The RADIO SHACK 200629 / ATS-505: Fixing an Intermittent Whip-Antenna Connection

A pic of my Radio Shack 200629 radio last year, when I was DXing the 1440 kHz channel. The 200629, an updated Sangean ATS-505, is a good long distance radio for the AM band, especially if you use an external loop.

As I have written here before, I have a Radio Shack 200629 AM-FM-SW-LW portable radio with SSB/CW capability. This radio was first designed in December of 1999, and the design was edited and finalised in 2000. Some time after that, the Sangean company sold the radios as the ATS-505. The radio was produced for over 20 years.

The ATS-505 was intended to be the intermediate range of AM-FM-SW-LW radios, somewhere in between the big models -- ATS-909, and the 909X after that, and the smaller radios like the ATS-404.

Radio Shack, the former American electronics retailer, first issued their badged model of the ATS-505 as their "DX-402". 

A section of the ATS-505 / 200629's RF/IF amplification section. The FM "Front End" chip is circled in blue. Front End chips have RF amplification and some IF amplification and filtering -- basically boosting and filtering the radio signal before it gets sent to the IF chip (upper right center of the diagram), which is the heart of the radio.

Also shown here is the MW/AM antenna (circled in red, bottom center), and the routes the MW signal takes, in pink. The MW/AM in the 200629 is configured like a boombox -- the MW radio signals go from the MW loopstick to the IF chip, from the chip to a mixer IF can & then through the ceramic filter back to the IF chip, where it's processed further before the signal is sent to the Audio amp chip -- and finally, to the headphones and speaker.

By the time the 2010's turned around, the DX-402 went by the wayside, and the "Radio Shack Synthesized World Receiver" was then introduced into Radio Shack's stores. Radio hobbyists instantly recognised it as a Sangean ATS-505, but unlike previous Radio Shack SW radios, this one didn't have a DX-xxx model number.

So it was known by various names. Most of us who have these little marvels call the radio the "200629", because that is the Radio Shack catalog number for the radio.

The 200629 has smoother, chuff-less tuning when you use the tuner knob (it sounds just like analog), and the audio chips are different from the AN7117's the original ATS-505 used. The new audio chips may have a little more power. Aside from that, and the black case (the Sangean ATS-505 is battleship grey), the operation of the 200629 is identical to the previous versions of the 505.

The back of the box my Radio Shack 200629 came in. The front side just has a cellophane window. The 200629 was the last Sangean radio that Radio Shack badged under its own label and sold in its stores. Within 2-3 years after introducing the radio, Radio Shack stores started closing all over the US, ending an era in electronics retail. I got my radio in the Summer of 2013. The store I bought it in closed within six months.

I got my 200629 in 2013. The Radio Shack store (in Wilderness Village, Maple Valley, WA) closed not too long afterwards. At the time, Radio Shack had been going through financial problems -- the electronics marketplace had changed, and brick and mortar electronics stores were going by the wayside. I actually have some fond memories over the purchase. In 2013 life was picking up a bit, and the MW band was loaded with long distance signals. Radio Disney was still on the airwaves, playing pop music, and SW had a lot more stations to hear.

And the pop music of the day was really, really good! 

I still have the box the radio came in.

I have gotten a lot of use out of my 200629 over the years, with very few issues.

I previously wrote a fairly extensive article on the 200629 a few years back. You can find that article here.:

Interrock Nation: MW DXing with the Radio Shack 200629 World Receiver / Sangean ATS-505

In that article I tell you how the radio works, how to get the most out of it, and especially how to DX the Medium Wave band with it, because it's really a sleeper DX radio. The bandwidth is about perfect, really, for an analog IF chipped portable. The tone control works really well, especially for DXing through headphones. The sound is also remarkable through headphones, and it is super easy to DX with this radio while using an external loop.

This is a section of the ATS-505 / 200629's schematic diagram, showing the stereo jack for the Shortwave External Antenna (left center). Below it you can see two diodes, reversed polarity, back to back, going between the 'hot' side of the antenna and the ground. What these diodes do is to conduct static electricity discharges to the ground, keeping them from frying the FET RF amp transistor, circled in orange at top center of the pic. Top left, the arrow shows the line coming from the whip antenna, showing that the connection from the whip is fairly direct.

The signal path from the whip antenna to the first RF amp is shown in pink, and the blue path is from the External SW Antenna jack. The stereo jack switches the whip off when the plug from the External Antenna is inserted into the jack. Inserting a mono plug seems to short circuit the connections somehow, maybe messing with the impedance the radios's RF amp is designed for -- but that is just a guess.

(Pics can be right-clicked and opened in new tab or window to see labels more clearly.)

There are only two weak spots with the 200629, and this may also apply to ATS-505's:

First, if you're listening to the SW ham bands using the BFO, it can overload on really strong signals. The CW or SSB will start to 'chirp'. The solution is to kick in the Attenuator "DX/Local" switch, putting it in local. Or you can just use the whip for reception when the signals are that strong (it's possible that you could wire a small resistor to an alligator clip, and clip it between your wire antenna and the whip antenna, too). It only does this form of overloading on the S5, CW and SSB signals, and there is little, if any overloading on AM broadcast SW or MW. 

