Oregon's AM outlet KOAC), and there were several interesting Sports talk networks, with three of them (CBS Sports Radio, NBC Sports Radio, and Fox Sports Radio) associated with their news radio counterparts.

Just over the past several years, Radio networks in general have been dying off. CBS Sports Radio is no more. NBC Sports Radio is no more. Radio Disney is no more. SB Nation Sports Radio is no more. ESPN Deportes is no more. Air America left us in the early 2010's, but the few straggling progressive talkers that still carried a few of their hosts are all gone.

And you can add to that the stations that have left the air -- most of them AM, but a lot of FM stations are gone, too, including at least one college FM station in my area.

I know it's just progress, and change is always with us. But sometimes those changes just don't feel good.

I'll miss hearing CBS Radio News, just as I miss hearing CBS Sports Radio. And just as I miss hearing Radio Disney, a well-operated Hit Radio network that was aimed at kids, but also had a good pop music playlist. When they went off the air it felt like a sock in the gut, being that they livened up the night-time radio airwaves with the really good pop music that was big in the early 2010's.

I suspect that in the future we'll be seeing more Radio networks bite the dust. It's probably a good practice to appreciate the ones that remain. Maybe they have 10-15 years left? We'll see. Because the revenue issues hitting Radio won't go away. 

IN OTHER LIFE....

In other life, the weather here has warmed up slightly, and I can hear the frogs croaking and chirruping at night, which usually happens in March during normal years. The past several years this hasn't happened until April or May. My birch tree's climbing rose bush is already starting to bud green.

My cat Bear is doing well. She still is too scared to come out of her room. She's a very skittish cat, but she meows and wants me to pet her, so it's going well.

I'm still having some internet issues, especially when it's cold and rainy. I am looking into alternatives for internet service because of it.

The Ionosphere is Weaker than watered-down Tea

In the DX hobby, the ionosphere is not performing well lately. Some wags in the ham radio hobby and SWL hobby blame Solar flares, but really it's the ionosphere is weakening. I think we are already in the Solar minimum, and it's diving fast, just like in 2018 or so, when SW conditions went from good to fair to abysmal in just a few months.

It's eUV, that supreme factor that makes the ionosphere work. It's been in decline since the mid to late 1990's, and it's also that one factor that you won't find much information about online. There are scientific articles stating that eUV from the Sun makes the ionosphere ionized, but the decline in eUV is only mentioned in one NASA article that hasn't been updated in over 5 years.

Two New MW Stations Heard -- KGOW 1560 and KIRV 1510

So there hasn't been that much to hear, or listen to, on the Shortwaves. Medium Wave, my first DX love, is OK but I haven't heard any new stations aside from a couple surprises, usually due to human or computer error, not ionospheric conditions.

I heard KGOW, Houston Texas on 1560 kHz one a.m. when they had just switched up to day power, and KVAN, a Spanish language religious station in Pasco, WA had a period of silence (probably a computer glitch or other issue at that station). KGOW is a Vietnamese and Asian language station out of Houston, and the way I was able to ID it was hearing a woman speaking Viet, and the music was Asian pop standards. As soon as KVAN's audio came back on, KGOW was gone.

Another new station, KIRV Fresno, on 1510 kHz, was a surprise appearance. They are a daytime only station out of Fresno, with Spanish language religion. The talk on this station matched the KIRV stream, and that's how I was able to ID that station. Otherwise, 1510 had Ben Maller (KGA Spokane) and KSFN Piedmont, California's Mexican ranchero music.

Travelling the Airwaves with the Sangean PR-D4W

Both of these stations I heard on my trusty Sangean PR-D4W, with help from my Eton AN-200 loop antenna. The PR-D4W is my best MW DX radio, bar none. Not only does it pull in stations terrifically, it sounds as good, or better, than a GE Superadio, especially if you use headphones.

It has 'smart tuning', where the DSP chip will take 2-3 seconds to maximise the signal once you tune to a MW channel. Sometimes you have to re-up the tuner -- flip down to the next frequency and back up again, for the DSP to maximise the best. This is probably because radio signals fade, and the DSP might 'lock in' at the wrong time during a fade-up. But it often only takes one 're-up' to get the signal as loud as it's going to get. Then I peak it with my AN-200 and I'm listening to MW DX on a channel in high fidelity.

