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

Three Canadian FM Stations shut down, including one in OTTAWA -- FM Radio is taking a hit, not just AM

CJWL, 98.5 FM, a Hot-AC station in Canada's capital and fourth largest city, will soon be shut down, and taken off the air. Two other FM Country stations in nearby, smaller cities are also getting their plugs pulled.

[NOTE: Several weeks after writing and posting this article, I learned that the three Ottawa region FM stations mentioned in this article were bought by two separate, Canadian radio companies and they will stay on the air. I decided not to cut up the article with this news, but I added an Addendum (with news link) at the bottom of the blog post with this information. I have left the article otherwise intact because most of the negative factors concerning the radio business, that are covered in this article, still exist and are still affecting radio companies and radio stations in the U.S. and Canada.]

Over the past several years, some AM stations have been shut down, flipped to syndicated programming like Sports Betting, or otherwise just plain removed from the airwaves, and being that this blog is about AM Radio as well as all other things Radio, in recent articles here I have covered the closings of several AM stations -- as quite a few of those closings have occurred after the Pandemic.

The post-Pandemic economy is socking it to Radio, and now it is apparent that it's not just AM Radio that's taking the hit.

It was recently announced that three FM stations in Canada (owned by the Evanov company) are being shut down, due to financial reasons, and one of them is a station that plays Hot AC, a very popular radio format, and that station is in Canada's #4 city (and its capital), Ottawa -- metro population approximately 1.5 million people.

The three FM stations in question went on the air in 2000's, with CJWL Lite 98.5 going on the air in 2006, with the other two stations hitting the airwaves not long afterwards.

It appears that these FM stations -- like many others -- have been getting hit by changes in listenership, with its migrating to Streaming. On top of that, there have been downturns in advertising revenues in the Radio industry, especially since the Pandemic.

The Evanov company's PR release concerning the shutting down of the FM radio stations says it all, really: "All broadcasters are now contending with the challenges of increased competition, a difficult media climate, and the residual effects of the pandemic."

Here is a link to the _________ article on the FM station closings.:

[Link removed, sorry. -- see appendix for explanation. C.C. 8-2025]

Whether a new buyer is interested in purchasing these stations to make a go of it is a good question. None have been mentioned. No potential sale was mentioned, either. It looks like these three Eastern Ontario stations will go permanently dark.

From everything else that I've read concerning the state of Radio, the Evanov spokesman seems correct. The 'difficult media climate' he mentions is directly related to the state of advertising -- ad revenues are down across the board, especially for legacy media like Radio, TV, Cable, Newspapers, Magazines -- there are infinite 'slots' for advertisers on the internet and it decreases the value of those advertising 'slots' media wide.

On top of that, of course, you've got inflation, something which Canadians also deal with. Their dollar, like the US dollar, is worth less than it was worth in the 2000's. For example, according to the Bank of Canada, the Canadian dollar is worth 69% less than it was in 2000, and 18% less than it was before the Pandemic hit.

The Bank of Canada inflation calculator can be found here. It is similar to the US BLS Inflation Calculator.:

Inflation Calculator - Bank of Canada

Being that the Canadian dollar -- like the US dollar -- has declined in value since the 2000's, the effect has hit Radio with a double-whammy: you have decreased numbers of listeners since the 2000's, increased online competition for advertising over the same time period, and overall inflation, too.

Radio is a difficult business anymore because of these factors.

KNPT 1310, Newport, Oregon, left the air for good in late January, 2024, after seeing its ad revenues dive by more than 50% during and after the Pandemic. Several other stations in Newport's Oregon Coast market, both FM and AM, as well as a stream, were shut down at the same time. This left Lincoln City, OR, without an AM station (KBCH).

WHEN IT WAS JUST AM STATIONS, NO ONE CARED

Over the past couple of years, I've noted -- on this blog -- the shutting down, or potential shutting down, of several radio stations in the Pacific Northwest and Canada. From KNPT Newport, to KUTI Yakima, to KYVL/KMED Medford, to the shutting down of Las Vegas's 50KW powerhouse station KDWN, to the potential closings of two stations in Edmonton and Vancouver, to the shutting down of 7 AM stations in Canada by Bell Media (4 of them in Alberta and British Columbia), to Bell Media's selling off 45 other radio stations in Canada last year to smaller Radio companies. Many of the stations in Bell Media's 45 station fire sale (this last February) were on the AM band, with all of them affected by the post-Pandemic economy, and migration of listeners to Streaming platforms.

