My Grundig G2 Shortwave AM-FM Radio Lost its Memory -- Then I Got It Back!

 

My Grundig G2, an AM-FM-SW radio I got in 2014, which has been my main SW radio since then. That's one reason I post a pic of the G2 so often -- I use this radio daily.

As I've probably said here a whole bunch of times, I am a fan of the Shortwave Radio spectrum. I tune into the SW bands every night and/or early morning. Why? Because there are some interesting stations and signals to hear there, and also because it's fun to hear signals from Southern Africa, Madagascar, China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, NZ, Alaska, Central Mexico, the UK, Ascension Island, and other places across the globe.

Shortwave is a dying medium, that is true. But one could say the same thing for a LOT of different media in the internet age.

It doesn't make it any less fun to listen to SW, though. 

For the last 9 years, since September, 2014, my main radio for tuning the Shortwave broadcast bands has been my trusty Grundig G2. It happened almost by accident.... I bought the radio because it was on sale at Fry's Electronics, for around $30 (I've seen G2's for sale for as high as $299 online recently -- that's how much some of them have increased in price since they were discontinued some time around 2017 or so).

As soon as I started using my G2, I noticed that it worked great off the whip antenna, and not only that, the G2 was easy to use, and it sounded great through headphones. FM also sounds rich, and the G2 is quite sensitive on FM, too. We don't get much, if any, FM Band E-Skip here in my section of WA state, but sometimes tropo enhances FM stations from Canada and northern WA. Lately I've been listening to a new local FM station on my G2 -- KPNW, on 98.9 FM, which plays a wide variety of alternative rock and some classic rock. 

98.9 here in Seattle has been varied. In 2014 or 2015 they went rock, and became "Rock 98.9, KVRQ". They played a great selection of classic rock aimed at Gen X'ers, ranging from the mid to late 1980s metal (G'N'R and Motley Crue) to 2000's era alternative and Nu-Metal. I listened to Rock 98.9 every night, and even talked about it here on the blog.

Station ownership didn't seem to promote Rock 98.9 very well, and it flipped to country a year and a half later, and became "The Bull". That didn't fare well, so now the owners are trying an eclectic station that mixes old and new. So far, I like what I hear on KPNW. Either way, it sounds great on my G2.

THE G2 -- MY MAIN SHORTWAVE RADIO

The G2 makes it easy to tune through the SW broadcast bands, as you can toggle from band to band (through the 60m, 49m, 41m, 31m, 25m, 21m, 19m, 16m, and 13m bands). And because the G2 is set to tune in 5 kHz steps on SW, it's easy to tune across a band and see what's on. It has 55 memories on SW, which are already full -- most of the stations, like the Voice of Greece, are no longer on the air, but it's cool to have the frequencies loaded into memory anyway.

I was also able to record some of my catches, until I filled the onboard, 4 gig memory. I still have to get an SD card to insert into the bottom of it to continue recording SW and MW catches.

So the G2 has been my go-to radio on SW and FM. I sometimes use it on MW, with a loop. But I have other radios that I use more on MW. Even so, the G2 is a pretty handy little radio, and a battery charge lasts 1-2 months, depending on use.

I wrote an extensive article on the Grundig G2 here.:

Interrock Nation: THE GRUNDIG G2 -- A Look At A Handy SW-FM-AM DX radio

Fast forwards to 2023, I still use the G2 daily.

A pic of my Grundig G2, with the radio tuned to 9665 kHz Shortwave, to La Voz de Missionaria, a Brazilian radio station located in Santa Catarina state in southern Brazil, which broadcasts to rural areas in NE and North Central Brazil. Missionaria, a religious station that plays music and sermons in Portuguese, is often audible here in WA state. 

In the upper right hand corner of the G2's display you can see the battery indicator, which -- in this case -- is 4 bars of battery. The battery indicator goes from 4 bars (full power) to zero bars (time to recharge). Being that my G2 has glitched when the battery hits one bar of battery, I think that if your battery is up in years, it's probably a good idea to recharge it when it hits one bar.

THREE PREVIOUS GLITCHES

Now, up until recently, there were three times that my G2 wigged.

First Glitch, Maybe in 2016?