Secondly, if you use a mono plug on the end of your wire antenna, sometimes the SW External Antenna jack might cause some occasional feedback of some sort. It seems that the radio's EXT SW ANT jack is stereo, and it requires a stereo plug to work correctly. This issue, overall though, is not debilitating. If you don't have a stereo plug for your wire antenna, you can clip it to the whip and do OK. The circuitry is basically the same. But this issue -- using mono plugs in the stereo EXT SW ANT jack -- may be the same with some ATS-505's or 200629's, especially as the 2000 dated ATS-505 schematic I found online shows a stereo plug for the jack.

I wrote an article on the stereo plug / feedback issue, too. You can find it here.:

Interrock Nation: Radio Shack 200629 Synthesized World Receiver -- how to quickly fix a feedback and whistling noise issue

That said, since 2018 or so, if I listen to SW on my 200629, I just clip my indoor, 25-30 ft. wire to the whip. This is partly out of convenience, and partly because I lost my mono to stereo adaptor plug, and keep forgetting to get another one online.

Clipping the indoor wire antenna to the whip works perfectly for most listening, and from an internal circuitry standpoint, there really is little to no difference -- except I NEVER have gotten the feedback issue by clipping the wire antenna to the whip.

A pic of the Radio Shack 200629 with the back off. At the top, you can see the internal loopstick, which is the antenna for the MW and LW bands. It's 120mm long, and about 8mm thick. Next to it, you can see the solder pad for the antenna terminal. The little prong mechanism -- visible in the other pictures I posted in this article, connects to the whip antenna by friction, and presses against the solder pad, connecting the whip to the radio. That little prong can weaken over time, oxidise, etc. Hence, the surgery required. :-) Some other older Sangeans have similar whip-to-antenna terminal setups -- connection via a little prong mechanism.

Now to the THIRD potential weakness -- and this is something that a lot of older Sangean SW portables seem to have: The whip antenna connection can get wonky. I.e., intermittent. And I'm not talking just the thing getting loose, and needing to be tightened. It acts up, cuts out, goes intermittent, even if you tighten the little set screw. This is after the radio is a few years old.

There's a reason for this. It's fairly well known among Sangean 'classic' SW portable enthusiasts.

Since 1989 Sangean has used a unique way of connecting a whip antenna (and sometimes the battery -- like with the ATS-803A) to their SW portable radios: there is this small, springy prong-like device, a little piece of metal that ends in what can only be called these tiny forks. This springy prong is attached to the whip, and then it touches a solder pad on the main printed circuit board. It's like a little spring-metal connector between whip and the antenna terminal on the PCB.

The springy prong-like thing gets weak over time -- or the prong wears down the solder pad that is on the main PCB. Oxidation on the tips of the prong also probably comes into play. Which means, the connection can go intermittent, because there is less solder for it to press against, and if there is any oxidation on the prong, that will interfere with the connection, too.

A pic of my Radio Shack 200629 with the back off, and the hookup wire I used to make the hard-wired connection between the whip antenna and the PCB's antenna terminal solder pad. The hookup wire is regular telephone 'twisted pair' wire -- very useful for radio projects if you can get it.

I had to hard wire my DX-440 / ATS-803A to overcome this, and I had to do the same thing with my DX-390 / ATS-818. I also hard wired my Realistic DX-370's whip to the PCB, and the DX-370 is a Sangean ATS-800A variant. A pic of this can be seen in a pic of my DX-370 I put in my DX-370 article.

My DX-370 article, with a pic of the wiring, is here.:

Interrock Nation: Medium Wave DXing with the REALISTIC DX-370

I took this pic after soldering the hookup wire to the little prong. After the solder cooled, the wire -- and the solder -- easily slipped off. There was no way to get the solder to stick to the prong. I later tried soldering the hookup wire to the base of the whip itself. That wouldn't take, either. It was then I decided to clamp the end of the hookup wire between the whip and the prong's flat base, basically using the prong's base as a washer. That worked.

Now I've had to do the same operation to my 200629. A few months back, I was tuning the shortwaves and all the signals were weak. Then BOOM! They were instantly loud. Then after a while they cut back to weak again, and then BOOM! they were loud again. It was like someone was flipping a switch. I tested the DX/Local attenuator switch. That wasn't the problem.

The problem was elsewhere. I suspected the connection between the whip antenna and the radio. I tapped on the whip antenna, at the base -- on top of the swivel joint.

BOOM! The signals were back 100%.

That told me one thing: Houston, we've got a problem with the whip antenna connector!

I tightened the whip antenna. That seemed to help. Then it did it again, two days later.

I took the back off the radio and added solder to the antenna solder point on the PCB. That helped for maybe two more days, then it did it again.

