Silent Radio Station KRLC 1350 LEWISTON burned down in Fire Training exercise

KRLC, Lewiston, Idaho's "Hometown Radio" station, a station whose plug was pulled about a year ago and recently had its license deleted, has been burned to the ground in a Fire Training exercise. The Fire training exercise took place in late November.

Over the past several years since the Pandemic ended I have written about several AM (and FM) stations in my region of the US going off the airwaves, and in those articles I have included the fact that many of those stations had FM translators, FM sister stations, and several had radio streams on the internet -- a factor that is supposedly necessary to 'save AM'.

KRLC, Lewiston, Idaho was one of those stations. KRLC 1350 was usually heard nightly here in the Seattle area up until it went off the air about midway through last year. Even though we have a strong local (KKMO 1360) here in the metro, KRLC could still be heard right next to it, playing Classic Country music.

In the 1960's and 70's, KRLC was a Top 40 station, but they switched to Country some time in the late 1970's, and then Classic Country about a decade or more later.

Lewiston is in Northern Idaho, and it's right across the Snake River from Clarkston, Washington -- the two are 'twin cities', and they both serve an area of dry wheatfield farmland, as well as some orchard farming. Lewiston is known as Idaho's 'seaport', being that it is on a section of the Snake River that is navigable all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Even though the Lewiston-Clarkston metro region is around 50,000 or more, there just wasn't enough revenue to keep KRLC on the air. And the Pandemic economy finished the station off, just as it finished off KNPT Newport OR, KBCH Lincoln City OR, KUTI Yakima WA, KMED Medford OR, KKPZ Portland OR, KDUN Reedsport OR, and even big city KDWN Las Vegas, NV -- all stations which I've written about here when they were taken off the air.

In KRLC's case, one night I tuned in to 1350 to hear nothing, and then I looked KRLC up and found out they went off the air. They recently had their license deleted at the FCC.

I used to listen to Sunny 1550 at night while writing fiction. Their mix of Standards and easy listening Oldies was well presented and fun to listen to. Then they went Vietnamese, and then they went silent during the Pandemic.

A couple other stations, like KKOV 1550 Vancouver WA, the former "Sunny 1550", are silent and their futures are uncertain. Even an Asian language format couldn't save KKOV. It's been silent since the Pandemic. KZIZ 1560, a small station in Sumner, WA, just 20 miles south of me has been off the air for more than a year. A Punjabi / South Asian format apparently couldn't save it. They went off the air around the time the Pandemic happened.

It's tough for Radio all over -- and especially AM Radio, although FM is not exempt.

You can also add a bunch of Canadian AM'ers whose plugs have been pulled -- also done in by the Pandemic economy, as well as the changing economics of Radio -- CKMX 1060 Calgary, CFTE Vancouver, CKGO Vancouver, CKST Vancouver, CFRN Edmonton, and several others.

Of the American stations I mention here, all of them, except possibly KKPZ in Portland, had streams. The streams did not save the stations. Most of them also had FM translators, and KNPT Newport was part of a group of stations on the Oregon Coast. All had their plugs pulled.

An inglorious end to an 80 year-old Radio station. KRLC gets burned down in a Fire Dept. training exercise. The station was burned in November, 2025.

Photo courtesy RadioWorld dot com & Big Country News

Now KRLC is gone -- and even more, the station's building was burned down in a Fire Department training exercise, in November (I didn't find out about the building being burned down until recently). It was an inglorious fate for a station that served the city and region of Lewiston for 80 years. The once proud server of Classic Country to the wheatland region of the Palouse is now nothing more than ashes.

It all went up in flames. One wonders if that is the ultimate future of the industry I worked in for 20 years -- for it all to end up going up in flames.

Here is a news article on the burning down of KRLC.:

Longtime Idaho Radio Studio Burned Down in Training Exercise - Radio World

It's sad, in a way, but it's also indicative of the ultimate fate of probably every on-air Radio station in the United States. Eventually, when everything goes online, there won't be any Radio stations left, and the majority of remaining, online-only stations will disappear as well, because the internet is one vast content resource with endless competition for eyes and ears.