The first time, when I turned on my G2, it was on the lowest channel in the US FM band (87.5 or 87.9 Mhz, I don't remember which) and when I switched to MW it was set to 9 kHz spacing (the default). Naturally, I hadn't tuned to that FM frequency or had the radio on 9 kHz spacing when I had used it the previous night, so the changes meant that something had gone awry.

On SW, the radio was stuck on one frequency, and it wouldn't apparently tune. Turning off the radio and turning it back on didn't fix the glitch. I re-set the radio by pulling the battery (a BL-5C, which looks like a large cell phone battery) and putting it back in. It fixed the problem. Luckily, I didn't lose any preset memories, nor did I lose any sound files.

Second Glitch, Probably 2016

The second time, the radio locked up when I was recording a station off SW. Pulling the battery was the only way to get it out of the locked-up condition.

Third Glitch, 2020 or 2021

Maybe two years ago, the G2 glitched again, and like the first time, it was when the battery was low (it had been at around one bar of battery for two weeks). This time, when I fired up the G2 one evening, the clock was off by about 12 hours. The SW band was set to a frequency I never have tuned to or listened to (6340 kHz). I re-set the radio (by opening the battery compartment, pulling the battery out, waiting about 15 seconds, and plugging the battery back in), and then I recharged the battery.

G2 Loses Its Memories Last Week, June 2023

This last time, just last weekend, was a real puzzler. The G2 had been on one bar of battery for maybe a week, and one night (just a week ago) when I fired up my radio it was set at 87.5 MHz (no station in this area is on 87.5 and I never tune there), and the MW was on 9 kHz spacing. My radio's user preference memories were gone, and my sound files were missing. On SW, the radio was set to 2300 kHz, the lowest it will tune. 

Obviously, there was a power issue (due to the low battery?), and the radio was running on its default settings. And somehow, it was not seeing its temporary memory chip which has user settings, user pre-set memories, and soundfiles.

Pulling the battery and re-setting the radio that way didn't change anything. I tried again, waiting a little longer before re-installing the battery. It didn't fix the glitch, either.

For awhile I thought my G2 had mostly fried. The radio would still tune the FM, AM and SW bands, mind you -- on MW I'd have to change to 10 kHz spacing every time I switched on the radio -- but, even though it would still tune the bands, all the radio's memories were lost.

I was saddened by it, actually. A lot of the sound files were from stations that no longer exist -- Radio Disney on 1640 kHz, Voice of Greece, and a couple others. I had backed up all the sound files to my laptop computer, but still.... it felt bad losing all the sound files and user created pre-sets.

I thought about it for a while and figured that maybe the problem was the LOW BATTERY. My G2's BL-5C battery, after all, has been used since almost daily since 2014, and the date code on the battery itself is the year 2012.

So I recharged the battery, which took maybe five hours. 

Then I switched on the G2.

Same issue. Nothing was fixed.

Crap, I thought to myself. My G2 has lost its little mind.

A pic of the Grundig G2 with the battery compartment shown, along with the location of the RE-SET button pinhole.

In the process, though, I noticed the RE-SET button -- a small pinhole located just beneath the battery, inside the battery compartment.

I found a piece of stiff, thin wire and pushed it into the hole, re-setting the radio. While I did this, I kept the radio OFF. The battery, however, being at full power, was still obviously powering the microprocessor -- which runs all the functions, including the ON/OFF button. So, the RE-SET will still work with the radio off.

I took a breath and turned on my G2.

Instantly, it was back to where it had been two days previous!!!

All my memories were back, the radio's sound files were back, and when I switched to SW it was tuned to the last frequency I'd listened to (I think it was 11780 kHz, Radio Nacional da Amazonia), and MW was on 1660 kHz and set to the North American standard channel spacing, 10 kHz.

My radio was back!

A pic of the Grundig G2 right before it shuts down. You can see the 'calendar' date line (which I left at 2011 because that was a fairly good year for me) and in the upper right hand corner of the LCD readout is a small battery indicator. The fact that it is 'empty', or zero bars, shows that I was probably re-charging the battery that night or the day afterwards.

