Goodbye Yahoo eGroups -- Hello All-Digital AM Radio

One of my electric Jack O' Lanterns this Halloween.

Here in my corner of the PNW (the Pacific Northwest), we have seen Summer end, and Fall get into full gear. The hills are pleasantly covered in various shades of yellow and orange -- nothing like the Fall colors one sees Back East, but still nice. Halloween came and went -- I had two sets of trick-or-treaters, which was a pleasant surprise. I wore my mask, and poured out the candy bars (from the bags they came in -- I cut a hole in the corner so the candy bars would fall out) into the trick-or-treaters' sacks.

I wish there had been more of them, as it's a great way to interact with neighbors (the parents always come around with the kids -- I give them candy too). But it was the corona version of Halloween, and understandable.

Two of my Jack O' Lanterns from last year, Halloween 2019, both of them electric. Looking back through my folder, I didn't really take that many photos this year, including Halloween. It was easy to find these pics from last year for that reason.

I had my electric pumpkins out; the rest of my Halloween decorations -- save for two scary looking 'pumpkin monsters' -- stayed in the closet.

Life has been plodding along otherwise. I still play slide guitar daily, and I still have been working on fiction writing at night.

I haven't been DXing MW much, as it hasn't been that great. Shortwave, of course, has been basically dead for the past three years or more. It makes me yearn for 2011 and 2012 when it was still viable, but there ya go. Poor propagation, and the aging-out of technology, do not make for a lively SW band.

Radio forums have been a little less active, causing some to fold -- as I'll cover later in this post.

There have been some layoffs in radio lately, due to business factors as well as corona-related financial issues, but the biggest 'news' in radio lately concerns HD RADIO.

ALL DIGITAL RADIO ON THE US AM BAND -- Too Little, Too Late?

The FCC, the United States' governmental entity that supervises radio broadcasting, recently authorized AM / MW radio stations in the US to go all-digital, if they so choose.

The radio forum universe has been abuzz about this 'all-HD' thing for the last couple years -- the period of time that the FCC has been internally debating the idea of letting stations choose to go all digital or not.

A lot of MW radio enthusiasts, and MW DXers (like myself) have followed the idea with interest. I got my first, used, Sony HD radio in 2017 (I have a blog post on that radio: https://interrocknation.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-sony-xdr-s10hdip-hd-radio-new-thrift.html), and HD on AM sounded great on it. Sadly, the two local stations which were HD (via IBOC, a hybrid digital mode that allowed for analog AM to be broadcast along with a digital signal) dropped their HD about three or four months later when they each were sold to new owners.

A lot of MW DXers, of course, hated IBOC. It never bothered me any. I have found that local 50 KW AM radio stations wipe out adjacent channels with analog splash just as much as IBOC wiped out adjacent channels with HD buzz. But MW DXers tend to be a cantankerous lot. A lot of them seem to pray for a 'thinning out' of the AM band, i.e., they actually hope that more stations go off the air, as if that is a good thing.

I find that kind of hope ridiculous. All one has to to is tune across the SW broadcast bands these days to see how awesome it isn't when a broadcast band is 'thinned out'. Right now, I can switch on my SW radios and tune the 31 meter and 49 meter bands -- which even at the beginning of the 2010's, were packed with signals -- and hear next to nothing.

A couple of happy pumpkins carved and set out by a neighbor who lives maybe a block or two away from me, along with a safety line with treats hanging from it. Very few neighbors this year had any Halloween decorations out at all when compared to previous years. Corona really shook up the holiday, as it's done to the rest of the holidays. A few houses had 'safe' trick or treating -- they strung up bags of candy on a line, like in this picture, for the passing trick or treaters to grab safely. A couple had large bowls of candy out front of their yard somewhere, which was a nice gesture to the kids.

That said, the same curmudgeons are now complaining about this new FCC ruling, as if it is going to 'ruin AM radio' -- which it won't.