During the February sale of the 45 stations, Bell Media's spokesman said "radio is not a viable business anymore."

Here is my article on Bell Media's selling off the 45 stations -- many in Western Canada.:

Interrock Nation: A Canadian media company sells 45 Radio Stations, both AM and FM, lays off 4,800 workers

My article on Bell Media pulling the plug on CFRN and 6 other AM stations in Canada is here.:

Interrock Nation: Canadian Radio Company Slashes Jobs, Kills 7 AM Radio Stations

To AM Radio fans, all of these sales and station closings were a bit of a shock.

But to many others in the Radio business, there were a lot of scoffers, who just shrugged it off as 'AM Radio', the 'dying media'.

However, now, the picture is changing. The shutdowns are starting to hit FM.

Both AM, and FM, are being bludgeoned by Streaming platforms -- and those Streaming platforms aren't owned by Radio companies.

In one of my last articles on this subject, I mentioned that I understand why some listeners migrate to Streaming. If I want to hear all 2010's Electronic pop, Radio doesn't provide a lot of it. But Pandora has a channel devoted entirely to 2010's Pop. If I want to hear 2000's Nu-Metal, there are channels online that cater to that genre as well. The local FM Rocker that played a lot of it -- KVRQ 98.9 -- got flipped to country after a year, and the other local FM rocker, KISW, doesn't play a lot of Nu-Metal, and they shut down their HD2, Metal Militia channel that played nothing but Metal. 

However, I can get all the Nu-Metal and Metal I want on a couple channels on Pandora, which is on my phone.

CKHK-FM was a Modern Country station in Hawkesbury, a small to medium sized city on the Ottawa River, near the eastern tip of Ontario, about 30 miles upstream from the junction of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers. Country is one of the hottest radio formats. Even such a format can not save a station if the ad revenues are down.

THE DECLINE OF HD RADIO -- GIVING THE LISTENERS THE FINGER

Radio is stuck between a rock and a hard place, but it's not helping itself by leaving a lot of listeners in the lurch. Half the HD FM signals in my metro of 4 million people are HD1 only, meaning that their HD signal just broadcasts the main channel. A lot of FM's have no HD.

It wasn't always this way. Just 8 years ago there were quite a few HD2's with different formats -- Blues, Metal, BBC, Alt, Radio Disney, LBGTQ, Viet, Religion.... Yet the radio companies got rid of a lot of them. Thankfully, some companies still have HD2's on their FM stations. But it seems to be a declining trend.

They sometimes say that HD2's are expensive to maintain, which seems a bit laughable: it's just another programmed computer playlist and the signal is already on the air.

Either way, Radio in general appears to be drifting in free fall, and many of the experts seem to be resigned to the fact that the future is all online, and they're resigned to keep it that way.

Some of them, but not all of them, understand that the transformation to All Streaming means that by 2035 or 2040 most of them won't have a job, because most listening won't be to individual stations, but to channels on Pandora and other platforms, as well as individual, user-programmed streams.

For those who are or were in the Radio business, it's just the reality. Radio could advertise more, but apparently the Radio companies are strapped for promotion revenue, and the ROI that would come from advertising your station/stream's existence on other platforms like YT, FB, or other online media -- to try to attract and gain new listeners -- just isn't there.

In conclusion, it's sad to see FM radio take the hit. For the past few years, a lot of folks -- even Radio people -- make fun of AM as the old-person's media, and even MW DX'ers talk as if they wish a lot of stations would just shut down.

I've always been against that idea, and detest that attitude. I know some stations are going to shut down due to economics, but I in no way applaud it. Any stations shutting down -- AM or FM -- is an indicator that the industry is in great trouble. And this applies not just to AM, but FM also.

If an FM station that plays one of the two most popular music formats in North America can't pay the bills, while being on the air in one of Canada's Top 4 cities, what does that say for the state of Radio today?

WPLJ New York City was a top FM station in the 70's and 80's, and probably one of the top stations in the US. When it finally sold to EMF in 2019, it was valued much lower than it was even 20 years ago. An FM station with a good signal, in America's biggest city, couldn't keep going without being sold to a religious broadcaster.

