MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

 My Christmas Star, my paper star lantern, from 2016, which I think I got in 2012 or 2013. I saw it at Bartell's, a local drug store that had a really nice, holiday gifty section. Bartell's was sold to a national chain about 6 years ago and now they're all closed down. It's just the way of the world. But the paper star lantern still brightens up my window every Christmas season.

As I write this, it is Christmas Eve. Just around midnight.

I am listening to the Vatican Christmas Day mass, ritual and celebration, which is being broadcast on local Catholic radio station KBLE 1050 AM. Last year I was able to hear it broadcast on shortwave station Radio Marti, in the 41 Meter Band -- which was really cool to hear -- but Marti either isn't on the air at these hours anymore, or the Shortwave ionospheric conditions are horrible -- probably both.

That dud we SWL's know as Solar Cycle #25 is slipping into the morass of static and weak signals, accented here and there by some RFI.... I predicted long ago that this Solar Cycle would be an overall dud, and it turned out to be a dud compared to previous cycles, and the fact that Christmas Eve presented an nearly blank SW band is in indicator of it. Cycle #25 had a few bright spots -- Summer 2024 being one of them. Then, a never ending series of mediocre to fair SW conditions and solar storms, including SW blackouts.

But there's no need to dwell on that -- it is what it is. :-)

Back to Christmas, hey?

I slept in greatly this Christmas Eve, as is often my custom, being a night-owl, and I switched on my radio and had my coffee, and -- to my chagrin -- found that the Shortwave band was mostly dead. The utility stations that are always present were missing, and the HF ham bands were dead, except for one group of Northern California hams on 3900 kHz, and one weak CW QSO in the 40 Meter ham band. The Shortwave bands were MIA, except for three weak, barely readable signals from US domestic stations WRMI, WWCR, and WTWW. 

None of them had any Christmas like programming. I then tuned to the AM band, listened to the end of the California-Hawaii college football game, and tuned to 1480 kHz, and heard Christmas music coming out of California's KEJB, Eureka.

Then I got up.

I tuned the kitchen radio to one of the two local Catholic stations, because usually one or both of them will broadcast the major masses out of the Vatican -- Easter and Christmas. This year it was just KBLE that was broadcasting the Christmas Day mass. So I left it on as I made another cup of coffee and as the Christmas Mass music filled the room I fired up my bagpipes. 

My outdoor Christmas lights, 2016 or so.

I finally got my third Surefire-brand, synthetic chanter reed set up to where it works really well, and I worked up a pipe version of Silent Night a couple weeks ago, and it sounds really good on the pipes. I also practiced The First Noel, a version I worked up in 2016 or so. I was going to play them out on the street around 10 p.m., when it's quiet, and maybe some of the neighbors would hear them, maybe they wouldn't. Didn't matter. It was something I wanted to do. I played on Christmas Eve about 6 years ago, and no one complained.

So I warmed up the reed by about 5 minutes of playing, and went outside. The pipes worked excellently. This 'third' reed I've got is louder than my #1 reed, and much quieter than my harder reed (#2) -- I can play it without needing earplugs. As soon as I finished the Christmas Carols on my pipes, I went inside. I made a cup of tea. I was going to call my Aunt, and play the Carols for her. I then warmed up the pipes again, and suddenly the reed sputtered and a bunch of liquid spilled out of the bottom of my chanter.

It was bagpipe bag seasoning. Seasoning is a mixture of Murphy's Oil Soap, Glycerine, and a tiny bit of Pine Sol (which kills bacteria and mold) that I add to the bag in small amounts about once every month or so. It keeps the leather conditioned, and kills any mildew or bacteria. Sometimes after putting it in, the remainder of it decides to leave the bag -- through my reed and chanter. Oh well. It never damages anything, it's just a little messy when it happens. So I cleaned it all up.

Then I called my Aunt and played the two Christmas Carols for her on the phone. The pipes worked well. It was fun to play them on Christmas, being that I got them Christmas morning, 1981. 

When I got off the phone with my aunt, I then came upstairs. And here I am, listening to the end of the Vatican Christmas Mass.