First off, not all AM stations will go all digital. In fact, I would be surprised if even ten stations nationwide go all digital. Right now, there are very few AM stations using IBOC -- I think KSL 1160 in Salt Lake City is still IBOC-HD, and there may be another station in Portland, Oregon (KKPZ 1330) that is IBOC. I don't know of any others that are in the NW quadrant of the US. Most turned their HD off when the equipment broke down.

Even FM stations are switching off their HD. Local rocker KISW had an awesome HD2 that was called "Metal Militia". It's been off for almost a month, and was switched off for a couple weeks some time last year. HD isn't really the moneymaker that it was envisioned to be when it was devised in the early 2000's. It was a great idea, but wasn't marketed well.

So that brings us to the FCC's decision: what will it do, really?

It will allow the 10-15 AM stations nationwide that may want to use digital to go all-digital if and when they believe it feasible to do so. By the end of the 2030's, most AM stations will probably be off the air, because they won't have an audience, and they won't otherwise be making enough money to keep the power on. Revenues have been dropping radio-wide, both AM and FM, since 2005, and that trend may not improve.

All that said, there may be some few holdouts that can keep an audience via HD over the air. After all, there are ethnic programming stations in every major market that still make enough money in 2020 to stay on the air now, just broadcasting in AM analog. Who knows how the marketplace may go in 15 or 20 years? Internet costs may go up for some reason we don't foresee presently. Or, on the other side of the coin, it may become cheaper and more dependable, and replace all over-the-air broadcasting completely. 

The fact is, we just don't know.

And finally, as long as there is an AM band, there will be analog AM stations on the air, if only because the technology is tried and true, and there will always be millions of AM analog radios in America to listen to them with.

I see the option for stations to go digital as a win-win. If a station wants to do it because they think they can make money at it, let them. Most stations won't use that option.

As for MW DXing, all-digital doesn't splash outside the channel as much as IBOC did. And, like I said above, 50 KW splatter pretty much kills DX on adjacent channels -- even a local 5 KW station (KVI 570) kills 560 and 580 most of the time. I can't see how an HD AM station is going to have any more negative an effect. A lot of DX radios are fairly narrow banded -- my PR-D5 being an example of this, which is around 4 kHz bandwidth or so. There are other Sangeans that cut down the bandwidth even further, to 2 kHz or less.

As long as there is an AM band, there will be something left to DX.

GOODBYE YAHOO eGroups -- ANOTHER RADIO HOBBY RESOURCE DISAPPEARS :-(

I recently learned that Yahoo eGroups are set to disappear this coming December. 

The news brings a bit of remorse, and a lot of sadness. Yahoo eGroups were a terrific resource for radio hobbyists, and other hobbyists as well. Now they will soon be gone completely -- consigned to that vast storehouse we call "memories", as well as the Web Archive, along with Excite, Tell-Them-Now dot com, various rock band websites, and a host of other internet staples that have either completely altered themselves, or otherwise disappeared over the years.

When I first discovered the World Wide Web in the late 1990's, Yahoo was the new, go-to place. By the middle of the next decade (the 2000s), I was on Yahoo daily. I even used their personals / dating site for a while. A lot of people did.

Their news feed was quite good, which it still is today (after a period where it seemed to be dominated by infotainment). Their email was good, they had a search engine that was popular, and their eGroups were some of the first forums that were widely used by hobbyists during the Web era (there, of course, have been hobby forums as long as there has been an internet). Yahoo's eGroups were very popular, and very informative, too.

There were eGroups for every kind of radio or radio hobby out there -- Medium Wave DXing, Shortwave listening, Utility DXing, and eGroups for Sangean, Sony, Realistic, Panasonic, GE Superadios, Ultralight Radio DXing -- you name it: if there was a radio brand or hobby, there was a Yahoo eGroup dedicated to it!

And the people who frequented these eGroups were often experts on the radios or aspects of the radio hobby the eGroup catered to. I was a member of the Yaesu FRG-7 eGroup and there were people there who knew these radios inside and out. The 'files' sections of the eGroups had pictures and schematics and all sorts of information to help guys fix or modify their radios.