LESSON LEARNED: CHARGE THE BATTERY WHEN IT HITS ONE BAR

My takeaways from this experience is that when a lithium battery gets old, recharge it before the battery hits zero bars on your radio (my G2's battery meter has 4 bars, and it will work on zero bars for a while until you get a power failure warning and it cuts off).

Also, when your battery has a few years on it, buy a few backup batteries, which is probably a good idea anyway -- especially if you are in disaster prone areas like the NW US, which is earthquake country. I intend to get a couple spare BL-5C's and a small charger online.

Being that I average one to two months per charge, a couple extra batteries would be handy if I take my G2 camping, travelling, or during an extended emergency.

So, for all of you who have radios that use these rechargeable BL-5C's, and rechargeables that are up in years, when the batteries get old -- or if and when your radio glitches when the batteries showing one bar or less of power -- RECHARGE YOUR BATTERY when it hits one bar.

And remember the RE-SET BUTTON, if your radio has one. It might not be easy to notice at first. The Re-Set button on my G2 was hard to see. Someone who isn't well acquainted with SW and portable digital radios might not know where to look for one.

IN OTHER LIFE.... SUNSHINE

The weather here has been improving. Earlier today it was about 80-85 degrees F and sunny. I went for a three mile bike ride down the valley and back. My cat Squeakers is gaining weight and is always waiting by the door to her room, meowing whenever I approach, wanting me to watch her eat dry and canned cat food. I keep her separate from my other cats because she doesn't like to eat if other cats are around.

Work has slacked off a bit, giving me a bit more time to get things done around the house and yard. And there is a lot to do.

My main radio for listening to the SW ham bands, my trusty Realistic DX-398, Radio Shack's version of the Sangean ATS-909, a radio that was new in 1998. The DX-398 is a great performer on MW, too.

SO FAR, SOLAR CYCLE 25 IS MOSTLY A DUD

With that, I'll close this blog article, and hope all my readers are doing well and keep those radios humming. The sunspot cycle is looking more and more like a dud, but at least there is something to hear most nights and afternoons. MW really sucked for DX last night, although KFBK Sacramento came in strong with the Coast To Coast AM program. SW sucked big time earlier this afternoon, with the 19, 16, 15, and 13 Meter Shortwave bands all dead as a doornail. There were two US stations on the 21 Meter Band (Radio Marti and WWCR / University Network). Amazonia was alone on the 25 Meter Band.

The 27 MHz sideband channels were dead. The "Outband" (including the Latin American calling channel, 27455 kHz USB) was dead. The 15 Meter Ham band was dead, aside from some weak JT65 on 21065 kHz. The 24 Meter ham band was dead. The 20 Meter Ham band had a handful of extremely weak CW signals between 14020-14045 kHz. There were maybe 3-4 USB convos in the 20 M band sideband section, including a barely readable guy from Italy. But overall it was nothing like we have been told about the new Solar Cycle.

But, you learn to enjoy what you have.  :-)

Until next time, my friends,

Peace.

C.C. June 26th, 2023.

Canadian Radio Company Slashes Jobs, Kills 7 AM Radio Stations

Bye, bye CFRN. It was cool hearing you when you were on the airwaves.

I usually check out several radio forums online, some I check out daily, others once or twice a week. Through those forums I generally get a decent view of the state of the industry that I worked in for about 20 years.

The DX forums, which are getting fewer and fewer as the years go by, also provide some interesting information from time to time. On one of these DX forums, the HF Underground, I recently learned that four of the stations I've either tuned into, or listened to from time to time, are going off the air -- permanently. They comprise four of seven AM stations in Canada that are being taken off the air.

In fact, they already have been shut down. I found out after the fact.

One of the stations being shut down -- CFRN 1260, Edmonton, Alberta -- surprises me, as CFRN was a sports talker and Edmonton is a big sports town with a CFL football team and an NHL hockey team. CFRN, in fact, was the only sports radio station in Edmonton, a city with a million population metro area.

Stations like 'Funny 1060' CKMX brought some laughter to the airwaves, with a nonstop cycle of various comedy clips. Not any more.

The other stations -- Calgary's Funny 1060 CKMX, Vancouver's Funny 1040 CFTE, Vancouver's business radio CFTE 1410, and an AM station in Winnipeg plus two more AM stations in Ontario that I've never heard before -- all belong to a Canadian telecommunications company, Bell Media, that also owns CTV, a Canadian TV news network.