THE WRITING FOR FM WAS ON THE WALL WITH WPLJ

I have a feeling that there may be more of these stations going off the air, or otherwise being sold to religious broadcasters -- some of which have enough money to buy an FM in a big city, as was proven by EMF's purchase of WPLJ New York several years ago in 2019 (it was part of a deal where EMF bought 5 Cumulus FM stations, including FM stations in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta). The purchase of WPLJ, once a major station in NYC, got the biggest discussion in Radio circles, however.

That purchase, of what once was a hit radio station in the #1 market and #1 city in the United States was a harbinger of the future of FM radio. The station also sold for a fraction of what it was worth in the 1980's.

Here's the Wiki on WPLJ:

WPLJ - Wikipedia

WPLJ's logo today. K-Love is a national, Christian contemporary / praise music format, with stations in nearly every major city in the US. They are owned by EMF, who also runs Air-1 stations in most metros. The Air-1 in Seattle is on 88.1 FM.

So now Canada's capital city, and Canada's fourth largest metro area, will see a station go dark on 98.5 FM. The other two FM stations being shut down, both Country (the #1 music format in the US), serve smaller cities SE and East of Ottawa. According to the RadioInsight article above, three employees of these stations will still have jobs at other stations in the company, but whether there were other employees let go or not isn't mentioned.

If there were, I feel for them, as their Radio days are probably over. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: chances are extremely high they will never work in the Radio industry again. The industry is in decline. Even a cursory look at BLS labor stats indicates that employment in Radio, and broadcast media in general, is dropping. Although that's just the US, I'm certain in Canada it isn't much different.

Rockland, Ontario is a moderate sized city maybe 20km / 15 miles East of Ottawa, on the Ottawa River. Modern Country is the #1 or #2 music format on radio in North America (excluding Mexico and Greenland). It couldn't keep this FM station on the air. The spectre of listener migration to online Streaming, as well as the decline in advertising revenues is killing Radio stations. Including FM.

CANADA IS A DIFFICULT RADIO MARKET

I used to work with two Canadians who were format consultants at the Radio Format company where I worked for 16 years. They both told me that it's a tougher market in Canada. It's because it's a smaller national Radio market. The country is vast, but the population is comparatively small, and it's mostly concentrated in just ten or eleven large metros (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec City, Hamilton, Kitchener, London, Victoria, Halifax, and a few other cities with over 200K in the market). 

The Canadian radio experts I knew each said that the Canadian Radio infrastructure isn't financially robust, especially compared to the US Radio marketplace. They each consulted hundreds of radio stations in the US. That was something they couldn't do in Canada. The economics of Radio in Canada is smaller than it is in the US.

Perhaps with the shutting down of these three Ontario FM stations we're seeing some of that. And we may be seeing the start of a trend, not just in Canada, but in the US as well, of FM's going under. Because the economics of Radio in the US isn't very robust at the moment.

Remember, one of the largest Radio companies in the US, Audacy, just flipped the #10 billing radio station in the country -- WCBS-AM -- from news to sports. Top billing doesn't count like it used to.

My article on WCBS having the news format 'plug' yanked.:

Interrock Nation: Top Billing Station WCBS 880 Flips To Sports -- What That Means For Radio in the US

FM going down the tubes is inevitable. I personally think the death of FM is a few decades away, but it's apparent that everything is going online, and that means more concentrated power in the hands of a few key players: Spotify, YT, Pandora, Apple, Amazon Music, IHeart, and Audacy, and a few other large music and audio streaming platforms.

There will come a day when the economics of Radio won't support studios (with all the expensive desks, microphones, processors, computers, etc.), station audio processing equipment, STL's, Transmitters, backup transmitters, and Towers -- and all the electric bills it takes to run that FM infrastructure. Many FM stations in the US are 100KW or more. Even smaller ones can be 30-50KW. That electricity cost adds up. 

One expert on a Radio forum I go to said that most of the stations in a small metro of around 45K people in the Eastern part of my state are financially in trouble, because of the decline in advertising revenues. Most of those stations are FM's. Another small metro on the western side of the state is seeing its small cluster of stations (including an FM) getting rid of staff because of a decline in revenues.

As can be seen, FM Radio is not immune to the decline. Remember, KNPT Newport had two FM stations in its cluster, and KNPT itself had an FM translator. They also had a station stream. 

It didn't save them. The economics just wasn't there for the operation anymore.

To those of you in Canada, my other mother country: I realise that the economy is hitting Radio in your country, and it's sad that so many of these stories are about shut down radio stations across your great land.

