Friday, April 13, 2007

KBOO listeners in Corvallis

I've been tuned in to KBOO this morning and wanted to put this out here.
Let me start by saying I think KBOO is great, it airs the programming that OPB fails to air. Of course, KBOO is a Portland entity, first and foremost. I've often felt that while I support KBOO financially, I'm not really a member of the KBOO community. One reason for this is that the signal here in Corvallis is often prone to interference. Most of the time that I tune in there is static and interference from other stations. I've asked our local KBOO guru, Michael Papadopolos about this and he seemed to not know what I was talking about. My question to you is, do you listen to KBOO and if you do how has your reception been? If your experience has been like mine...you wish something could be done to boost the 100.7 frequency...lets organize. I'm thinking about a mid-valley campaign to provide more power to the KBOO transmitter with solar and wind power. Whaddya say?

3 comments:

crallspace said...

I kind of like that idea. First and foremost, this will take a good hunk of $$$. I like the idea of renewable power.

As for Mike Pap, I've told him the same thing and he knew exactly what I was talking about. Some rock station in Newport is to blame. Sounds like he's giving you the business. I called their engineer in PDX first, he gave me over to Pap.

It depends where in town you listen and the strength of your radio. It is a shame, as KBOO is a great asset to our public radio / community radio landscape here in W ORE.

I don't know if I plan on renewing my KBOO membership next year. I listen mainly to Democracy Now, which is the best news program on any station, but I never catch the shows I called in to support - the experimental music programming. That's thanks mainly to the fact that I only drive about once a week, if that.

But most of the time when I tune in, it's damn hip hop programming. I am glad it's there and that the volunteers have an outlet for the music they love, but holy heck! It seems the last 6 times I've tuned in randomly, it's some dumb rap music.

I should just put that support directly toward Democracy Now by sending THEM a check.

tkn said...

I stand corrected about MP. Thats good. So then, is it simply a matter of raw power? What can be done to improve the signal?

crallspace said...

It's on a translator, so I don't really know. Call the KBOO engineer in PDx.