In all, Bell Media is laying off 1300 people, including newstaff on CTV, and other staff in corporate offices Canada-wide. In a country like the US, 1300 people being laid off is a big enough deal. But in a market like Canada it's even more of a big deal. Reaction seems to be ranging from shock to "what else did you expect?"

The four Western Canada stations -- CFRN, CKMX, CKST and CFTE -- were usually strong stations on the AM dial any particular evening. Sometimes I'd listen to a few comedy clips on CKMX, which used to have a country format, and then had an alt-rock format during the grunge boom. CKMX also had a Shortwave relay station that I used to hear in the early 2010's, competing with Radio Marti which broadcast on the same 6030 khz frequency.

CKMX's shortwave relay (call letters CFVP) also has, naturally, been shut down. The last time I heard it, it was still covered by Marti. I haven't heard CFVP clearly in over ten years -- that's how shitty the Solar Cycle has been. Now, of course, I won't hear it at all.

Right now, as I write this, it's night time, and I have my desk-side Sangean PR-D5 tuned to 1260. I am hearing Classic Hits KLYC, McMinnville, Oregon. I used to hear CFRN covering them with sports talk and ESPN at night. That's how great a signal CFRN had.

No more.

CFTE 1410 went through several formats in its 101 year existence. First on the air in 1922, in the 1970s it was a Top 40 station, that played Can-Con hits for Canadian rock fans south of the border. 101 years and you just pull the plug and lay off some people. That's radio.

RADIO IS SICK, AND EVERYTHING IS GOING ONLINE

It's the general state of radio these days. AM stations are on borrowed time. FM stations are not too far from borrowed time. Old time radio fans often say the migration of radio away from "live and local" presentation has killed radio, and they will say reduced listenership numbers are proof of that. Radio experts say the opposite -- that radio is doing the best job it can to stay vital in a world where everything is going online.

It's hard to determine the fact from fiction here. On one hand, it's fact that everything is going online, "radio" included. I have written previously on this blog about how the music industry's move to the online, streaming model is killing the music industry. The move to online-only, streaming delivery is like a massive steamroller, and not all of the results are good for the industries adopting that business model.

The same thing seems to be happening to other entertainment industries, which -- when they go all online -- they find themselves competing with not just with other competitors in their field, but they also find themselves competing with every other form of content, varying from social media to video games, to sites with numerous content channels, like OnlyFans.

Here is a recent article in Forbes, where it discusses job cuts in media platforms ranging from Warner Brothers' Discovery and Turner cable TV networks (100 laid off), the Los Angeles Times (74 staff laid off), and even Southern California Public Radio (21 layoffs from their 175 total positions). The new online, streaming media model is socking it to a lot of media.

2023 Media Layoffs: Warner Bros. Cutting About 100 Employees, Report Says (forbes.com)

One of the reasons for this shedding-of-workers phenomenon in the media is the decline in advertising revenue at most media platforms. Radio is a prime example. Radio in the US makes approximately one-third to one-half the revenue it made in 2005. It's because advertisers have a LOT more media to choose from than they did in 2005. 

Advertisers can pick or choose from gazillions of web portals to use. It's not just radio, TV, Cable, and print media anymore. Advertisers have literally millions of websites to choose from to advertise on. And that massive number of sites drives down advertising revenues. The 'pie' is nearly infinite. The 'slices' are razor thin -- as are ad revenues per slice.

You can't stop people choosing to use their phone to get every form of news and entertainment. It's just so convenient to use the phone to watch, view, or listen to stuff. No one under age 40 uses a radio anymore, and what used to be a 'TV' is now a large internet video monitor. Cable TV, which ruled from the 1970's to the start of this decade, is losing viewers. Cable channels like MTV -- which made hits, and made artists into big stars -- are fading. Other 'legacy' media like Magazines and Newspapers are in their dying throes. For those of us who grew up with these media, and even worked in them, it's a sad state of affairs.