I have to admit that during the nights that Shortwave is dead -- to where even the noise maker on 6838 kHz is inaudible -- it's nice to plug the headphones into the PR-D4W and hear talk, news, and music on the AM band in hi-fi. I often hear KEJB Eureka, California, an oldies station on 1480 kHz. They play a wide mix of oldies. 

One night they played a track I hadn't heard in ages, Steam's Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye -- a track which was never intended to be released as a single. In fact, its makers were just trying to fill tape to make a B-side to back Garrett Scott's next single (Garrett Scott was the singer on the Steam record).

Garrett Scott's own single never was released, and Na Na Hey Hey was released as an A-side at the insistence of Mercury Records. It's the only prominent single that Garrett Scott sang on, that got extensive airplay, and it became a hit -- knocking the Beatles off the number one spot in December, 1969.

Here it is. Listen to the drums. It also has congas and Garrett Scott hitting a piece of wood with a drumstick. The instruments are all keyboards -- a piano or two, several organs, and some vibrophones (all played by Paul Leka, who wrote and produced Green Tambourine, a hit track by the Lemon Pipers in 1968). The drums were mostly an 8 bar tape loop, taken from a drum track to another, non-released Garrett Scott single. I think there is a primitive rhythm-box in there, too. Being that it was made to be a throw-away B-side, it's a remarkable recording. And what a catchy chorus!:

A TV promo video for Na Na Hey Hey, by the Steam touring band. The singer here, Bill Steer, didn't sing on the Na Na Hey Hey single, but I think he sang on the album that came out after the single hit.

This is the LONG version. The one that was a hit on radio was a shorter edit. This video shows the Steam touring band miming to the hit. None of the guys in this video were on the record. They were a put together band to capitalize on the hit. The music, of course, is off the CD.

And with that, my friends, until next time,

Peace.

C.C., March 23rd, 2026.

AUSTRALIAN AM STATION 6WF to Leave the AM band for FM

The transmitting tower for sunny Perth, Australia's ABC radio station 6WF, which is moving from the AM band to the FM band after decades of serving Perth and a large part of SW Western Australia.

If you look closely, you can see the Perth skyline in the far background. The tower is in the Perth suburb of Hamerslsy, in the northern part of the city. 

photo from ABC.net.au

A radio station I used to listen to -- at least when they had a shortwave relay -- is leaving the AM band for FM in late February this year, after 94 years on the AM band.

6WF, Perth, Australia's main ABC Radio outlet, is being moved to FM as the ABC determines that with more and more cars being FM only, taking 6WF off the AM band is the best way to serve listeners. The switchover from AM to FM will occur on February 23rd.

6WF-AM has been on the air in the Perth region for 94 years, as the transmitter installation and tower date from 1934.

For those who don't know it, Perth is a large city of two million people on the Indian Ocean, and it's the capital of Western Australia, Australia's largest state by area. Perth is also known as the 'most isolated capital city in the world', being that it is farther from other metros than nearly every other national or state capital on the planet.

A CITY WITH AN EXTENSIVE MUSICAL HISTORY

Perth is the city where late AC/DC singer Bon Scott lived as a kid, after his family moved there from Kirriemuir in Scotland. He got his musical start there as a singer for the Valentines. The Australian rock band INXS also got their careers kickstarted in Perth (they were in Perth for 10 months, as the 'Vegetables'). The lead guitarist for the Divinyls, Mark McEntee, was from Perth, and the excellent Aussie glam rock band Supernaut were also from Perth.

I used to listen to 6WF back when I got my first good Shortwave radio, my Realistic DX-160, which was a Christmas gift. With that radio I listened to a lot of different stations, including Radio Australia, various Indonesian stations at night, 'tropical band' radio stations out of Venezuela and Columbia, and 6WF.

SHORTWAVE RELAY STATIONS FOR THE OUTBACK

How could I receive 6WF? Well, back in the day the ABC had several Shortwave outlets to serve the Outback and desert regions of the Australian interior, and being that more than half of Western Australia is desert, with a lot of isolated mining towns, other small towns and farming and other 'stations' in the interior, SW was the best way to reach those people. 

Queensland also had a Shortwave relay station, VLW4, which I think I heard once. It was used to beam ABC radio to the Outback from Brisbane. The Western Australian shortwave relay came in better here, I think because they beamed their signal more in my direction.

The 6WF shortwave relay was officially called VLW6, and their frequency was in the 31 Meter Band. One night (early a.m., actually), I heard a DJ on 6WF play a bunch of music by the La De Da's (including their cool song 'The Place'), and another night he played almost half an album by the band called Flowers, which changed their name to Icehouse.