A pic of Lewiston, Idaho and Clarkston, Washington, from the old US Highway 95 switchbacks just north of the small metro. These switchbacks inspired the song "Hot Rod Lincoln". In this pic, Lewiston is to the left side, and Clarkston is to the right. These two cities are located in the sunnier and drier part of Washington state, and a dry region in Northern Idaho.

Online Radio is promising, but the promise just won't hold out for most who believe that going online-only will save Radio stations. Online radio stations have to find advertising or funding, just like On-Air stations do. And then you have the issue of Digital Royalties for the music played.

An example of this hit the radio press recently. There is an online station in San Francisco -- one of the most concentrated populations in the United States -- called HydeFM that is struggling to stay alive, even though it reportedly has a 'loyal local following'.

Here is an article on HydeFM's challenges.:

Independent S.F. radio station seeks donations to remain on-air

Even online, it's tough for a content operation like a streaming radio station to make enough money to survive.

We live in interesting times.

IN OTHER LIFE...

In other life, everything is plodding along. My internet went wonky last Saturday. Then it went good for 5 days. My cat Bear is getting used to me. She likes the bagpipes -- only if I play them downstairs, though. But she knows that when I play the bagpipes, soon enough I'll be feeding her. She is a very skittish cat, so I wanted to ensure that she associated bagpipes with a good thing. That way she wouldn't be so scared of the noise.

THE SHORTWAVE BANDS ARE 'DEAD, JIM'

DXing has been spotty lately. The SW bands are mostly dead, compared to where they should be -- being that we are still technically in a Solar peak period. I heard T88SM, a ham station out of Palau, on CW (Morse Code) two afternoons ago on 21025 kHz in the 15 Meter ham band. The rest of the band was basically dead, though. I heard 8P5AA out of Barbados on 10 Meters the same afternoon (28470 kHz, around 2058 UTC -- about 1 p.m. here), and a few faint whispers of East Coast US hams trying to talk to him. 

Earlier that day I heard Brazil, PV8AL (?) on 28350, but I couldn't hear the US guys trying to reach him. The rest of the 10 Meter band was dead.

It seems that sometimes there is ionospheric propagation to various regions of the world, but no one is on. Then again, last night the SW and HF ham bands were basically nothing but static with a few faint carriers and just whispers of audio on WRMI and WWCR.

Even the Desert Whooper, a low-power, unlicensed, 'whooping' beacon on 4096 kHz, hasn't been heard here in weeks. Last year I was hearing them now and then, and in 2024 I was hearing them nightly, unless there was a whopper of a solar storm. The Desert Whooper is located probably somewhere in the deserts of California, and if you tune into it you'll hear 'whoop whoop whoop' and then a CW identifier ('DW'). If you tune in with LSB, the 'whoops' sound sad, if you tune into the Whooper with USB, it's upbeat whoops.

But it's been MIA for weeks.

Propagation lately could be summed up thusly.:

"It's dead, Jim." (a take on a famous Star Trek quote).

SEEMS LIKE THE SOLAR MINIMUM IS STARTING ALREADY

This Solar Cycle is playing out the way I sort of thought it would. It's depressing, in a way, but it's reality, and with reality, one must adapt and survive. One way I've attempted to 'adapt' is get a DSP SSB radio, and of the three of those I've got this year (Tecsun PL-330, Raddy RF760, and XHDATA D808), the D808 is the best for raw SSB and CW signal performance, and the Tecsun is the best for SSB readability.

I'm going to put up an outdoor wire to try to hear more when the REAL solar minimum hits -- and I think it's going to hit next year. In fact, I think it's starting to hit us already. I have the space for an outdoor wire. I just have to figure out a way to put one up again. I used to have a 100 foot wire, but it went down in a windstorm in 2005 or so. My next outdoor one will be shorter.

Here's hoping all of you are doing well and having an OK start to 2026.

Peace.

C.C., January 14th, 2026.

Jan. 15th, 2026: I forgot to add the bit about the Desert Whooper, so I added it today. The Desert Whooper is one of those fun things about Shortwave, but it's not the same when you can't hear it because propagation is so poor.

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.

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

TRICK-OR-TREAT 2025, and SWLing without Up-to-Date SW Schedules

 

A blast from the past -- a pumpkin I carved for Halloween, 2010!

This was the first or second time I used a stencil I had bought with some pumpkin carving tools at a local box store. A moon and stars -- and if you look at the Jack O' Lantern at an angle, it's also a face.

