The Radio Kitchen

By the way, did you know there’s an internet radio station associated with this site? It’s a non-stop audio stream of hand-picked airchecks and bandscans. All radio all the time. And here’s a few links, clicking on one of them should start sending some audio packets to your computer within seconds. If you recognize one of these symbols of our age, that might just be the one to click…

RADIO KITCHEN RADIO

Actually, there’s been a couple links in the sidebar for quite a while. There’s an embedded flash player that should show up in most browsers and there’s a separate one that may well open up your audio player of choice.

I’ve come to the blog to promote my web stream for a couple of reasons. Over the last few months I’ve added a bunch of new content and I think it’s starting to get really interesting. I suppose I’m biased, but I really enjoy listening to it. I wish I wasn’t the only one. Because that’s the way it’s been just lately (thus, reason number two).

Of course, it didn’t start out that way. When I first put “Radio Kitchen Radio” online I had a few regular customers checking in. I even got a few fan letters in my inbox. While it costs me a little money, it is free for you– the listener. And if you’ve visited this blog more than a couple times, there’s a good chance that you’ll find some audio entertainment in the mix. And it is a real mixed bag. And that’s what I like about it.

What will you hear? Well, most of the audio embedded in this blog, and so many more recordings in the same vein that I’ll never have time to incorporate into entries on the blog. As well, there’s plenty of late night episodes of dial nudging, a nice assortment of airchecks of quirky and forgotten AM stations, some shortwave broadcasts from the other side of the world, and quite a bit of compelling talk radio, include some choice clips from golden age of Tampa talk radio including the magnificent Bob Lassiter.

And that’s not all. There’s all sorts of unedited recordings of New York Radio that I recorded on September 11, 2001. And I’ve just added some strange bandscans from later that month as well, and a bunch of talk radio and news reports from the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003. And there’s all sorts of historic odds and ends, including some Long John Nebel programs from the late 50′s and a bunch of the incredible Larry Glick on WBZ in the 1970′s. And there’s more of the Road Gang with John Parker on WWL. More WHVW. More WCXI. And David Goren has been offering some interesting contributions from his “Shortwaveology” archives too. Yes, it’s a veritable treasure trove.

I guess it goes without saying that if you think you have something compelling to throw into the pot, I’m all ears. It always seems so sad and fruitless to hoard recordings, at least that’s how I look at it. I like to share. And one more thing that occurs to me as I close out this plea for a bigger audience for my little project. If you’re one of those stubborn radio believers who insists on getting all your radio the old-fashioned way (via the modulation of electromagnetic waves), Radio Kitchen Radio may be the only web stream you’ll ever need or ever love. The imperfections and flavors and limitations of amplitude modulation are built right into the data stream.

There’s lots of ways to listen to Radio Kitchen Radio, depending on your computer setup. It’s a Shoutcast MP3 stream, and most players should show the title of each file as it’s playing, in case you wonder what’s on. And if you have trouble tuning in you can drop me an email.

So I hate to beg, but as usual I will profess. If you listen to this stream it might not directly improve my life, but it would make me happy. I have more goodies to throw into the machine, and If I could get a spike in listenership that would certainly be an incentive to encode some more tapes. And if you like what you hear, I’m open to suggestions on how to promote it a bit. I can’t afford the bandwidth for hundreds of listeners at one time, but I wouldn’t mind getting a few dozen a day. I don’t know of any other place where you can hear such a wide variety of airchecks online, or any stream that lets you DX vicariously while sitting at your computer. I think it’s a cool thing, and I’d hate to give up on it. And I’m not ready to yet…

Try it. It’s unusual. It’s analog. It’s radio. The real thing.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 7:34 am and is filed under Digital Broadcast, Radio, Site News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.