The transmitter cable for 50KW AM station 6WF in Perth.

photo from ABC.net.au

The shortwave relay station always identified as '6WF/6WN'. The relationship between the two ABC stations I never clearly understood, but 6WF was the main one.

During the early 2000's when I discovered online radio I 'tuned in' to 6WF a few times, as by then they'd switched off the Shortwave relay.

Of course, today Australia has no Shortwave presence at all, aside from the Reach Out Australia religious station in Kununurra, in the Kimberley district of NW Australia. They broadcast religious programs to ethnic minorities in Southern and SE Asia. I posted a short article on Reach Out Australia and my hearing them a couple years ago, which you can read here.:

https://interrocknation.blogspot.com/2024/05/dxing-reach-beyond-australia-hearing.html

The ABC, thanks to the Australian government, pulled the plug on Radio Australia about 6 or 7 years ago, in a move that not only saddened SWL's all over the world, but maddened rural people in the Australian Outback who depended on Radio Australia for news and information.

It's another case of governments not caring about serving people in rural areas. The US took a similar move with pulling the plug on VOA, which took America's message to rural people in Africa and Asia.

You can read the ABC.net.au article on 6WF here.:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-15/perth-am-to-fm-switch-goes-ahead/106343336

IN OTHER LIFE....

The weather here has taken a turn for the cold again, after a two week respite. The barometer has fallen below 30 inches of mercury, which usually means a low pressure system, which usually means more rain, which usually means higher temperatures in Winter. But that's clearly not the case.

I recently rediscovered my Dad's old barometer -- it's a Stellar brand barometer made in what was then called Western Germany. It seems to be reasonably accurate, despite its age. It's been through a bit over the years. An uncle who was staying with us in the 1980's put it in the trash in a drunken rage, and my former GF shoved it in a box of junk because she didn't know that a) it had been in my family for years, and b) I don't think she really knew what a barometer was.

I'm still not sure if you can forecast the weather by reading the changes in a barometer, but it's still cool to track it.

ON SHORTWAVE, THERE IS NOTHING ON BUT HF STOCK TRADERS

OK, I may be exaggerating here a bit, but not really. High Frequency Stock traders -- a.k.a. 'HFT' stations -- get a lot of criticism from hams and SWL's, but they really aren't taking over the SW spectrum. How can they, especially when the SW spectrum is increasingly nothing but static?

And if you look at the actual number of these HFT stations, there really aren't that many of them. Those stations do put out a pretty solid signal, though, and even when the ionosphere is DOWN, their signals still seem to be UP. At least one of them I've heard recently blasts out a massive signal.

HFT aside, radio here has been a bit dull lately. The Shortwave radio conditions have been absolutely abysmal. Last night I tuned around and there was nothing but static, a couple weak ham radio operators out of Oregon, Nevada and California that I couldn't read through the static, and a digital HFT transmission on 6838 kHz, which was around S3 out of 5, signal-wise. I have no idea where this HFT station is located. Most of the known HFT transmitters are in Illinois, but this signal is too strong for Illinois. I only know it as an HFT (High Frequency Trading) station because signals experts on HFU and elsewhere have said the 6838 Digital hash is HFT. 

One of them said that the HFT Digital signal I'm hearing on 6838 kHz, which slams all my radios with S3-S5 signals (even my little XHDATA D-221 picks that signal up -- just off the whip!), may be located in Ritzville, WA -- a small town in Eastern Washington, about 250 miles east of me, in the middle of desert and wheat country.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

EDIT to ADD: About a week after posting this article, I did some research, and I do not think the Digital hash station I'm hearing on 6838 kHz is in Ritzville, as I've looked at the maps online and the FCC address for the Ritzville experimental station shows nothing but sagebrush, and a few curious looking spots that look like boreholes. No towers, no shadows that would indicate towers -- no powerlines, no access roads, really. 

So I don't know what it is I'm hearing on 6838 kHz. It is, so far, a mystery. It also might not even be HFT.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This begs the question: if that station is indeed in Ritzville, why is a High Frequency Trading station located in WA state, and slamming the airwaves with a signal that is estimated to be 400 KW PEP? Are they sending trading data to Japan? South Korea? Taiwan?

Who knows.