CKMX, CFRN, CKST, CFTE, and other stations in major Canadian cities -- some of which still had ratings (like Edmonton's CFRN, a TSN/ESPN affiliate), and some of which I listened to (CKMX, CFRN) are now all gone. Just recently, 900 CHML Hamilton, an AM news and talk station, was shut down. Its owners, media company Corus, is facing economic difficulties.

97 years on the airwaves, and a Global / City News format in Canada's #9 city couldn't keep CHML 900 from having the plug pulled. The mayor of Hamilton called CHML the 'DNA' and the 'fabric of the city.' Not any more. The company abruptly laid off the staff one morning in mid-August, switched to automated music for a couple hours, and then -- after a statement by a radio company exec -- went to one hour of dead carrier before finally switching it off. True class.

Here's a CBC news story on that destruction of a nearly 100 year old, community-related news station.:

Hamilton's 900 CHML radio station, one of Canada's oldest, closes | CBC News

And now these 3 FM's in Ottawa and nearby cities are being shut down. 

What my former Canadian workmates said about media in Canada turns out to be pretty accurate. It's a tough radio marketplace. And it's getting that way all over.

My oldest cat, Tigger, born some time in March, 2007. He is now 88 cat years old.

He's a tough, gentle cat. He still misses one of his cat pals that ran off 6 years ago. But his other pal, Racofrats, keeps him good company.

IN OTHER LIFE? SHITTY, BASICALLY

There really isn't all that much to say about what's going on, really. The weather is still relatively warm, and I buried my cat Squeakers, but it didn't take away the pain. She was getting stronger and doing better over a couple days, and then I went in to check on her and she was dead. Now she rests near my hawthorn tree.

Now I just have to ensure that my other cats stay healthy.

I'm keeping physically active. I eat OK. A lot of noodle soups, with beans, peas, celery, bok choy, onions, potatoes, carrots, and some cut oats mixed in -- with lots of paprika, curry, cayenne and other spices. I still DX the SW and MW bands, although it's been a bit boring to do so, as I'm not really enthused about it. I'm starting to plan ahead for Halloween. I have some electric jack o' lanterns to fix, and I suppose I'll have to carve a pumpkin for this Halloween also. But that's a month away.

Although I really have nothing to celebrate, I'll at least put up the effort.

There are millions of people worse off than me. Believe me, I am aware of that.

Racofrats, named after my very first cat, that I had when I was a little kid. Racofrats is Tigger's pal.

Today, of course, is September 11th. On this day, 23 years ago, we all know what happened in New York City. It was an event that changed the United States in many ways.

I have a post on September 11th here.: 

Interrock Nation: MY SEPTEMBER 11th

Until next time, 

Peace.

C.C. September 11th, 2024.

ADDENDUM, October 23rd, 2024:

I have since learned that a couple small radio companies have decided to buy all three of the FM stations in the Ottawa and nearby areas. They were purchased at the last minute, and they will stay on the air.

Here is a link to an article about the sale, and the continuance of CJWL and the other FM's being on the airwaves in Eastern Ontario.:

[Link removed, Aug. 2025, see appendix for explanation. C.C]

I added a short paragraph inside the article about this.

During a discussion online about this situation with the three stations -- the failure of the Evanov company to see a good ROI in Canada's 4th largest metro, one radio expert reminded me that Ottawa (and probably other radio markets on the Ontario / Quebec border -- Pembroke would probably be another similar city) have split Anglophone / Francophone markets, because the audiences get divided between the two dominant language groups, and advertisers generally prefer one language group over another. Makes sense, as it would decrease the size of the market from 1.4 million to whatever size the Anglos / French speakers are in their effective areas.

C.C. 10-23-2024

APPENDIX:

I used to frequent a radio web forum, which I sometimes mentioned here on my blog. Because of something that happened on that site, I decided that I am not going there anymore -- nor am I promoting, in any way, any traffic to their website. So I have deleted some links and a site name from this article because of that.

Sorry for any inconveniences, but any website that treats me like crap isn't getting promoted on my blog. C.C., August 21, 2025

HALLOWEEN 2023, a Fun Time in Cold-tober -- & Canada rocker Myles Goodwyn RIP

My biggest electric Jack O' Lantern, and one of the two last ones I bought, probably in 2018. They used to be in the living room to keep my mom cheered up, as she liked pumpkin lights.