I frequented their Sangean, Radio Shack, Panasonic, Superadio, Yaesu, Shortwave, MW DX, and Ultralight DX eGroups, as well as a few other hobby ones not related to radio. There was frequent activity on those groups, too -- usually there were new posts daily. I probably still have some pics of my radios on a couple of those eGroups.

I also was on a railroad eGroup, a guitar eGroup, and a clawhammer / mountain banjo eGroup. There were rock band eGroups -- I was a member of the Screaming Jets' one. Most of the eGroups were easy to join.

In fact, I loved using Yahoo -- but that was before they went purple a few years ago. 

Somehow there was a change made, where everything was now a default purple color. That, in itself, was no big deal, but all those radio eGroups were hard to figure out all of a sudden -- it was hard to find the new postings, if there were any, and -- if memory serves -- just as hard to post something. Moderators complained that they couldn't post a banner with a radio or logo anymore. If your browser wasn't a brand new version, you'd also have trouble navigating and using the groups.

In the next few months, a lot of the radio guys left the radio eGroups because they were so hard to use, and because they were getting less activity. 

It wasn't too long after Yahoo 'went purple' that I also stopped going to the eGroups. It wasn't because I didn't want to. It was just so difficult to use. Then I noticed that whatever activity the eGroups had was now dropping like a rock. First, there was no longer any new activity on the GE Superadio eGroup, the Panasonic eGroup, the DX-398 eGroup (which, I think soon closed), and the other eGroups had less and less activity. You'd log in and see the last post was months previous, which is never a good sign for a hobby forum.

And now the eGroups are disappearing into the ether... Hopefully, they will still be accessible via the web Archive, as there was good information on most of them

IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT.

I'll miss Yahoo eGroups, for sentimental reasons, as well as some practical ones. There really aren't many -- if any -- forums dedicated to just a particular brand of radio, or a particular musical instrument (clawhammer mountain banjo, for example). EGroups provided such hobbyists an easy-to-obtain, easy-to-set-up, and easy-to-use platform for communication.,

There is an old adage in the US: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I surely wish more big companies would adhere to that message.

CORONA RE-DUX :-(

A Coronavirus warning sign from April of this year. The local County took it upon itself to literally close an outdoor trail miles from the nearest city where few people (maybe 100 a day, if that) aside from a handful of locals actually use it. This sign, and this order, didn't last long. 

As I finish this post, corona is beginning to slam the US and other parts of the world with a 'second wave'. Fortunately, the disease is no longer causing mass panic (at least here in the PNW US); people are cautious and hunkered down, but not frozen in fear. And at least in my area of the US the hospitals and other health resources are up to the task of dealing with it.

Thanksgiving was a non-starter here. I had a can of chili and a couple eggs. The extended family decided against having the usual dinner, which was understandable. There were undoubtedly some people who had normal Thanksgivings, but most people kept to their own, or simply discarded the holiday as I did.

Christmas and New Year's will undoubtedly be more of the same. If the new vaccine works, perhaps things will change.

I hope that all of my readers stay safe. I may have another post before mid-December or so.

Peace.

Three cheery faced Jack O' Lanterns from last year again, one electric (on the right) and two which I carved (on the left). This was about a week after Halloween, so the two carved pumpkins were starting to droop, as they will when they wear out. Even though this was in 2019, it is quite a fitting symbol for 2020.

CC 11-11-2020 and 11-29-2020 

NOVEMBER 22nd -- And the Death of JFK

 

Yesterday was, in a sense, a national holiday here in the US. Not an official one, by any means, nor was it commemorated widely. But to many of us who were alive on that foreboding afternoon of November 22nd, 1963 it still probably felt like a type of memorial day. 

I remember vividly that afternoon. I had just started grade school, and at the time I loved going to school. I got along with all of my classmates, and it was fun learning to read, and life itself was a new adventure.