It was time to hard wire it and get it over with -- a chore I put off for over a month. I really don't like taking apart my radios unless absolutely necessary. I just get the feeling that there is a limit to the number of times a radio can be dismantled and reassembled before those operations may lead to a failure somewhere in the radio. So I limit it to be on the safe side.

But in this case, I wanted my 200629 to work correctly on SW. So it was a necessary job to do -- time to solder a piece of hookup wire between the whip's base, and the Antenna solder terminal on the PCB.

Here you can see where I clamped the bared end of the hookup wire under the end of the whip, using the prong mechanism's base as a washer, thus making a tight connection.

(If you can't read the type in the pic itself, the pics can be right-clicked and viewed in a new tab or window).

Well, I finally fixed the connection, and this time there was a wrinkle in the process: you can't solder anything to the little prong, because it won't hold solder, and you can't solder a wire to the whip itself, because it won't hold solder either. There was no way I was going to hold the solder gun onto either the whip or the prong long enough to force them to take solder, because it might start melting the plastic case.

The completed fix. The hookup wire is long enough to not mess things up if you have to open up the back of the radio for any reason, but short enough to not keep you from putting the case back together. The wire hard-wires the whip to the Antenna Terminal solder pad. It should last. Every now and then you might still have to tighten the Whip Antenna's set screw, if it works its way loose. The screw is metal, and shouldn't present too much problem. Don't over tighten it, though -- the threads are very fine.

So here is what I finally did: I cut a little piece of hookup wire, and I stuck the bare tip of the hookup wire in between the whip antenna's butt end, and the prong, using the prong as a sort of washer. Then I tightened the little assembly together, basically squishing the bared tip of hookup wire between the whip antenna end and the prong's base.

The little screw that tightens the whip to the body of the radio is metal, as is the whip, so you can tighten it considerably without worrying about stripping it. Of course, I didn't overtighten it -- you're not holding elephants down, you're just securing the whip, hookup wire, and prong together securely. Those tiny threads aren't made for automobile cylinder heads, they're just designed to hold a whip antenna to the radio. So be careful when tightening.

Then I soldered the other end of the hookup wire to the antenna terminal / solder pad on the main PCB.

So far, it's working well that way.

This is a pic of my Realistic DX-370 with the back off. You can see two wiring jobs -- I wired some back-to-back diodes between the antenna terminal solder pad and the negative battery terminal (just off the picture, lower left), to protect the radio from static electricity, and on the right you can see a wire going between the whip antenna and the main antenna terminal solder pad. In this case, the 'prong' device was made of steel, and it was easy to solder the wire to it.

In this pic you can see the DX-370's 120mm MW loopstick, at the top of the radio.

Next morning -- this morning, actually -- I test drove the 200629 on Shortwave, for two full hours or more. I had zero problems. The propagation was a problem -- even though it was 9 a.m., the 20 Meter, 17 Meter, 15 Meter, 12 Meter bands were all dead -- aside from some weak FT8 signals on a couple of the bands -- and the 11 Meter Outband was also dead. Most of the SWBC bands were spare, with the 31 Meter Band fading somewhat rapidly after 9:30 a.m. I did hear some CW on 20 Meters, and some week SSB on a couple channels in the SSB part of the band.

But what I heard was exactly the same on my other radios that I know for a fact work perfectly. So the 200629 was obviously working as it should. And I was able to catch a few SW broadcasts.

I heard China Radio International broadcasting to the Middle East from Kashgar, in Chinese, on 13710 kHz, so I know for a fact that the 200629 is doing its job OK.

And early on, before the 31 Meter Band faded into hiss and static, I heard Radio Free Asia in Korean on 9990 kHz, and Radio Free Asia in Korean with stronger signals on 9910 kHz, an UNIDentified station in non-Cuban Spanish on 9740 kHz; and in the 25 and 21 Meter Bands I heard what sounded like CNR-1 (maybe a jammer) on 11715, what sounded like Viet language on 11715 (Voice Of Vietnam, probably), CNR-1 jamming the Voice of Hope on 13670, and a weak WWCR-3 with a preacher on 13845.

So, the fix worked! My 200629 is back!

This morning, after doing the fix earlier before going to bed, I did some SWLing and the radio worked fine. The fix worked! Here I'm listening to an unidentified broadcast in Spanish on 9740 kHz, at 1703 GMT, April 5th.

DON'T STRESS THE WHIP ON THESE RADIOS -- Just Not A Good Idea

A suggestion: don't swivel the whip on these radios too much, or if you swivel it, lube the swivel, and then whenever you move the whip, do it slowly.

This is because -- to be blunt -- there isn't a lot holding the whip, prong, etc. together. And that fastening screw, even though it's real metal, isn't very big, and the threads are very fine.

In fact, it's probably best not to rotate the whip at all if you're FM DXing. Even with the little fastening screw battened tight, there will be movement of the whip's base inside the radio. I saw this while testing it before putting the radio back together.