As I start to write this article, it is the day after Halloween. Halloween is a fun US holiday, that is rooted in many traditions brought here by our colonial forbears -- the Scotch-Irish (Ulster Irish people who colonized the Appalachian and Allegheny Mountains) and English colonists in particular brought with them some customs that became Americanized over the centuries, and it's become a fairly big holiday here in the US today.

Halloween has also spread worldwide. I have seen social media posts from friends and acquaintances in places like Norway and Germany, who have gone to Halloween parties. Some social media influencers posted pics of themselves in Halloween costumes.

 

Although there are some similar folk traditions in non-British and Irish regions -- Friesland's and Northern Germany's Laternelaufen and Austria's Laternenfest being a couple of them (where young people carry lanterns from house to house on St. Martin's Eve, November 11th), most of the Halloween traditions in America came from Scotland, Ireland, and England. German immigrants in the US appear to have adopted the Halloween traditions of their Ulster-Irish, Scottish and English neighbors.

A turnip Jack O' Lantern, the predecessor to the carved pumpkin. The Scots and Irish carved turnips for Halloween because they didn't have pumpkins. Maybe next Halloween I'll try to carve one. 

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

An example of "Soul Cakes". From Wikipedia.

Here in the US, what we now know as Halloween is a combination of a bunch of diverse folk traditions -- Scotch-Irish folk traditions (the idea of putting out lighted turnip and pumpkin lanterns to ward off the spirits of the dead), All Saint's Day (a Catholic holiday that celebrates the saints -- hence the name "All Hallow's Eve"), the UK traditions from All Souls Eve (the night before All Souls Day, when in Victorian Britain young people would go from house to house to ask for "Soul Cakes"), and -- more recently -- the Latin American traditional holiday the Day of the Dead has played a part in Halloween also.

Trick-or-treating developed from some Scotch-Irish and British traditions. The jack-o-lantern pumpkins developed from the older, carved turnip traditions brought over by the Ulster Irish in the 1700's. America's larger pumpkins were adopted as the turnip lantern's replacements.

REAL TRICKS TO 'TRICK OR TREATING'

Some rural areas of 19th Century America saw actual tricks played on Halloween night. My grandfather, who grew up in rural northern Wisconsin, remembered tricks being played on farmers. One farmer work up in the morning to see his wagon had been disassembled, and then reassembled on the top of his barn!

So -- yes, kids, there really was a "trick" in "Trick-or-Treat"!

Boo! One of my electric pumpkins placed in a tree, looking out towards the street.

FREEZING NIGHTS BEFORE HALLOWEEN

This Halloween it was COLD, maybe 33F (+2C). But it was OK otherwise. One problem I was having during the week before Halloween was that I was really tired all the time. I think it was left over from the little sleep I was getting during the period just before the trial we dealt with at work (something I wrote about last week here in my blog).

The lack of good sleep knocked my energy level back a bit.

I also wasn't eating enough good food for more than a week, and I don't think that helped.

The night before Halloween I had a good meal of beef stew, and I went out -- in the COLD -- and put out my electric Jack-o-Lanterns and cleared away a path to my front door (my hedge has grown out a lot over the past couple months). I got the candy in its bowl, set it near the front door, and then got my dancing pumpkin puppet out of the closet, because last year when I left the puppet in the closet one of the trick-or-treaters said "Where's the puppet?"

They even went back to the street so I could get my puppet, and then open the door the right way, with the puppet looking out and saying "Trick Or Treat, give me your candy!" to the kids.

So, this Halloween, I was ready. And so was my dancing pumpkin puppet.

When the last of the trick or treaters had gone, I went out on my bike, riding through the neighborhood armed with my Nikon camera. A house a few blocks away from mine had a really cool display, with a giant skeleton monster that lit up and moved!

A close up pic of the skeleton monster.

The Skellingtons, I think, made their mark on Halloween this year in the neighborhood.

Another house in the area had a cool laser display of a spider dropping into its web.

I had maybe 15-18 trick or treaters, in four groups. The last group was a neighbor and his wife, who brought up their young son. I gave candy to the son, and then to the neighbor and his wife. If the parents come up with their kids, I always give some candy to the parents. I don't eat much sugar, really, and I always have candy left over after Halloween, so I have no problem giving the candy away. Also, I think giving the parents a candy bar or two is a good, neighborly thing.