And the changes in media that the greater population chooses -- like the move from broadcast and print media to the all-online model -- only becomes accelerated when the economy is marginal. The first instinct for the media moguls is to shut down marginally profitable operations and lay off people. It happened to me. It happened to literally thousands of other workers in radio since 2005. It happened in the newspaper and news industries, which went from 350K journalists nationwide in the late 1980s to merely 46K journalists (or less) in America today.

And, of course, in the case of these seven Canadian AM radio stations, people got laid off. As someone who was laid off from the radio industry in 2006-2007, I can relate. You almost never get a job again in the industry. Because the industry is not growing. Even growing industries, like the software industry, are laying off people. 

Radio, in contrast to stable industries like software, is a dying industry. Those who have jobs in radio now have their days numbered. AI is already being used on the airwaves. It's being used as a test bed on a shift or two on one or two stations, but once the bugs get worked out, you can guarantee that it will be bye bye DJ. Think about it. In the second month of 2020 the largest radio company in the US got rid of 10% of its employees, including airstaff that had great ratings. Does an industry which is more than willing to slough off workers like that, because of a downturn in revenues, sound like one that won't ditch real people for AI voices?

I say this because radio is not, in general, going to make more money in the future. Even the non-commercial stations will not make more money. Because their contributors are generally Gen X or older. The younger demos aren't paying for the non-comm radio operations to the same extent. All radio stations have their days numbered. It may take 15-20 years for what happened to CKMX, CFRN, CFTE, CKST, and the station in Winnipeg and two AM stations in Ontario, to happen to them. 

But it's coming. You can blame 'corporate greed' if you want. You can blame the lack of "live and local" if you want. You can blame the fact that FM sounds cookie cutter and boring (which it often does), and blame the fact that stations that aren't boring in their music choices don't get ratings. You can blame the fact that some radio companies flip formats on a station more than Mickey D's flips burgers. You can blame the fact that nearly all music on FM is researched to death, guaranteeing that every song you've heard is one you've heard a gazillion times before, driving you to YouTube with the rest of the radio refugees if you want to hear a little variety.

But really, you can't blame anybody. It's the state of audio entertainment -- and all entertainment -- in the 2020s. Everyone, and everything, is going online. They aren't switching on their radios, because they probably don't have one.

Anyway, so long CFRN. So long, Funny 1060. So long, Funny 1040, and so long 1410 CFTE, which once was a popular rock station north of the border. You all had a good run. I think Funny 1060 was over a hundred years old. 101 years old, in fact. So was CFTE 1410. Both stations were put on the air in 1922.

101 years on the air, and some suit in an office in Eastern Canada pulls the plug on it like it's yesterday's trash. That's radio.

Yep, that's radio -- my industry of choice for just shy of two decades. When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a DJ. My mom and dad rigged up a fake radio DJ studio for me, with a real, working, red on-the-air light and a fake microphone. It was in a space under the stairwell which also had my toybox. The radio 'desk' was big cardboard box. I'd pretend I was playing records, switch on the big red light, and chatter away. That's how bad I wanted to be a radio guy.

Years later, I was a radio guy. I wasn't a known name, but I was on the radio just the same. I was a DJ for maybe two and a half months, a news announcer for three years, and then worked in another side of the radio business for 16 more years.

And you know? When I was a little kid, dreaming of being on the radio, I never figured I'd be writing about it being a dying industry. That's how much things change.

And with that, I'm going to try to finish my latest fiction novelette, and I'll be listening to KLYC 1260 playing oldies for a while. They just played Baker Street. Now they're playing Transfusion by Nervous Norvus. I might as well enjoy it while it lasts, right?

C.C. June 20th, 2023.

ADDENDUM, June 21st.

I made a correction (7 AM stations were shut down, not just 6) and added a link to a Forbes magazine online article about layoffs in the media, along with a paragraph about it.

ADDENDUM, June 27th.

I corrected the spelling of our nation's #2 city from "Lost Angeles" (in the paragraph about the LA Times losing some staff) to "Los Angeles". It was an honest typo. Sort of funny, but not really. I like Los Angeles.

Finally, it Feels Like Summer, & What Kind of Moron Steals a Flag?

A pic of my American flags from the 4th of July, 2016. I have been putting them out front for more than a decade -- since the 1990s at least. Not any more. The 65 year old one on the far side of the pic got ripped off.