Rotate the radio instead. The connection just isn't built for being stressed. Even if you use a little lubricant on the swivel point and the rotation joint at the base of the whip, the whip has such a tight fit that rotating the whip, or swiveling it a lot -- it just is going to weaken the connection over time, and you'll have to tighten it over and over again -- and even though the little screw is made out of metal, I'm not certain just how much re-tightening that little screw is going to take before it starts to strip. As said before, the threads on it are very fine.

So don't overdo it if you use an ATS-505 or 200629.

I have no clue how many 200629's are out there being used. I know that my 200629 article gets about one hit a week or so, so there must be a few of you out there. There was a DX'er in my state who had a DX-402 (the earlier ATS-505 sold by Radio Shack), and his antenna broke. He was an FM DX'er, so possibly he had this particular issue.

Either way, if you have a 200629 or ATS-505, go easy on moving that whip antenna around, maybe lube the swivel so using the swivel doesn't stress the connection to the radio, and if you end up have to do some surgery, it can be done. It's not fun, but it's not really a difficult fix.

This pic I took a few years back for another blog article. You can see the mono-to-stereo adaptor between the Panasonic wire antenna and the radio's EXT Antenna jack. The adaptor, being very small, got lost somewhere. Stereo plugs seem to be a necessity with these radios, as the jack is wired for a stereo plug. The middle terminal apparently switches off the whip. Why? I have no idea. If the whip is collapsed, it won't affect the reception any. It may be an impedance thing. Either way, if you use an external antenna, clip it to the whip, or use a stereo plug with the EXT Antenna jack.

Worse comes to worse, if by chance your ATS-505 or 200629 becomes unrepairable, you could take the whip off entirely, and solder a long bit of hookup wire to the terminal solder pad on the PCB, and then push the wire out through the hole, and clip another piece of stiffer wire to it if needed. But it doesn't have to come to that. I've had my 200629 for 11 years now, and it's doing fine. I am confident that if I reduce moving the whip around a lot, this fix should last. That little bit of hookup wire is squished in between the prong and the whip pretty tightly.

I've said several times that the 200629 is a great MW DX'er. This is despite the fact it's just a glorified boombox, circuitry wise. The IF chip, however, is a high gain one, and if you couple your 200629 with a good loop, and put on the headphones, you'll hear a LOT of DX with this radio.

I just heard WWL New Orleans 870 with it a couple nights back (they're almost a couple thousand miles away), using my homemade Crate loop antenna.

The radio gets the job done. Can't ask for much more than that. And the audio is so good, especially through headphones, that it's not a chore listening to either SW or long distance MW / AM. Good, smooth audio always makes distance listening a lot more fun.

With that, I will close this article. I hope it helped a few DXers out there with ATS-505's and 200629's. Some of this may apply to other, older "classic" era Sangeans, too (1990-2010 era SW portables).

See ya's.

C.C. April 5th, 2024.

Trees = Green; Spring = Normal; the 1993 band The Indians, & 'Indianism'

In Springs past, my neighborhood had maybe 8 different yards with Rhododendrons as beautiful as this bush. This Spring, this one is the only one blooming. There are a few others in the neighborhood that are beginning to bloom, and a couple yards where new owners tore the Rhododendrons out. :-(

The past several Springs have been cold and rainy, to say the least. What used to be a nice season for bike riding and photography turned into cold, wet, and often frosty, miserable times of the year.

Not so this year. Well -- at least it is looking that way. As I write this, it is April 5th, and it is green outside. And I'm not just talking about the evergreen trees that are everywhere, I'm talking about the other trees and plants -- the deciduous ones. 

They usually -- during a normal year, turn the nearby hills green by April 5th. Why that is, I don't know. Probably it has something to do with the latitude here (47.5 degrees N) and maybe the local terrain. When I took Meteorology 101 at the University -- a course I amazingly passed -- one thing they told us about was "micro-climates". In other words, even in a given locale there may be small areas where it's usually colder, wetter, drier, etc. 

These micro-climates can be as extensive as the Rogue-Umpqua, relatively arid, Garry Oak micro-climate that one sees near Roseburg and Medford, Oregon, where the weather is drier and hotter than any other parts of Western Washington and Western Oregon. A micro-climate can also be as small as the shadier side of a neighborhood, if that neighborhood is in a valley or near a big hill.

Cherry blossoms in my side yard. The trees were volunteer, and the cherries are always gone before anyone can ever eat one, thanks to the birds eating all of them.

In my own neighborhood there are several blocks where it's frostier at night, and if I ride my bike at night I have to be careful about the sheen of black ice -- that section of the neighborhood is affected by moisture from the nearby River. And apparently when it's freezing out, that moisture from the River frosts the streets and waysides in that part of the neighborhood -- where in my section there may be some frost, but the streets are clear.

My section of the neighborhood also sees a bit more sun, being further from the hills than the streets just a 300-400 yards / meters south of me.

