For no good reason I have been driving the Rangie to work and back a lot more than usual.
(Ok, so the reason is that I have been really tired and I dont trust myself on the bike when I am tired. There, you happy now!).
This means that I have been listening to the radio a lot (because I have taken the CD player out so I can upgrade it to an MP3 player when I get time…. Yeah, right, like that is going to happen any time soon…).
I have been trying to find a radio station that I can listen to for the 12 minutes that it takes me to drive to work……..
For the longest time (i.e, the two years we have been here) I have not been able to listen to the radio. I have tried, believe me, but they just seem to scream at you all the time, the ads are super annoying, the announcers(i.e. DJ’s) accents are just too harsh and hard for me to understand and the music is nothing like what I am used to.
So, now, back the commute in the Rangie….. Channel flicking lead me to think about how many stations there are here in Temecula on the FM dial…. so I counted them a few times over the trip to work and back……
35… There are 35 FM stations here in Temecula (Dont be jealous Ballarat or Uranquinty, and Paul, I will count the AM ones soon). Of those we have between 7 and 8 (depends on the time of day) are in Spanish…. My Spanish is worse than my American and I have discovered that I dislike Mexican music as much as Opera and Country and Western.
So, whats left. Well, I have got it down to three stations. Two news and one music. One of the news stations is KPCC, the NPR (National Public Radio) effort in this part of the world. Pretty good stuff. Some times a little long and waffling. The other news station, I have no idea what/where it is.
As for music, I have settled on KMYT, 94.5 “Temecula, Smmmmoth Jazzz”. Yeah, not exactly trance, but about the most soothing sounds I can find on the radio 4 times a day….. With one exception…. They play mostly jazz with sax in it. Now, I don’t mean to upset any saxophone players too much, but I am sure that there is 1. jazz songs that feature piano or guitar and 2. ways to play jazz sax such that it does not sound like you are getting screamed at or that you are choking the thing!
Please, KMYT, mix it up a little before I start counting and working out ratios of sax to other jazz that you play. Its kind of nice that their station is on Jefferson St, one of the streets that I go past every day to and from work, so they really are local.
So, I listen to jazz till the sax drives me to the news….. man I miss the bike………
Edit: May 3rd.
Drove to work again this morning and flicking between my three stations reminded me of something else……..
None of the 35 stations, as best as I can tell, play the news on the hour.
Odd, but, like I said, I have really missed News Radio from home, news headlines every 15 minutes. It was great. Not so great here.
They seem to say some mumbled news at about 10 or 7 minutes to the hour. They then play ad’s for a while around the hour, then back to music or regular stories after the hour.
This only happens in the mornings, at lunch time when I go home, they just dont bother with news at all.
Not sure what their thinking is, so cant really comment.
The ad’s themselfs are pretty normal, other than the speed up disclaimers after a lot of them, the funny part for me is that the disclaimer, edited and compressed to the hilt, still takes longer than the actual product ad. Crazy. Welcome to the land of law suits….. On your radio, 24*7…… Must get rest, need to ride bike……..