Today, as I start this article, it is All Soul's Day, November 2nd, and it's rainy out. Not too cold, but dreary weather, which matches the month, being that November is the shittiest month of the year. 

Two nights ago it was Halloween. I had 15 Jack O' Lanterns out, so the front of my house and drive looked fairly cheery. I got about 11-12 trick-or-treaters -- three groups of them -- who braved the light rain and I gave them all extra candy, being that I had a couple bags of it.

I also played my bagpipes outside after the first group of trick-or-treaters left. The new reed I had in my pipe chanter held up really well, and I'm finally getting used to the easier air pressure needed to play the instrument. I played the closest thing I know that sounds 'spooky', a tune called The Dark Island. I don't know if anyone heard it, being that there were few trick-or-treaters out on the streets of my neighborhood, and it was drizzling.

Here is a piper who calls herself the Dark Isle Bagpiper, playing The Dark Island. She adds some Irish trills and plays the tune slightly differently from the way I learned it, but the basic tune is the same. She is playing this tune in Greenland, although she is based out of LA. The Dark Isle Bagpiper has played pipes on several TV shows. If you check out her vids on YT, she plays a lot of really good slow airs, and other tunes, too.

I also was fighting off a cold, so when the night was done I took some extra zinc and echinacea, and spent some time clearing files off my laptop computer before I went to bed. I've found that extra sleep helps kill colds. The zinc tabs help, too.

WRESTLING WITH CONSTANT UPDATES

My computer is over 8 years old, and it needs a lot of older files removed, because the hard drive is getting full -- not just full from my files over the years, but the endless plethora of mostly useless, bloatware updates all have been gradually filling my hard drive with their code.

For the life of me, with all the gigabytes of updates that slam my computer a few times a month, nothing seems to run better. All those 'improvements' never really improve anything. Some of the updates were AI-related programs I didn't ask for, and don't want on my computer because they just take up resources and I never use them.

They always say the updates are for security, but do you really need to slam someone's computer with multiple gigabytes of updates over a period of several months, just for security? How many gigabytes does it take to make a program, app, or OS 'secure'?

Oftentimes, when the updates are kicking in, my computer slows down. I'll hear my hard drive being slammed. In fact, I just heard my hard drive being slammed as I was typing this sentence, and -- looking at Task Manager -- it was another bunch of bloatware updates trying to cram into my laptop.

I'll spend several hours removing files onto a USB drive, and soon enough, the various, bloatware updates will fill it right back up. So far over the past several days, I've cleared off over 2-3 gigabytes of space, only to see it quickly filled by update bullshit.

It's maddening. And it isn't just the company that made the OS. Both browsers push their updates, and a PDF reader's updates slow my computer to a crawl when they kick in. I'm figuring out how to stop all updating, because frankly I don't think they make the computer any more secure, and they definitely don't improve anything.

So it's been an ongoing fight with the software companies, whose 'business model' seems to be to piss off as many people as possible.

NO REAL PLANS, EXCEPT GET THROUGH NOVEMBER

As for the rest of this month, I really don't plan on doing much aside from continuing to straighten out finances and get through November, which is a cold, rainy, dreary month. And, frankly, Novembers are months where people in my family, extended family, and several of my cats have died. Not good overall.

CQ Magazine's DX 'Zones', which ham radio operators use during the big radio contests.

DX HAS BEEN TOUCH AND GO...

On the radio and DX side of things, the ionosphere has been touch and go lately. The past couple days have been mediocre, and the week or two before that, there were a few good mornings and nights to switch on the radio and tune around.

A couple weekends ago, there was a ham radio contest, the biggest contest of the year, the CQWW contest, where ham radio operators all over the world try to contact as many other hams as possible, in as many ham radio 'zones' as possible. 

I tuned in during the morning after it started, and the HF ham bands were quite lively. Even 15 Meters had a considerable amount of activity, which was a pleasant surprise. 15 Meters used to be a popular ham band. I recall hearing LOTS of activity on 15 Meters during the summer afternoons in the early 1980's. That's when I heard A7XB out of Qatar. But ever since the last Solar Cycle died off in late 2017, 15 Meters has never been the same. Most afternoons I'd tune it in during the peak year last year, 15 Meters was like 12 Meters -- mostly a ghost town.