It was late that moderately grey morning that we were in class, and the school secretary walked in to the room. She was visibly upset about something. She said something to our teacher, Mrs. Shull, and then left. Mrs. Shull suddenly looked upset. Then she announced to the class that President Kennedy had been shot.

Immediately, school was dismissed. Many of us in the school bus, riding home early that day, knew something was haywire -- it was not normal news for the President to be shot. But back then politics weren't on the front burner amongst kids the way they are apparently placed there now. All we knew was that the big man in the White House was shot and his life was in danger. I don't recollect much more about the bus ride aside from that.

My mom at the time was a housewife, so she was already home. My dad worked at Boeing. He came home early.

As soon as dad was home we turned on the TV. We were glued to the coverage, which -- although not live in the sense of today's instant news cycle -- it was still actually live coverage via satellite, which was unusual back then. At first, they were talking about President Kennedy being taken to the hospital, and his being operated on by doctors. Things seemed hopeful.

About an hour or so later came the final announcement: President Kennedy was dead.

It was the first time in my life that I felt this clearly palpable emotion of severe loss -- that I had absolutely no control over the destiny of a person close to me, or someone I looked up to.

My dad and mom were nearly in tears. It was the first time I felt that sock in the gut that one gets if a death occurs to a close person, or someone in the family. I realise that to many of my readers, this may seem unbelievable, as the President is just a politician, albeit a powerful one. But this death was palpable to many Americans -- JFK was more than just a politician to us. He was someone we looked up to.

And it was especially so to a second grade kid who had not previously experienced serious loss.

See, President Kennedy was more than a President. He was a hero in a sense. He was the big guy, the guy who ran the country. My family revered him. My great-aunt used to pride herself in combing my hair so that it would look "just like President Kennedy". Looking back at pictures of me when I was a kid, she was right -- it did look like his hair at the time.

It may have been because my grandma and great-aunt, both of whom were elderly, were Catholics, and a lot of Catholics looked up to President Kennedy because he was the first Catholic president. Or it may have been because they voted for him. But there is no doubt that John F. Kennedy had charisma, and that he was well liked by many. 

Besides, he had two little kids, who at the time were my age, and they were all such a happy looking family. The news outlets of the day -- which were less openly biased than they are now -- didn't call the White House "Camelot" for nothing.

It is somewhat ironic that within four months of JFK's death, the Beatles appeared in America, their happy, bouncy, exciting music almost being a medicine for the depression. Obviously, their music couldn't cure all the ills. 

All that seems distant now, but every November 22nd, I still remember. The photograph at the top of this article was a jar-candle, which I had set atop my mailbox post as a sort of memorial the evening of November 22nd, probably in 2013 or 2014. At the time I had lost a calico cat, from old age. It was a horrible time emotionally as it was. 

RIP PUDGE THE CAT

This November, I lost another cat. I don't want to go into any of the details, but it hasn't been an easy time.

I can't put out the jar-candle anymore, in my cat's memory, or JFK's, for that matter -- I am not sure where the jar went, and there no longer is a post to place it on, as the mailbox was run over by a truck about a year after I had placed the jar-candle on it. This blog post will have to suffice, I guess.

November is turning into a blah month. Here in Seattle it is raining, as it has been doing all month long. Coronavirus is kicking in again, causing people to cancel one of our major holidays, Thanksgiving. It also looks like Christmas will be cancelled, as well as New Year's.

I keep up my own thoughts by writing, and playing slide guitar. It is my own form of maintaining sanity. I realise that I have no control over a lot of things -- just as the second grade version of me could not keep President Kennedy alive, I can not keep a cat alive, or stop a virus so that life can go back to 'normal', whatever that really is. There are certain things that are beyond our control. Who needs holidays, anyway? In the big picture, it's just another day.

With this, I'll close this note and post it. I have another post I wrote up on the 11th that will be posted here as soon as I work up a couple photographs for it, which are all it really needed to finish it.

Until then, Peace to all, and stay safe.

C.C. 11-23-2020