After all, how often do neighbors see each other over something fun like Halloween trick-or-treating?

Finally, my cousin showed up. He still gets some of my mail, which is directed at my mother's estate, because he lives in my mom's old house. I hadn't seen him for a few months, and we talked a lot.

When trick or treating was over, I went for a bike ride around the neighborhood, and took a couple pics of one neighbor's really cool display, with a massive pumpkin monster out front of his house. 

Then I went home and inside the house, as by then it was just below freezing.

My Halloween 'treat', which arrived on my porch early Halloween morning. An XHDATA D-328, which cost $15 US, along with another $9 shipping. Not bad for a good performing SW radio with worldwide FM band coverage (64 MHz to 108 MHz) and good MW performance, too! In this pic you can just see the alligator clip that holds my 25 foot / 8 meter indoor wire antenna to the XHDATA's whip antenna. This radio works terrific with an external antenna. Even 3 meters / 9 feet of wire helps bring in SW stations. I have an article in the works on this radio and another XHDATA I got two weeks or so later.

Early in that morning I tuned around on my XHDATA D-328 AM-FM-SW radio, which was delivered early Halloween. The XHDATA is a very cool, inexpensive, and old-school looking radio that I'm writing an article about that I hope to post later on this week.

I was able to hear a MW DX station from Southern Oregon (KAJO 1270, Grants Pass) and some stations out of China and the Far East on SW, by adding a wire to the whip antenna. Adding a MW loop antenna brought in some DX, too. The XHDATA is a fun little radio, and works quite well, considering its size and cost.

RAIN, AND SOME HESSIAN FOOTBALL!

The last couple days it's been 50F (8C?) and rainy, which is a respite from the cold. I have been able to crack open my bedroom window to sleep a little better, without freezing in the process. :-)

Later this morning as I write this there will be an NFL game broadcast from Frankfurt, Germany. As any German knows, Frankfurt is in Hessen, a state in the west-center of Germany. Some of my German ancestors may have been Hessians, although the ones I can actually track, or trace, came from Ansbach in Bayern. In colonial American days most German immigrants, like my German ancestors, were called "Hessians", a holdover term from Revolutionary War days, when the British hired "Hessian" mercenaries (German regiments from Hessen & Bayern) to help them fight the war. After the war, many "Hessian" soldiers stayed on in America, after taking an oath of allegiance to the US. For a few decades afterwards, Americans referred to all German immigrants as "Hessians". I guess the American colonial people back then didn't know their German geography. :-)

Anyway, there will be an NFL game in Frankfurt later on this a.m., which will start about 6 a.m. local time.

Last year there was a similar German NFL game, staged in Munich, where the Seattle Seahawks played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It was a good game, even though Seattle lost. The Tampa Bay quarterback, Tom Brady, played well, and it was the last game on the radio I heard him playing. Brady has since retired. There are some football fans here in the US who don't like Tom Brady, but I am not one of them. The guy was an excellent player, and played well even at age 45 -- showing people that age can be overcome if you dedicate yourself to your health, and to your trade.

This time around, the Frankfurt game is being played by a couple Eastern US teams. It still should be cool to hear on my radio.

Until next time, I hope all who celebrated had a cool Halloween, and all the Catholics had a great All Saints' and All Souls' Day, and my Latin American readers had an OK Dia De Los Muertos.

THIS BLOG REACHES 100K UNIQUE VISITS!!

Last but not least, some time in late November this blog reached the 100,000 visit mark. That means my blog has been viewed, read, or visited 100,000 times since I started blogging in 2015. I know that there are blogs out there that get a lot more visits, but I always feel humbled to know that all of you out there are reading these articles.

The most popular article on this blog is, amazingly enough, the article on Powersound pickups. It's probably because a lot of guitar players who have Ibanez guitars (and there are a LOT of Ibanez fans out there) are aware of Powersounds, which were installed as stock pickups on a lot of Ibanez guitars up until a few years ago. There also is so little information on Powersounds out there -- at least from anyone who uses them and has figured out how to get the most out of them. Apparently my article has fulfilled a service to Powersound pickup guitar owners. :-)

That article alone has been read 7,290+ times.

Some of my other popular articles are my articles on the Realistic DX-375 (5340+ readers), the Realistic DX-370 (3040+ readers) and my article on the Sangean PR-D5 power button issue (3580+ readers). My article on the analog-dial, Realistic DX-350 radio got 3368 readers. The fact that my articles on these radio and guitar pickups could draw so many readers is humbling, really.