Me, Christmas Eve, 2016. I look about the same. I don't have any new pics because my camera's SD card is full, and I need to get a new SD card. I still have the Elf Hat, which I got at the Dollar store that year.

Now they are about to start playing the Mass all over again. I'm not Catholic, but I enjoy hearing the music of the rituals, especially the Christmas ones.

I'm not much of a Christmas celebrant anymore. It brings back too many memories. But I try to take the holiday for what it is, because that's all you can do.

Going through my old pics, I found this pic of my little Squeakers, two weeks after I got her in 2010. How time flies. See you on the other side, my little pal.

With that, I am going to feed Bear the Cat, who is getting really friendly now. Then I'll go out on a bike ride around the neighborhood, to ensure that the streets are safe for Santa Claus. Who knows? Perhaps I'll see good ol' St. Nick land on someone's roof with his sleigh and reindeer!

I wish all my readers a Merry Christmas, and a safe holiday season.

Peace,

C.C. December 24th, 2025.

INFINITY SPORTS NETWORK ends; replaced by Westwood One / BetMGM sports network

 

Infinity Sports Network is going through some major changes, starting on December 29th, 2025, when they will merge with a Sports Betting talk network, and become the Westwood One Sports network. It will be the second major change and second name change since the network started as CBS Sports Radio in 2013. In fact, in most respects, the entire CBS Sports Network / Infinity Sports Network is coming to an end. 

That's the take on it from many who were involved in the network from the beginning.

CBS Sports Radio started not too long after I got back into the MW DXing and listening hobby in early Winter of 2011. At the time, I rediscovered the fun of listening to long distance AM radio at night, and the night time airwaves were alive with Radio Disney, ESPN, ESPN Deportes, Fox Sports Radio, SB Nation sports, and other lively programming. 

Soon enough, ESPN, Fox, and SB Nation were joined by NBC Sports Radio, and then CBS Sports Radio, which, when it was launched, took over 1090 kHz here in Seattle, flipping the station from KPTK Progressive Talk to KFNQ 'The Fan'.

Now, although I enjoy listening to NFL football on the radio, I have never been a sports nut. That said, when I started listening to the Sports Talk networks, I was pleasantly surprised. Unlike conservative talk shows, the Sports Talkers usually had callers, and the callers were almost as entertaining as the hosts. And CBS Sports Radio had a great lineup of hosts.

During this time period -- 2011-2015 or so -- Sports Talk Radio in general seemed to be a growing trend on the AM band, being that many who were tired of political talk would now have an alternative, and here in the US, most people follow at least one sport. Some radio companies, seeing the success that ESPN Sports Radio already had nationwide, decided that Sports talk, national networks could be a money maker. CBS and NBC decided to join the fray. For a few years, Yahoo also had a sports network, too, as did SB Nation.

ESPN had ESPN Deportes, which had rapidfire, interesting sounding, Spanish language talk hosts, who'd talk a lot about soccer as well as basketball and NFL. The ESPN Deportes jingle had a wild guitar line, too. I remember hearing it one night on my GE Superadio 3, when I heard KSVE El Paso on 1650 kHz -- the only time I heard that station, in 2013 or 2014.

The period from 2011 to the Pandemic was a lively time for talk radio in general, as there were also new conservative talkers like Andy Dean and Steve Deace trying to build audiences in the early 2010's -- all trying to invigorate the talk radio airwaves.

I actually enjoyed CBS Sports Radio. I was listening when it first launched in Seattle, on January 2nd, 2013. Their theme music was rousing and lively, and really fit the Sports Radio image, and the first CBS Sports Radio talk host I heard was Scott Ferrall, a gritty sounding guy who reminded the listener of a the guy in the back of some New York City pub with the scrunchy hat, reading the sports pages religiously. Ferrall had a gruff voice, and a quick wit. He left CBS Sports late in the 2010's for an online Sports Bet website or podcast.