Also, I've noticed that certain birds hang out in other parts of the neighborhood that don't hang out at my block. Whether this has anything to do with micro-climate or not is a good guess. Brewer's Blackbirds (the normal, small kind of blackbird) like to hang out in a section of the neighborhood about 4 blocks away. On my street it's only Redwing Blackbirds -- which are cool, because of their musical konk-a-reeeee call. 

I used to have a lot of house sparrows visit my yard. They would daisy chain it from the golf course, flying tree to tree, until they got to my yard where I was feeding them. 

Then a lady down the street, who was paranoid about volunteer trees and blackberries, bitched to the city about the plethora of greenery on the berm near the noise-cancelling retaining wall that's maybe 50-60 yards from my house. The city mowed down the blackberries (which protected the birds and rabbits) and wiped out all the small trees that the house sparrows used to stop at when making their way to my yard.

My house sparrow visitors went from maybe 150 or so in an afternoon to zero.

Some people seem to have a real hatred for nature, I guess.

That said, the neighborhood pigeons hang out the next street over, and down about half a block. And there are a couple other spots in the neighborhood where they hang out, roosting on the powerlines. Yet they never hang out on my street. In fact, I can't recall ever seeing them on my block, or even within 300 yards/meters of my place.

A view down a nearby street, with the greening trees on the hills visible. Unfortunately it was cloudy today, and on top of that, my Nikon L32 camera had reset before I put in new batteries, and I used the wrong "Night" setting by accident -- "Night Portrait", the one that doesn't compensate for low light settings, and always uses flash and drains batteries (the correct "Night" setting is "Night Landscape", which never has Flash, and always adjusts to low light settings).

Anyway, this year -- Spring 2024 -- is surprisingly back to normal. The cherry trees are blossoming -- last year they blossomed in May. And surprisingly -- after maybe 5 springs where the trees were one week, then two weeks, then four weeks late -- the hills are already turning green. Last year they didn't green out until May 5th - 8th or so. This year, they are right on time!

Hopefully, that means that the neighborhood rhododendrons will bloom in late April / early May, and I can get some pictures. Last year they bloomed oddly -- some bushes had blooms when others were still budding, and the blooms looked sickly compared to the mid-2010's, when I was taking pictures of them and posting them on my blog here.

Another, close-up view of cherry blossoms. Last year, they were nothing like this, and furthermore, they were more than a month late.

So posted here through this blog article are a few pics of leaves budding. Dull? Yes, but it's nice to see them happening when they should: during the first week of April.

Not much else is happening that I didn't cover in my last article.

A FORGOTTEN BAND -- THE INDIANS. 1993. 

Here's a couple vids, from a band I loved from the 1990's, and like many great bands that I loved during that decade (Engines of Aggression, Blinker The Star, Warrior Soul, Truly, Mantissa, Econoline Crush, etc.) they put out one album which was awesome, and then got dropped. Sucks when that happens. 

This band is one that is largely forgotten, but the music they put out was so remarkable that they should have been huge. The band? The Indians. Driven mostly by one woman's creativity and songwriting, and including the amazing guitar work of a relatively unknown Italian axe-slinger, the Indians put out a couple videos and just one CD. Then they disappeared into the ether.

The Indians were a quartet headed by female singer Angelique Bianca, who wrote most of the songs, sang them, and played acoustic and some electric guitar on them. Angelique definitely had the gift. She still makes music, and has some videos on her own YT channel, which you can find here. A few of the newer tracks she made in the 2010's are really good.:

https://www.youtube.com/@angeliquebianca4629/featured

Here is my favorite song by The Indians, Believe. It is a track that only could have been recorded and released in the 1990s. The recording is massive, and wonderfully done. Back in the 1990's, record companies were willing to put money into breaking acts, and this CD "Indianism", from which this track is taken, is an example of this. And why did they put the money into the recordings? Because a) the songs, and the band, were good. And b) because back then, record companies had the money to put into breaking acts.

The musicianship The Indians displayed was outstanding. The lead guitar player was an Italian guy named "Zeb", and the bass was played by UK bassist Chris Wilson, and the drummer (who posted the Look Up To The Sky MTV video below) was DJ Danny G. A Los Angeles native, Angelique Bianca spent some time in the UK in 1989, which was where she met Chris Wilson. The two spent time working on music, later to come to the US, found drummer Danny G, and then got a recording contract as The Indians. 

And the recording itself? It's larger than life. 

Anyway, here is a "link" to a video of Believe, which I guess Blogger can't play directly, hence the "Video Unavailable" panel -- but if you click on the link inside the panel, it will immediately take you to the one on YouTube (I tried it, it works). Both Blogger and YT are owned by the same corporation. Go figure.:

Here is a link to the CD track on YouTube, which Blogger's searcher couldn't find.:

Believe (youtube.com)

And here is Look Up To The Sky, a 7 minute dreamtrip, rock track, with excellent guitars, cool lyrics, great singing, and psycho-flutes at the ending (actually a Mellotron on flute setting). This song was on the movie Kalifornia. I've never seen Kalifornia, but I was told by a workmate in the radio business that the movie was "weird". I'll take his word on that one.