As I write this, it's dark out. I am finishing up a day at work. The weather decided to take a decent turn about a week ago and even though it's 40 degrees at night (4C) the daytime temperatures are in the 70s or 80s F, which is great May weather here in the Great North Wet.

Of course, as I finish this post, and publish it, we've endured a week of grey skies. But I am not complaining.

A blurry night pic of Seattle's Smith Tower. With all the 'advancement' in phone camera technology, it amazes me that night pictures so often never focus right. It doesn't matter if you follow the instructions or not. Getting a good night pic on a phone camera is hit and miss. SMH.

Work is OK, I'm feeling more energy than a year ago, my cat is doing better. Things appear to be looking brighter, I suppose. I haven't been fiction writing much lately, because I simply haven't felt a ton of inspiration. I have a short novelette that needs to be finished editing, and I open it up on the computer, stare at it a while, and then go find some rock vids on YouTube because... Well, just because.

I listen to a lot of music on YouTube, on my computer, because my stereo is broken. The CD player started wigging a couple years ago, and I never bothered to buy a replacement, because at the time I was so busy taking care of my mom, and going to work, that I really didn't listen to the stereo much anymore anyway. 

My old DVD player that won't play DVD's anymore works great as a CD player, so by itself that isn't a problem, but my speakers are shot. One of them works OK, the other one was broken by a previous roommate (they punched a hole into the speaker itself), and it's just another item that needs to be repaired or replaced.

I have always had a lot of music playing in the house, especially in the past when my stereo was working. Now I hear it on the computer, just like everyone else does. Except they probably hear it on their phone, through those shitty earbuds everyone uses. I use Sony headphones, because a lot of earbuds just make music sound like a tinny, trebly screech that destroys it. 

My best earbuds are Trisonics, a budget brand I got somewhere -- I don't remember where I got them. It was either the dollar store, or another budget operation. They cost me somewhere between one dollar and 5 bucks. Although they are a budget model, they sound OK. They actually put out some bass tones. The earbuds that came with my new Tecsun PL-398MP are also pretty good. My Sony's, amazingly, which cost me around $20, are tinny. The IPhone or Android phone compatible earbuds I found on the local bike trail about 4-5 years ago are midrangy and crappy sounding.

However, good earbuds or bad earbuds, I don't like using them much, because they can slip. Headphones do not slip.

Anyway, my writing hobby has been placed on hold for a while. It'll come back. It always does.

A pic of my trusty Radio Shack 200629, a terrific MW DXer (but needs an external loop in low signals regions like where I live), tuned to XEPE, Tecate, BCN, Mexico -- a town otherwise know for its excellent 'Tecate' beer.

My MW DXing hobby is el-dullo, being that the ionosphere hasn't exactly been bringing in the really distant stations. It's been more than eleven years since 2011 when I was hearing tons of cool stuff on the MW band, but the Sunspot Cycle isn't cooperating. I am enjoying hearing MW at night through my new Sangean PR-D4W, which has terrific sound, but the actual MWDX is pretty sparse.

KSTP 1500 and XEPE 1700 are my go-to frequencies to check for DX conditions. Both stations are around 1500 miles / 2000 km away. Also, I nightly check KBRE 1660, The Bear, from Merced, California, because they play rock music. If those three stations aren't in well, it means that generally MWDX is mostly dead.

And it's been mostly dead, or just fair DX conditions, since Winter. I am glad there are regionals and maybe 300 stations I can hear nightly. I am not complaining. But the really cool, longer distance stuff? It's MIA.

But I've got most of my health, my cat is doing better, and I've been getting a lot better on slide guitar, and I'm able to work out with the barbells again, so I'm not complaining about life in general. As one prominent female rocker from the 70's (Jackie Fox, the bass player for the Runaways) once said about life: "It sure beats death."

HONOR THE VETS BY STEALING THE FLAG

We had a holiday la couple weekends back, at the very end of May. Memorial Day, the American holiday that dates from after our Civil War, where veterans were honored for their service to the Country. I'll be blunt -- I haven't felt a ton of patriotism over the past couple years. I just ain't feelin' it. 

But, at the same time, a guy I truly respect, who lives down my street, took a bullet in Vietnam... So I put out my flags for him this Memorial Day. 