Others on CBS Sports Radio were DA (Damon Amendolara), who always was willing to beam you up on the 'mothership' while his hip-hop music theme played; and Jim Rome, who was already a big name in sports talk. I didn't listen to Jim Rome much, but like the rest of the CBS Sports Radio hosts, he was knowledgeable, and fun to listen to.

And Amy Lawrence was the overnight host, who always had a friendly attitude and extensive knowledge of football, basketball, and baseball. 

Mike & Mike were a popular duo on ESPN Radio, and I sometimes heard their early morning show after 3 a.m. on some ESPN stations in the 2010's. They were sort of an 'odd couple', a theme which is somewhat popular on Sports Talk networks.

Several years ago, after CBS sold its radio properties, the name of the CBS Sports Radio network changed to Infinity Sports Radio -- by this time, Infinity was already producing the shows, so the change was really in name only. By the time of the name change, many of the hosts I enjoyed hearing in 2013 were gone. Scott Ferrall was gone. I think Jim Rome moved to another network. 

Amy Lawrence left CBS Sports Radio not too long after it became the Infinity Sports Network, and although she didn't say a ton about it, there were behind the scenes issues -- related to cost cutting -- that apparently prompted her to leave.

DA, who left Infinity Sports Radio in 2023, also talks about the decline on this video clip here. He refers to the end of CBS Sports Radio / Infinity Sports Radio as the end of an era.:

Part of the 'decline' in CBS Sports Radio may have been the loss of affiliates. If one looks at the number of Infinity Sports Radio affiliates today, and compares it with Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports has twice the affiliates nationwide.

A couple of the other Sports networks also had major changes about 5-6 years ago, which -- to me, anyway -- took away from some of the fun listening. Mike and Mike were gone from the ESPN. Colin Cowherd is still on the radio (on Fox Sports since 2015), but his show was moved to a different time slot. There were two other hosts (an 'odd couple' of sports guys whose names I can't recall) who shared an early morning show that I often heard early mornings on Fox Sports that saw their show axed.

There are a few holdouts, however.

Ben Maller, who's been the overnight guy on Fox Sports Radio, is still very entertaining, and he has managed to stay on the air. Dan Patrick and Doug Gottlieb are still on Fox Sports Radio, too. They are long time, popular hosts. But a lot of the others are off the air, either doing satellite radio, or podcasts.

Before the Pandemic hit, Yahoo Sports, SB Nation, ESPN Deportes, and NBC Sports Radio all saw their plugs pulled, and new, Sports Betting Talk shows and networks began to grow on the radio airwaves. For example, there's a station in Southern Oregon, KDSO 1300, out of Ashland -- that is sports bet talk only. KGO San Francisco tried a version of Sports Bet talk that kept the station afloat before it was taken over by conservative talker KSFO. If KGO and KSFO's owners didn't think that KGO had a better signal, KGO would probably still be Sports Bet talk.

The radio scene at night on the AM band sounds very much different from how it sounded in 2013, and this latest change to what was CBS Sports Radio is yet another indicator that not only is Radio changing as it adapts to lower revenues and other changes in the industry, but even formats like Sports Talk are changing, as Westwood One Sports will have at least two shows brought over from BetMGM, one in the morning (morning drive, East Coast Time) and one in the early evening.

The tentative Westwood One Sports schedule is included in this Barrett Media article on the network change.:

https://barrettmedia.com/2025/12/17/executive-producer-michael-samtur-announces-exit-from-audacy-infinity-sports-network/

The two Sports Bet Talk shows are from BetMGM. Think about that for a moment. Even the name 'BetMGM' speaks loads. BetMGM is an online betting website. You can read about BetMGM's development here, on the Wiki.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Resorts_International#BetMGM

In the 1950s and 60s, MGM was known as a movie company, more or less family friendly. Then they opened up a resort hotel in Las Vegas -- which, naturally, has a casino. Now they have a Sports Bet talk network. And betting itself has become more accepted in Sports. One could say that Betting has become vital to Sports in the US. For years, Las Vegas wanted an NFL team, but the league balked, because of the potential association with gambling.

Obviously, that concern changed. Las Vegas now has an NFL team, the Raiders.

Now, I'm not trying to cast any aspersions on betting, or the sports bet industry.