Even 20 Meters is not what it used to be. Every Saturday afternoon 20 Meters used to be wall to wall CW and SSB signals, invariably, with most of them splattering on each other. This recent CQWW contest was the first time I've heard 20 Meters so packed in ages. It reminded me of how the band used to be on a typical weekend afternoon.

It was refreshing.

WHEN SW SCHEDULES CHANGE OVER, YOU GET CREATIVE

This is also the time of the year when SW DXers have to be creative when figuring out what they are hearing. Most SW broadcasts anymore are in non-English languages, so even if you can ID the language, it doesn't necessarily follow that you can understand what's being said. So you have to listen to the TYPE of broadcasts, and tone of it. Does it sound like news? A feature? An interview? Does the programming match the BBC, or CNR-1, or NHK?

And the online SW schedules are a bit off, because it takes some time for their creators to compile the new broadcast information, because the end of October is when SW stations all change their schedules.

So, you get creative. The other morning, I heard Japanese on 7380 kHz (at 0522 UTC), that sounded like NHK. But neither EiBi or Short-wave.info had ANY Japanese programming listed that frequency and hour. I was sure it was NHK in Japanese, but had no schedule info to back up my suspicion.

So I went to Short-wave.info and used the 'Any Station' dropdown and 'Japanese language' dropdown, and I found out that NHK had a regular broadcast in Japanese to SE Asia during that hour. They had moved their frequency lower to the 41 Meter Band from the 25 and 21 Meter Bands because the 41 Meter band is more of a Winter SW band.

Remember, SW listeners -- there are ways to find out what you're hearing, even if the SW lists online are getting out of date. ID the language. LISTEN to the programming, even if you do not know the language! Does it sound like CNR-!? Does it sound like the BBC? Does it sound like NHK? 

A lot of American SWL's bitch and gripe about most SW being in non-English languages. But griping about most SW being non-English is backwards thinking. A lot of the non-English programming is pretty cool to listen to -- and even if you don't understand the language, it doesn't mean you can't ID the station or the program.

I've learned to ID non-English languages, and find it challenging. I also have learned that a lot of the non-English stations play really cool music -- music I'd never hear on US radio. Japan has some really cool soft pop-rock hits from the 70's that NHK plays. I've heard some great K-pop on KBS World Radio. CRI plays some great music, too. And a lot of SWL's poke fun at Radio North Korea, but the music they play is interesting, and very well made -- their musicians are excellent.

I've heard really cool stuff on CNR-1. They have kids' programming over the weekend mornings (evenings, China time). Imagine that: a radio company that cares enough about kids to program a radio show for them. Doesn't happen here in the US or Canada. The last radio company that catered to kids -- Radio Disney -- pulled the plug completely in 2019.

But CNR-1, China's national broadcaster, that has numerous transmitters on SW, has a radio play or storytelling episode for kids that you can hear during the mornings, US time, every weekend.

American DXers and SWLs, open your ears!

MORE MYSTERIOUS SIGNALS NEAR THE 40 METER BAND

The only other radio 'catches' of note have been mystery carriers -- dead signals that have appeared over several nights just below the 40 Meter Ham band.

I've logged a dead carrier at 7000 kHz over several nights and mornings, and others have shown up on 6988 kHz, 6938 kHz, and more recently, 6979 kHz.

What the purpose of these dead carriers -- if any -- happens to be is a good question. No one in the SWL community seems to know. The dead carriers don't get mentioned much online, but there have been some SWL's on HFU (HFUnderground) who have logged them.

I also heard a single letter beacon on 7057 kHz, a continuous 'F' being sent, and it was very weak in strength. I haven't heard it since. Most 'single letter beacons', which are continuous repetitions of the same letter in Morse Code, are associated with the Russian military, particularly the Russian Navy, and their frequencies are well known, and appear in many SW lists. But this 'F' beacon on 7057 is a mystery.

There are a lot of such strange oddities in the SW bands. You just have to tune around and listen to catch them.

MYSTERY RANCHERO MUSIC ON 1560 kHz

One other 'mystery' signal wasn't as bizarre as a Morse Code blipping away in the ether, or a dead signal, but I heard a mystery ranchero music station on 1560 kHz last night (the night of the 3rd) beaming mostly North-South.