My two flags, Memorial Day, 2022. The one that was stolen this year is in the foreground.

So some asshole decides to rip one of them off. Yes, the older flag, the one my grandmother used to put in a planter out front of her house every Memorial Day and 4th Of July. That flag.

There are shitheads all over this planet, and one of them I think lives somewhere in or near my neighborhood, they're probably in their teens and have an IQ that matches their age range, and they stole the flag. Why do I think they're local youths? Because the few druggies that drive through the neighborhood periodically (either when they get lost, or they're looking for a party) aren't interested in ripping off flags, that's why. They'll rip off your mail, but flags? WTF are they going to do with a flag?

Flags aren't worth anything monetarily, except as a symbolic gesture to celebrate your nation's holiday, or honor the veteran down the street.

But yeah, seeing it was stolen really pissed me off. 

And you know? I've been putting out the flags every Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Veteran's Day since I can't remember when. I even put them out on 5-1-2011, the day that Seal Team Six got Osama Bin Laden.

But I'm not putting them out anymore. Unless it's the throwaway, miniature kind you get in the drugstore checkstand displays. It's not worth it to put out a holiday decoration if small minded people decide they need to steal it. No thanks.

Well, right now, as I write these words, it's time to shut out the office lights here where I work, and head home. Got to stop by the grocery store and get food and some cat litter. Maybe a hamburger and fries -- my once a month, fast food treat. I will undoubtedly finish this post at home, in my writing den.

ALL HAIL THE SANGEAN PR-4DW -- it's better than they say it is

I got a new radio, which I mentioned a few paragraphs above. I don't know why. It wasn't expensive, and a model with a pretty good rep -- the Sangean PR-D4W. It turns out it's probably the best new AM-FM radio you can get. I was pleasantly surprised at its sound, as well as its performance. 120 hours on a set of D Cell batteries, being played 4 hours a night at moderate volumes? Sounds great to me! 

I will have a review / article on it probably next month. I want to give it some time so I can review it properly. But so far I can tell you: It probably is the best AM-FM portable you can get. And it's stereo on headphones. Terrific sound overall. And it's probably an excellent emergency radio too.

MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN! yEAAAAAHHHH

How about some Rob Zombie? Here's Rob with his solo band playing a rock show in New Jersey in 2005. Ozzfest. 103 degrees, and it looks like a lot of people were having a lot of fun hearing them play. Dragula -- what a big hit that was. My mother used to sing Dragula in karaoke. No lie. And people requested it. Not just because it was different seeing and hearing an older woman singing Rob Zombie, but she did a decent job of it. My mom liked all kinds of music, including rock like Rob Zombie and AC/DC.

2005, what a year, even music-wise. Rock still was relevant at the time. Nu-metal was fading out, but there were still a few bands kicking A and taking no names.... Eighteen Visions and Army Of Anyone were prime examples of that. Both had good albums out in 2006. Slipknot had recently turned out a great album, Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses, in 2004.

White Zombie playing More Human Than Human at the MTV Awards show, 1995. Astro-Creep 2000, the CD 'More Human Than Human' was on, was a seminal 1990's rock album.

For those of you who missed out, here's Eighteen Visions, playing one of their hits, 'Waiting For The Heavens', from 2004's 'Obsession' CD. 18V, as they were known sometimes, weren't really big, but they had a couple of really good albums out in 2004 and 2006. Their music is well worth checking out, especially their 'Obsession' 2004 CD and 'Eighteen Visions' 2006 CD.

Here's Army Of Anyone's 'Goodbye' video. 'Goodbye' was released in 2006. Army Of Anyone was three guys from the Stone Temple Pilots fronted by Filter's Richard Patrick. I played this CD to death in 2006 and 2007.

This is the opening track off Army Of Anyone's 2006 CD, "It Doesn't Seem To Matter", played live. It's totally kickass.

After 2005-2006, things went thddddt in Rock music over the next few years, but there still is some good rock out there. You just have to dig for it. Mostly on YouTube. And make sure you've got a good set of Sony headphones. :-)

And with that, my friends, I shall close this blog article. I will post another one soon, as there has been some news in the radio industry of note.

See yas,

C.C., June 19th, 2023