But it's obviously a fact that Gambling, and Sports Betting in particular, are very big deals in both Sports and Radio. During the NFL downturn in the mid 2010's, at least one observer said the NFL's TV ratings were still as high as they were because of sports betting and fantasy football, which is sports betting related. Sports bettors would still tune into the games to double check on their bets, or make new bets.

Even now, a lot of commercials on the Sports networks are for sports betting websites like FanDuel and DraftKings. A couple months ago I heard a journalist interviewed on the Catholic radio network Relevant Radio talking about how pervasive Sports Betting actually is. It's a multimillion dollar industry. And its effect is being felt on Radio.

So, what does this all say for the state of Radio in general? I think it says a lot. Radio is hurting for revenues, as everything media shifts more and more online. DA and Amy Lawrence both stated they saw evidence of cost cutting at CBS Sports Radio -- and CBS Sports Radio was an excellent product, and -- as far as I know -- it got decent ratings for sports radio.

But the entire Radio industry is feeling the pinch. For those of us who love Radio and worked in Radio (as I did for 20 years, total), it really hurts to see some of these changes happening.

So, starting December 29th, Infinity Sports Network is disappearing, being replaced by Westwood One Sports. In some ways, the change may be in name only, as some shows will remain -- but even now the Infinity Sports Network just doesn't have the same kick and pizazz that CBS Sports Radio did during the glory days in the early 2010's when Scott Ferrall would decry boring, pitcher oriented baseball. 

"I don't want to see eight innings of boring pitching and strikeouts!" he'd say. "I want to see base hits! I want to see doubles! I want to see home runs!" 

And he was right.

Now I'm going to go back to listening to Sports Talk on my GE Superadio, and try to get back to writing some fiction. 

Peace,

C.C. December 21st, 2025.

Another CANADIAN AM Radio Station Bites the Dust: RIP CJVB 1470; & Hello Qodosen DX-286

CJVB 1470, a long time Chinese language broadcaster out of Vancouver, BC Canada, is going off the air. Its owner, Fairchild Radio (Vancouver FM) Ltd, which also runs an FM station out of Vancouver (CHKG-FM), is pulling the plug on CJVB and they're going to be FM only. The switching off of CJVB appears slated for March.

The CRTC (Canada's communications arm, which regulates Radio there) has approved the shutting down of CJVB.

The reasons for the shut down are decreased revenue, and increased costs -- an issue that is hitting most Radio stations in the US and Canada -- whether FM or AM.

Fairchild, in a request sent to the CRTC in June, stated that "both the stations have experienced decreased advertising and airtime brokerage sales," and that "the operating costs for the two stations [CJVB and CHKG-FM] continue to increase and that the stations have sustained significant losses for several years."

Furthermore, Fairchild said that the two stations, AM and FM, had "incurred significant economic losses for the past five years, and that it expects this trend to continue in the foreseeable future."

It looks like the Pandemic economy hurt CJVB and it's FM sister station, just as it's slammed a lot of radio stations since 2020.

Fairchild said they would transfer a block of Chinese programming to CHKG after CJVB is pulled off the air, and that the block of Chinese language programming would be from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.

It's a sad case but increasingly common in Radio, and not just AM. As I've posted in several articles over the past two to three years, it's not just AM stations going off the air, but also some FM's are seeing their plugs pulled also. It's because of the reasons that Fairchild told the CRTC -- decreased revenues, and increasing costs.

Even highly rated, local NPR station KUOW-FM had to cut some staff last year because of increased costs. They had record donations, and increased revenues, but the increasing costs outweighed the increase in revenues.

CJVB has always been a barn burner signal here in Seattle. Vancouver is just 130 or so air miles north of us, and CJVB has had a really good signal, with their transmitters not too far from the water in Richmond, BC.

Now it appears that KELA, Centralia, WA -- just 100 miles south of me -- will dominate the 1470 frequency in the NW US and SW Canada, once CJVB is switched off. CJVB is due to have its license revoked on March 6th, 2026.