Usually on 1560 I hear a mix of just two stations -- KNZR Bakersfield, which is a news-talk station that comes in with varying strengths, and KVAN, Tri-Cities WA, which is a Spanish language religious station. This station was neither.

The only ranchero station on 1560 is a daytimer, KIQS, Willow, California -- but when I checked their stream, it was not the same music as what I was hearing on the radio. And KVAN does NOT play ranchero, nor do they have rapidfire announcements and advertisements.

A view from Interstate 5 not too far from Montague, California. Much of the far north of California looks like this -- green and golden ranch country.

pic courtesy Dreamstime

MONTAGUE, CALIFORNIA CHECKS IN ON LONGWAVE

Last but not least, the past few evenings I've gotten really decent catches of a Longwave beacon out of Northern California -- MOG, out of Montague, a small town not too far from Yreka, which is the first city you hit on I-5 after crossing the Oregon/California border.

I recently got an XHDATA D808, and it's great on Longwave. It's possibly my best Longwave radio. That said, there isn't much on Longwave anymore -- the few aeronautical beacons are disappearing. The maritime Longwave beacons disappeared years ago.

But it's great to hear MOG, beeping away.

Well, that's about it for now. I'll close this article with another old Halloween pic. I couldn't take any on my phone or camera because their memories are also full and need to be cleared.

A pumpkin I put in my tree, on Halloween 2023.

Peace.

C.C., November 4th, 2025

New Regulations on Broadcast Prescription Ads, and How It Could Affect Radio; & the only Bagpipe Tune Banned by the British Army

Possibly coming to a Radio near you -- one minute or more of warnings over potential drug side affects during Pharma commercials? If it happens, what does that mean for Radio?

The Trump Administration in the US has recently instructed the HHS and FDA to more tightly regulate advertisements for prescription drugs on TV and Radio.

Many in the Radio industry are concerned about how any new regulations would affect Radio, being that stations and radio networks depend a lot on pharma ads for revenues.

Many times at night, while listening to the radio, I hear a plethora of commercials for various prescription drugs, including advice to people to look for certain symptoms they might have that could indicate they need to be prescribed certain drugs to combat those symptoms.

There are similar ads on TV, the internet, and also in print media as well.

I don't hear a TON of the drug ads on Radio -- most of the spots I hear at night are PSA's for adopting foster kids, being a better dad, or to combat hunger. I used to hear a LOT of 'Kars For Kids' ads, but they started disappearing about 4 or 5 years ago. The adoption, fostering, combatting hunger, and the 'be a better dad' ads are run by the Ad Council, a non-profit organization with some ties to the Federal government, which runs PSA's and public interest spots.

Here's a link to the Ad Council website, which has MP3's of some of the Radio ads one can often hear on many stations, especially at night.:

https://www.adcouncil.org/all-campaigns

The Ad Council came up with many interesting campaigns that many Americans may remember: Smokey Bear, 'A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste', McGruff the Crime Dog, and 'Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk', and many others. You can read about that here.:

https://www.adcouncil.org/our-story/our-history

Although I haven't heard loads of Pharma ads on radio, I've heard enough of them to know that Radio makes a lot of money off of them.

According to RadioInk, Radio makes a lot of revenue off Big Pharma spots. RadioInk reports that the amount of revenue that Radio has earned from Big Pharma ads increased by 59% between 2018 and 2022, with several Big Pharma companies being in the Top Ten advertisers to Radio in general.

Here's the 'Top Ten' for the first week of September, 2025.:

https://radioink.com/2025/09/08/national-radio-advertisers-settle-quickly-after-labor-day/

Radio industry people are concerned that if HHS and the FDA enact tougher regulations on drug advertisement wording, including longer and more complete warnings of potential side effects, it could make such advertisements impossible to run on radio, and consequently it could cut into Radio revenues.

And Radio revenues have been problematic, especially since the Great Recession and the Pandemic. 

Here's a link to the RadioInk article on this issue.:

https://radioink.com/2025/09/11/trump-orders-hhs-fda-to-enforce-stricter-rules-on-pharma-ads/

CUTTING COMMERCIALS TO FIT, USING DIGITAL SOUND EDITING

I can see how any new regulations insisting on having Pharma ads list every possible side effect could really cut into the ad revenue for radio. As it is now, sometimes the side effect listings in such commercials are sped up, the same way other disclaimers are sped up in Radio ads. 