Here's a link to the actual MTV video The Indians put out for Look Up To The Sky, with a few short clips included from the movie Kalifornia. The recording is good quality, and it's a radio edit. Sadly, it didn't get much play on MTV (if any), or any airplay on the radio that I'm aware of. I know that where I worked the CD was unused. I ended up with a copy of it.

If you get the chance, check out the entire Indianism album on YouTube. It's well worth it. The entire CD is on there, in high quality. Take a journey back to 1993. It was a good time back then, really. Especially for music.

Until next time, my friends,

Peace.

C.C., April 5th 2024

KPNW-FM, 98.9 Seattle's Flip-O-Rama Station -- Flips Again, This Time To Country

KPNW-FM lasted about a year and a half with an Alternative / AAA format. Next!

A few years back, on of our local Seattle area FM stations, Click 98.9 flipped to Rock, call letters KVRQ. They called themselves, unremarkably, "Rock 98.9". I remember wondering what Rock 98.9 could bring to the table, as -- at that time -- we had KISW 99.9 for Mainstream Rock; KNDD 107.7 for Alternative Rock; KFOO 102.9 for Classic Alternative Rock, and KZOK 102.5 for Classic Rock.

As it turned out, KVRQ Rock 98.9 filled the niche between KISW and KZOK very well. They were a fun station to listen to. They played a lot of 80's, 90's and 00's music that the other stations didn't concentrate on, and the music was programmed very well. You could hear Motley Crue, followed by Red Hot Chili Peppers, followed by Linkin Park, followed by Rage Against The Machine, followed by A Perfect Circle, followed by Disturbed, followed by Danzig... you get the idea.

Rock 98.9 was yanked off the air after a year and a half. They had a lot of loyal listeners, like myself (as well as a couple musos I know in the area), but they weren't promoted enough, and consequently didn't get the ratings. They did a few promos at rock shows, but the problem with Rock promotions is that there aren't many current rock stars, and 'classic' artists -- who usually play at the local Indian Casinos and draw crowds of maybe a thousand or so -- don't usually have the same pull that the few, huge classic rock acts like the Stones, Pearl Jam and Metallica have. And apparently having a fifth rock station in the metro just wasn't paying the bills.

The banner which was atop the long defunct KVRQ Rock 98.9 website.

They were a fun rock station. They lasted just a year and a half, to 2 years.

I wrote an article about KVRQ Rock 98.9 here.:

Interrock Nation: KVRQ 98.9 FM -- New Classic Rock Station in Seattle

So, being that Rock 98.9's ratings weren't what the owners, Hubbard, desired, they did what seemed natural: they flipped to Country -- now they were "KNUC The Bull". Why Country, especially in tech mad, anything but farm country, West Coast Seattle, the home of grunge? Well, Country music is the most popular music format in the US. 

The Bull got ratings, but they never beat their main competition, a longer established station on 100.7 called The Wolf. The Bull's promotions were mainly at Country shows. Country radio is one of the few remaining formats where word of mouth, and or promotions at shows works. This is because Country is one of the few remaining formats that has big stars. But even with a popular morning show, and whatever promotion they were doing, The Bull's ratings began to drop after about a year. 

The station was then flipped to KPNW-FM, an alternative / AAA (Adult Alternative) station. A lot of the radio guys on the radio forums I go to thought KPNW-FM (there is a KPNW-AM, a talk station in Eugene, Oregon, about 350 miles south of here) might be a non-starter. AAA is a dying format nationwide, and there are AAA channels on the streaming services that have gained the listeners that the Over-The-Air radio stations cast off when they flipped to other formats in the 2010's. The Pandora app on my smartphone has an AAA channel. I'm sure the other platforms have them, too.

That said, KPNW played an interesting mix, and, once again, just like Rock 98.9 before them, they got some loyal listeners. I listened to KPNW-FM a lot. It wasn't always my cup of tea, but they played a decent mix of music. The station wasn't promoted much, however. There were no KPNW billboards, no KPNW placards on buses, few, if any ads in local online media -- nothing like that.

In other words, they weren't exactly creative in their attempt to reach all the alienated AAA listeners.

It was another case of Radio thinking "If we just put it on the air, the listeners will show up, as if by magic." That might have worked well in 1985, when FM listeners tuned around a lot, but it doesn't work so well in 2024, when FM listeners don't tune the dial much. Most radios in newer cars, for example, don't really have dials. You have your favorites, and punch the virtual buttons on the dashboard screen. Also, many listeners use streaming services a lot. 

Radio somehow hasn't figured this out yet. More on that later...

Anyway, KPNW's ratings started low and then kept going lower.

The logo for The Bull last time around, when it was KNUC 98.9 FM. The new logo is similar. I posted the older logo here because I think it looks a bit cooler.