The first time I noticed CJVB was when I got my Sanyo Boombox for Christmas, in 1982.It was my first FM Stereo radio, and the AM side was a good performer. Not only did I discover New Wave music (on the former 'The Wave' KYYX 96 FM) I rediscovered AM Band DXing, and CJVB was hard to 'null' to hear other stations on 1470. They were easy to ID because of the Chinese language programming, and Chinese (or any other Asian language) programming was rare to hear on the radio -- AM or FM -- in the 1980's.

So CJVB really stuck out on the AM band at night.

Now, obviously, after CJVB goes off the air early next year, nulling that signal won't be an issue. 

It's too bad, because recently they've been playing a lot of cool Asian rock and pop music at night. I recently heard a song sung by a guy in Chinese, which sounded like a pop-rock song from 2000 or 2001, complete with a lead guitar that sounded like it was right from that era (an Alice In Chains style wah-wah). 

Looks like there's just 2-3 more months to hear it before it's off the airwaves.

And so it goes. So long, CJVB. You had a good run.

That's about it for now. Life has gone normally. I've been having some internet issues, and the repair people never seem to really fix them 100%. It's frustrating. The internet cuts out, even though the connection is good. I think it might be my router, but the repair people said they think it's still good. I'm beginning to doubt their expertise or credibility anymore.

Other than that, my new cat, now named 'Bear', is finally getting used to me. She waits by the door to her room for me to go in and feed her and pet her. I'm still leaving her in my upstairs bathroom so she has her own space. With cats, change = bad. So I give her her own space, and in a month or so I'll see if she comes out and checks out the rest of the house.

GETTING A QODOSEN DX-286

I also got a new radio, a Qodosen DX-286, which a lot of people rave about. I got it on my late father's 100th birthday, December 10th. Dad was the one who got me into radio, and into listening to SW radio and long distance MW radio. He taught me that the key to hearing distant stations was to 'tune slowly, and listen carefully', something I'm sure he learned from his father, my grandfather, who built radios, including a tube shortwave radio.

The DX-286 has an NXP, TEF chip in it, that is the same type of chip used in the Sony XDR's that were popular with FM DXers in the 2000's and 2010's. The TEF chips are also used in car dash radio systems, and the chips are known for excellent reception, both on FM, AM, and SW.

My first impression with the DX-286 is that it's very good on MW and SW. It picks up MW as good as my Sony XDR does -- very clear reception, and the AGC is tight, without pumping. I'm still putting the DX-286 through its paces. So far, I think it's a good radio, well worth the money.

ONE WATT AUDIO CHIP, GOOD RECEPTION OVERALL

It has a rep for eating batteries -- but the audio chip puts out ONE WATT. That's a lot of audio power, and it takes a lot of juice to drive a ONE WATT AF chip. So if you want to increase time between charges when using a DX-286, use headphones, or keep that volume down. :-)

Good clear audio on this radio, though. I'm impressed.

SOME 'TIC' NOISES, that disappear when you use a LOOP

There is only one minor glitch I've found with the DX-286. The radio puts out two 'ticks' per second, which are audible on 810, 820 and some lower channels on the AM band. I think it has something to do with the clock function for the microprocessor. My Grundig G2 has the same issue, except it receives the 'ticks' on a lot more channels.

The DX-286 only get these 'tick' noises on headphones. Not on the speaker. Which leads me to believe that the radio's headphone amp is near a clock function of some sort (the DX-286 has two audio amp chips -- the one watt chip for the speaker and a lower wattage chip that drives the headphones).

The happy part of this is that when I use an external loop on MW, the tick noises disappear from 810, 820, etc. So the issue really doesn't bother me.

....IN OTHER LIFE

Aside from all that -- all is about as well as it can be. If I don't post another article before then, Merry Christmas to all my readers, wherever you are.

My family won't be having a get-together for this Christmas, so I will celebrate alone, just me and my cat. I'll probably play Silent Night and The First Noel on my bagpipes, outside, for the neighbors, and maybe write a Christmas-themed fiction tale.

Talk to you soon, internet connection willing....

Peace.

C.C. Friday, December 19th, 2025