Trying to fit a lot of information into just 30 second or 60 second ads for radio is nothing new. When I worked in Radio, we made CD's that were nothing but various Radio ads. The company I worked for would have stations run them in lieu of payment for the hits CDs, automation playlists and consulting that my employers provided them with. The company I worked for would get the ad money for the stations playing the commercials.

Sometimes in putting the commercials on the CD I would have to speed up the commercial, to make it fit the 30 second or 60 second run time. Sometimes I would have to slow it down. This was because the studio where the commercial was made did not always make the commercial fit the radio standard, 30 or 60 second limit. These commercials were often made in big studios in LA or New York, so the idea that any big market production company would cut spots that were 25 seconds, 33 seconds or 68 seconds was a real head scratcher.

So it often made a lot of work for the sound engineers like myself. We had to figure out how to either cut down the sound file to fit 30 or 60 seconds, or stretch it out to fit. This was done electronically, on the computer sound editing program. Sometimes you could cut spaces between words, to shorten the commercial to fit, or add pauses in between words to make it a bit longer if needed. 

If you couldn't do it that way, you would 'squish' or 'stretch' the sound file -- or a section of it -- without the sound literally speeding up or slowing down. The term for this process was 'time scrunch', where you had the editing program compress or stretch the sound file digitally. If you 'time scrunched' a sound file too much either way, it would sound jittery.

I've heard this jitter effect, even today, on newscasts, and sometimes on commercials... the jittery sound of a commercial or newscast being time scrunched to fit the 30 second, one minute or two minute time slot. So I guess some bizarre tendencies in the Radio business haven't change since 2006.

LONGER COMMERCIALS, OR NO COMMERCIALS

If the government regulates Pharma ads to include every drug side effect, I'm not sure that time scrunching would be allowed (if it makes the information hard to actually hear), and I'm not sure it would work, if it is used to attempt to keep the commercials within a 30 or 60 minute time period, because of the extra info needed in a much longer disclaimer. It would, of course, depend on the amount of extra side effect information that would have to be included on the commercial.

So, if these new, proposed regulations go into effect, Radio will either lose money, or it will be a lot more work for the sound engineers. One possible solution would be to sell 45 second or 90 second Pharma spots, to allow space for all the listed potential side effects. That, of course, would mean that the Pharma companies would have to pay more for the longer commercials, or the radio companies will have to charge less for the longer commercials -- something that wouldn't be palatable for Radio.

Regardless, if this proposed regulatory apparatus goes through, it will have a definite effect on how Radio runs the ads.

Presumably, this proposed regulation would also apply to the internet, where I see frequent ads for Pharma meds. So, changes could be on the way no matter where you see or hear Pharma advertisements. And probably similar ads on TV would also be affected.

REACTION MAY ALREADY BE HAPPENING IN THE AD INDUSTRY

Just recently, a few days before posting this article, I heard a commercial for a medication during or after a football game, and it seemed that half of it was disclaimers, cautions, etc. It was worded well, but the length of the disclaimer made me wonder if perhaps some of the Pharma ad makers are already responding to the proposed rules that may be coming down the pike.

Me in better days, 2004, playing my 1981 Lawries at my Aunt's house. The chanter (the pipe that plays the tune) is a 1982 Hardie, which was my band chanter. I was playing through a cane chanter reed at this time, probably one I got at the Hector Russell store in Seattle earlier that year. I bought a bunch of those reeds, one of which I'm using now.

IN OTHER LIFE....

In other life, I've been getting back into playing my bagpipes, and trying to finish my writing 'work-in-progress', a fiction novella that has been percolating for over a year.

As far as my bagpipes, it's been a challenge. I hadn't played them in over a year. Usually I play them for about a week before a major holiday, as I would entertain family with them at my Aunt's house on Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Because of some medical issues, my Aunt didn't have Thanksgiving or Christmas this year, so I went over a year without even touching the pipes.