On a radio forum I go to, where a lot of pros hang out, I asked them why KPNW wasn't promoting their station to gain listeners in an increasingly multi-media, internet dominated world.

In other words, why weren't they advertising? Stations used to do that all the time in previous decades. I used to see radio station billboards, and placards on the sides of buses. The concept of advertising a radio station seemed to work back then -- why not now?

What I got back from the experts was the keyboard equivalent of a shrug. Experts there said that KPNW was indeed promoting. They were giving away tickets to shows. They may have had some sort of presence at some musical events (what type of presence isn't really clear). 

I said "But.... what about advertising, though?" Radio used to advertise heavily -- and now, with so much competition from streaming platforms like Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, ApplePlay, and other platforms, advertising seems like a no-brainer.

No, said the experts. That's not how it's done. You do what KPNW did -- ticket giveaways. "That's how you reach their potential listeners."

OK, offer ticket giveaways -- but to who? If your potential audience doesn't know your station is present on the FM band, how are they going to get your tickets? The point is to get people to listen to the station, right? How is giving tickets to people who already are listening going to gain more listeners to your station? FM listeners don't troll the band looking for new music like they did when I was a kid. They keep their radio on a couple presets, and -- increasingly -- they use streaming services, streaming playlist, and curated streaming channels (like Pandora's AAA/Adult Alternative channel -- which I can get on my phone through the app) to listen to music.

You've got to find a way to get them to check out your station. They're not going to find it on their own anymore.

Not everyone is a radio nerd. Today, it's more like "What's a radio?"

Anyway, any time I asked questions about KPNW's lack of internet and billboard promotion, I got what seemed to be canned replies. "That's not how it's done in radio," seemed to be the gist of it. "It's word of mouth. That is the only thing that works."

Now, most businesses probably love it when a satisfied customer tells others. So the concept of 'word of mouth'? I get that.

But advertising is a billion dollar business for a reason. Advertising often works.

I shook my head after these interactions with the experts. If THAT is really how the people running radio stations think you promote your content brand with all that internet competition out there, RADIO IS DONE.

Now, I'm no radio expert. I'm a radio blogger / journalist, but I'm no expert. I'll admit that completely.

But I can tell you this: whatever form of promotion KPNW tried -- ticket giveaways, word of mouth, it wasn't working.

As Radio ditches music formats that cater to age 50+ demos, treating the older demographics like they are little more than yesterday's trash, the migration away from Radio to services like Pandora and Spotify continues. Pandora has several channels featuring the AAA/Adult Alternative music that a lot of college educated, older demographics like. They also have several oldies channels, including a surf music channel. They have a smooth jazz channel, too.

 Radio ditches 'em, Pandora hitches 'em.

THE INTERNET: IT'S A DIFFERENT ANIMAL. GET USED TO IT.

News flash: The Internet is becoming the dominant form of music consumption, with YouTube, Spotify, Apple and Pandora leading the way. Amazon Music is also a key player. The radio based platforms like IHeart and Audacy have a long way to go to compete, but they're trying.

But when your industry is losing listeners to online platforms, shouldn't it be time to think outside the box?

Whenever I mention the FACT that in 15-20 years the vast majority of the more than 15,000 radio stations in the US will no longer exist, even online, the radio experts respond with crickets.

But it's fact. Online is a different animal. There are visibility issues. There are subscription problems. If you run ads, it can drive listeners / content consumers away from your site, so you have to work around that issue. There are expensive digital royalties for streaming music services -- including the radio ones. Even if you get them to load your "app", your "app" may be lost in the gazillion other icons on their phone's screen.

Online -- even for a radio station -- really isn't plug and play. Especially when you switch off the transmitters and antennas, and your entire operation is just one more website out of millions of them.

And that visibility issue is MASSIVE. It's so easy for any content channel to get lost in the vast internet static. Just ask any online newspaper that still failed. There are a gazillion news sources, valid and invalid, out there -- all that competition for screen time. The competition for the news marketplace today even is global in scope. All those websites, worldwide.

And even a decent local newspaper has issues keeping the lights on. Even national newspapers have problems. Ask the LA Times, which loses tens of millions of dollars a year, and laid off more than 100 staff in the past couple of years. 

The internet is a harsh mistress.

When I bring this up on the radio forums, no one gets it.

And that, in itself, is another problem.

THE 'NEW ECONOMY' ISSUES THAT ALL THAT RESEARCH MISSED

When the Audacy radio corporation bankruptcy was a news issue on the radio websites a couple months ago, one guy asked the experts: Why didn't the big radio companies foresee that the internet media competition would hit them in the wallet? Why didn't they -- with all their blessed RESEARCH and highly paid consultants -- foresee that the internet would drive down advertising rates, because of the infinite number of slots -- you know, all that competition?

The experts really didn't have a good answer. I suppose a lot of what is slamming radio now is post-Pandemic economics, something that nobody could foresee. But it still remains: the Internet has been vaunted as THE FUTURE since 1998-1999 -- just before the Dot-com crash -- when news articles were constantly talking about the "New Economy" versus the "Brick and Mortar" economy. That was 25-26 years ago.