I hope some of the articles here have helped you in your DX hobby or guitar hobby, and I hope that the non-hobby articles have still been informative and entertaining. The fact the name of the blog is a bit unusual and difficult to remember probably doesn't help with the stat counts, but I'm leaving it as is. "Interrock" was going to be the name of a band I was going to put together. The "nation" part of the name was going to be a reference to fans of the band. The band, of course, didn't happen. The name, however, was carried forward with this blog.

MYLES GOODWYN OF APRIL WINE, RIP

I shall end this article on a sad note: Canadian 70's-80's rock musician Myles Goodwyn died several days ago of undisclosed causes (he was fighting diabetes). Goodwyn led the pioneering, 70's Canadian rock group April Wine, which was one of the first Canadian groups to benefit from CANCON, the early 1970's Canadian law that stated that 10% of all music played on Canadian radio needed to be of Canadian artists or songwriters. The law was a boon to Canadian musicians, and virtually created the Canadian music industry.

The law led to a 'second wave' of Canadian rock and pop artists like April Wine, that were able to become known not just in Canada, but in the U.S. as well -- all helped by CANCON.

I had a chance to interview Myles Goodwyn in the 1980's. He said that without CANCON, there would probably be no Canadian record labels, or Canadian music publishing. I suppose by today that would be different, but in the early 1970's when CANCON was implemented, there was no Canadian music industry to speak of. That obviously changed through the next three decades or so.

Most American rock fans were unaware of the Canadian rock scene -- which had bands like the Wackers, Mahogany Rush, A Foot In Coldwater, The Dudes, Crowbar, Fludd, Painter, Moxy, Chilliwack, Downchild Blues Band, the Stampeders (who had some cool rock hits), Brother, Brave Belt, Quebec singers like Robert Charlevoix, folksingers like Valdy, and others -- until some of the bands who benefited from CANCON, like April Wine and Rush, began to become popular Stateside. Then the US began to look north.

Here is April Wine's official video for their first big American hit, Roller. It's off First Glance, an album that Goodwyn named that way because he realized that the album would be America's 'first glance' at his band, even though they had several Canadian albums previously -- none of which sold in the US.

This is the opening track from First Glance. I think it got some airplay on KISW Seattle, but don't quote me on that. It should have. The cover shown on the vid is the US LP cover.:

Here is a track called Gimme Love, from one of April Wine's earlier Canadian albums, which was released in the US a couple years before First Glance but got zero airplay, and few, if any, sales.:

And yet another -- this one is really good, too. Victim Of Your Love. In the late 1980s I found this 1973 or '74 LP at a used record store. I think this album had a ballad that got a lot of play at Canadian high school proms and dances. This track was one of the rockers.:

This is an 80's FM rock hit by April Wine called Enough Is Enough. I'm sure it got airplay on KISW, which was more rock heavy than a lot of other stations in the US. Myles Goodwyn was able to write rock songs that pop-tinged just enough to be radio-friendly hits.:

I'd like to close this with one of my favorite April Wine songs, Silver Dollar, the closest thing I think they did that sounded like an anthem. It was the last track on First Glance, and I always thought it should have been an FM rock hit. The cover shown on this vid is the Canadian LP cover.:

RIP Mr. Goodwyn. You helped put Canadian rock and roll on the world map. And being half Canadian myself (my mother was born in Edmonton), I think that is a good thing. :-)

I don't have any new cat pictures, but my Squeakers is doing better. She still wants me to watch her eat. She doesn't like football -- when I took a radio in to listen to a game while watching her eat she wouldn't eat. Doesn't like my acoustic guitar, either. I already know she dislikes bagpipes intensely. :-)

But here's a pic of a rarity: A Thanksgiving holiday decoration! They're rare as hen's teeth -- or should I say turkey's teeth? A neighbor put this one up last year, and I never got a pic of it. This year, I managed to get one. So cool to see a holiday decoration for a holiday that doesn't seem to get many of them.

I hope to get another article posted before Christmas.

Until then,

Peace.

C.C., November 1st and 6th, and December 10th, 2023.

Obviously, I was delayed in posting this. I had some car issues, and also didn't feel well for a couple of days after Thanksgiving. But, here it is. With some extra content as well.