About 3 to 4 weeks ago I decided that it would be a good idea to start playing them again. The first thing that happened was that I discovered that 3 of the 4 synthetic chanter reeds I had were now worn out. It turns out that plastic bladed, double reeds have a lifetime. That meant that until I got a couple new synthetic reed replacements, it was back to natural cane.

This is me in 1984, playing at my best friend's sister's wedding, on a steamboat on Lake Union in Seattle. I'm wearing my band kilt, and playing through my band's chanter, a 1982 Hardie, which has a loud, but plaintive tone to it. My dad had just died a couple weeks earlier, and I remember hearing the Cars' hit song 'Drive' on the radio. A week or two later, I played at a wedding up on Capitol Hill, and met a girl with whom I lost my innocence... it ended in a quick heartbreak, but shit happens. A lot happened during that year.  The pipes still work well. The drones in this pic are tuned sharper than they tune now -- probably because of the reed I was playing (a loud, trumpety Warnock).

Thanks Cuppa for the pic. Photo courtesy Chris Styron.

Now, cane reeds can be cantankerous, which is why I switched to synthetic chanter reeds to begin with. The synthetic ones were more consistent, and they also were easier to blow. But, because the synthetic reeds were now worn out, I dug into a stash of 'new', old stock reeds I'd bought at Hector Russell (a store that no longer is in Seattle) in 2003 or 2004. I found one that was stamped 'Easy'. I inserted it into the chanter, and merely heated it with my mouth, without wetting it. Then I put the chanter into my pipes and blew them up. It tuned well, and amazingly, it wasn't too cantankerous or too hard to blow.

And, to my surprise, it is 'blowing in' well. New reeds usually take a week or so of 'blowing in', to where they ease up a bit, and become more consistent in response, and more dependable.

I also found that I could fix one of the worn out synthetic chanter reeds (using some tape and a small 'bridle' to shorten the active part of the blades), so I have a backup reed, too.

At the same time, I discovered that if you go a full year without playing, your lips give out quickly -- and you need your lips to hold onto the blowpipe and keep the air going where it's supposed to. My lungs / diaphragm also needed to get back into shape. My left arm is OK with keeping the bag steady with the air, but it probably needs to shape up, too. 

All those things that were second nature when I was playing weekly need to come back.

It almost feels like I'm re-starting from scratch.

THE TUNE THAT WAS BANNED BY THE BRITISH ARMY

It is use it or lose it time, I guess. So, I've been regaining my ability to play the Skye Boat Song, The 42nd Highlanders March (Boston Caledonian 1935 Setting), and I've learned a slow air that my mother liked, but I hadn't learned before she died -- 'Lochaber No More', the only pipe tune that was banned by the British Army.

Why would the British Army ban a pipe tune? Because it is a sad tune (albeit a beautiful one), and the Scottish Regiments in India and elsewhere had bad morale when that tune was played by the pipers. So, for a few years, the British Army banned pipers from playing it. The tune apparently has lyrics that describe the feeling of Scots having to leave their homeland, sometimes with the thought that they may never return.

The combination of the words to the folk tune from which Lochaber No More was derived, along with the sad nature of the music, apparently didn't help the Scots soldiers when they were stationed tens of thousands of miles away from home. My mother liked Lochaber No More when she heard it off a CD that I had, of Donald MacLeod playing it. Sadly, I never was able to learn the tune well enough to play it for her before she died.

Here is a music vid clip of Donald MacLeod playing one of the two best 'settings' of Lochaber No More (a 'setting' is pipe-speak for 'version'). Donald MacLeod taught my pipe major, Angus Ironside, who -- in turn -- taught me most of what I know about the bagpipes.:

I mentioned The 42nd Highlanders' March earlier. It's one of the first bagpipe tunes I ever heard, and did it catch my 3 or 4 year-old ear when Grandma put on my Dad's old Boston Caledonian Pipe Band 78's! I was hooked. Here's a vid clip of the actual 42nd Highlanders regiment playing it during a homecoming parade a couple years ago in Perth, Scotland. About halfway through the vid you can see that the 42nd are parading in front of some older veterans.:

Well, that's about it for this installment. The weather has been staying fairly warm, with the daytime temperatures in the 70's (20's C), and the night time temperatures are not too cold for biking around the neighborhood. I don't look forward to Winter, but it's still a couple months off.

Peace,

C.C. Sunday, September 21st, 2025.