These big radio companies depend on consultants, research, studies, polls, ratings services -- they have all of this expert information at their hands and they didn't see the advertising issue happening, and right now many of them seem to be lost when it comes to the future of Radio.

Personally, I think that if I'm still alive and kicking in 2045, there won't be more than a couple hundred AM radio stations on the air in the US, and more than 3-4 thousand FMs. And those numbers will probably drop, year by year. They may migrate to the internet, and still will probably fail. Because of the economics of streaming. Very few radio stations 20 years from now will have viable, independent streams. 

The vaunted future of every station on the air today having a viable streaming station tomorrow simply will not happen. The economics of competing in an increasingly national and global media audio market, and the complications of internet streaming economics will not support it.

Now, maybe that future dominance of just 5-6 major streaming platforms is inevitable, promotion or no promotion, thinking out of the box, or not thinking out of the box. Maybe there is absolutely nothing radio stations can do to see the end of this century. But that said, it appears that "Radio" -- as we know it -- won't last. It will be streaming networks, on one of the massive platforms. Your local station won't survive. The economics won't support it anymore than it's supporting your local newspaper right now.

And the backwards looking leadership at a lot of radio companies seems to be helping it on its way into the electronic trashcan in the sky.

Either way, this latest debacle here in Seattle on 98.9 is a head scratcher. KPNW-FM looked like a potential money maker -- maybe not a massive moneymaker, as the older Millennials and younger GenX'ers they wanted to reach are in their 40's and 50's, the high end of the sales demographics. But AAA listeners are generally educated, and well-to-do -- not much different from your average Public Radio listener.

I thought that if KPNW-FM advertised and actively promoted their station, they had a chance. Seattle, the home of Grunge and Alternative, would be receptive to Alt and AAA music. The listeners just had to be reached out to, and found. So that they would set the virtual buttons on their car system to KPNW.

But it didn't work out.

There, of course is another wrinkle in this story. Another Seattle FM station, Star 101.5, flipped from AC to Classic Country. They're now "101.5 Hank FM" (not to be confused with the "Hank 101.5 FM" in Dayton, Ohio). They flipped Classic Country the same day that KPNW-FM flipped to Country.

The question is whether a Classic Country station can do well in a city that isn't exactly rural or Country lifestyle oriented. In the 1990's we had two big Country stations (KMPS 94.1, which often topped the ratings, and KRPM 106.1), and a third one that made an attempt (KYCW, Young Country 96.5).

But that was when Country was massive, and their big stars were literally superstars. Garth Brooks, Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt, Shania Twain, the Dixie Chicks, and some others were super popular even outside the Country music arena. But that was the 1990's and early 2000's. The young people who were into Country in the mid 1990's are over 50 now, and advertisers don't care about listeners over 50.

Also, Classic Country, as a music format, is said to be a hard sell to advertisers, as a lot of the listeners are older demographics. So KPLZ's flip from Hot AC -- one of the top radio formats in the US -- to Classic Country could be a gamble.

So what does this all leave for a station like "Hank"? It's hard to say.

I guess time will tell.

For those curious to hear "101.5 Hank FM" in Seattle (not the "Hank 101.5 FM" station in Dayton, OH), here is their website, creatively called "CrankTheHankSeattle".:

101.5 - HANK FM SEATTLE (crankthehankseattle.com)

If you want to check out "The Bull 98.9", here is a link to their stream.:

Number One For New Country - 98.9 The Bull (989bull.com)

If you want to get a feel for what many Seattle listeners thought about 98.9 flipping to Country and 101.5 being turned into "Hank FM", this RadioInk article covers some of that, and the numerous comments below the article are enlightening.:

Two Seattle Stations Go Country As KPNW and Star 101.5 Flip - Radio Ink

My Radio Shack 200629, which I got in 2013, strikes again! I logged WWL, New Orleans with it earlier this evening. The 200629 is a good MW DXer, especially if you couple it with an external loop antenna. The three way tone control works really well. 

With that, I'll close this article. Life is normal. As per usual, I've been MW DXing nightly... Earlier this evening, I actually heard WWL, New Orleans, briefly on 870 kHz, on my Radio Shack 200629 with my crate loop. WWL were playing the Dave Ramsey Show, his theme song "Baker Street" (by Gerry Rafferty) being easy to pick out in the mix. The snippet came up for several seconds and then faded back to unreadable audio behind Pasco, WA talker KFLD.

I hadn't heard WWL in nearly a decade. New Orleans is a long, long distance from here. When I hear WWL, it generally means that the really long distance DX is coming in. So perhaps this present dud of a Solar Cycle is sharpening up!

One can only hope, as Solar maximums are also good for other things, like growing crops. :-)

Aside from that, the weather is improving. I have a few radio articles I'm still working on. I hope this blog post finds everyone out there -- all over the world -- doing well.

Peace.

C.C. April 4th, 2024.