When the station on 6838 is not transmitting Digital hash, it often just puts out a carrier. There is another carrier, on 6938, that I often hear. I've not yet heard a digital signal on that frequency.

Down below the 40 Meter ham band is a lot of interesting stuff -- pirates, Indonesian chanters, Latin American fishermen, mystery carriers and military signals, Chinese OTHR, and now, apparently, High Frequency Trading stations. Of course, you'll only hear most of this when the ionosphere is UP. When the ionosphere is DOWN, you don't hear anything except the strongest signals.

And most of Shortwave is basically dead right now. And we're supposedly still in a peak solar cycle period. I'm not buying it, of course. I've said before that this Solar cycle sucks, and I think the relatively dead SW conditions back that assertion up.

EUV is down, and eUV is what makes the ionosphere ionized, and according to NASA, the ionosphere is less ionized than it was in 1995 -- eUV ionization has been consequently dropping since then, and who knows when it will come back?

I've got no idea about that.... Solutions to that problem are far above my pay grade. :-)

BACK TO MEDIUM WAVE

Consequently, I'm getting back into my first radio 'love', MW DXing. Now, the ionosphere sucking also affects the AM band, but there still is plenty to hear on the AM band, especially if you have a good radio and a loop antenna. After a night of hearing nothing but static and unreadable signals (and HFT digital hash) on Shortwave, I grabbed my trusty Sangean PR-D4W and tuned the AM band. It was like night and day. 

I didn't hear any super DX, but I listened to KOAC out of Corvallis, Oregon (550 kHz), with a BBC special on the Indian economy, and then heard some music on KSWB, Seaside OR (840 kHz) and some cool classic hits on CKOR Penticton BC (800 kHz). And it was all in high fidelity, as the PR-D4W has the best sound and performance of any MW radio I own.

You don't even really need an external loop with the PR-D4W, but a loop like the AN-200 will add a db or so, which helps with the weaker stations.

DSP SSB Radios -- they work really well

I'm working on an article about 3 DSP/SSB radios I bought last year -- the Tecsun PL-330, XHDATA D808 and Raddy RF760. My PL-330 has gotten heavy use over the past year, but I've noticed that it does overload, especially on the CB band, and when there is strong, pulse-type RFI. 

A 150 ohm resister clipped between the wire antenna and the Tecsun's whip antenna seems to have cured most of that. I'm hoping the issue (bleedover, blocking, AGC over-reacting to changes in signals, unexpected whistles here and there) is just overloading. We'll see.

I'm also working on an article about a music scene that rose and sort of fell -- the Norway pop music scene, which seemed to really put out a lot of great music ni 2014. That article will come along in 3-4 weeks.

I'll close this article with a great track by the NZ/Oz band The La De Da's, who -- when they made this track -- were headed by guitarist Kevin Borich, who then went on to have a lengthy solo career in Australia.

This is the track I heard on 6WF one warm summer night. "The Place".:

And this track by FLOWERS, the band that became ICEHOUSE, was played a few years later on, some time before 6WF's Shortwave relay went off the air. The song is 'Skin".:

This track, one of my favorites by ICEHOUSE, was not played on 6WF, but it's one of Icehouse's better tracks, from 1984, 'Sidewalk". It's got a kickass bass line and guitar chords, and really cool use of the Fairlight Computer.:

Until next time, stay warm, friends (for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere). 

Peace.

C.C., Feb. 19th, 2026.

ADDENDUM, February 25th, 2026:

As I added -- in blue -- in this article, I am not sure the Digital hash station I'm hearing on 6838 kHz is High Frequency Trading, and I'm certain it's NOT in Ritzville, WA, because I looked at the online maps -- both Google and Bing maps -- and see nothing but a flat plot of land with sagebrush at the location where the FCC license address says the Ritzville experimental station is. So I do not know what I'm hearing. But it's digital, and it's noisy, and it runs at various hours during the day, for hours at a time. The typical transmission is around 20-30 seconds of digital hash, with the beginning of it having quick 'pulses', and the ending of it having even quicker 'pulses', and there are one second stops, roughly, between the transmissions.

There are no CW / Morse Code ID's whatsoever -- something that apparently is required by the FCC for HFT stations. So this station may not be HFT at all, because in over an hour of listening to this digital racket on my DX-440 this evening, I have not heard one Morse Code ID.

So where, and what, is this station? Who does it transmit to? Japan? Asia? The Pacific in general, if it happens to be military? Who knows?