Dead air and your choice of station

[CAwasinNJ]

Like many people, I use my radio as an alarm in the morning. I've been noticing again lately that a certain station has been having coordination issues. Their automatic timers seem like their all cueing 10 seconds early, and I'm also noticing large amounts of dead air. This is causing me to rethink (again) my choice of what station to set my radio to in the morning. If they end up running dead air for 20 minutes when I'm supposed to get up, I'm screwed. I wonder if this has ever happened and some trigger happy lawyer decided to sue over it because some important appointment was missed or something.

Has anyone ever changed their station on the clock radio because they were afraid of not getting up on time?

[I Remember]

KLO's giving you pain again, eh?

I suggest a station with a live board op 24/7 in studio, ie KSL. That's somewhat reliable, unless s/he falls asleep during "When Radio Was." Heh.

[Timmy]

i used to transmit my internet radio station over an FM xmitter and was screwed a few times when it went down or the signal was too weak and my clock radio drifted off.

[CAwasinNJ]

I Remember remembered. Yeah, KLO is the guilty party this time. Can't help but wonder if things like that have anything to do with the not so good ratings.

Timmy, are you sure it wasn't the transmitter that drifted? The first one I got drifted really badly.

[Timmy]

CA, yeah, i suppose it could've been either way. But my Sony CD/clock radio is pretty touchy on weaker signals... it's a regular analog dial tuner so... The sound on it is pretty good though, for a clock-radio.

[CAwasinNJ]

I had a GE battery powered one that drifted at least .4 MHz within 45 minutes. It was going to be used in a car, so that's a Bad Thing. It wasn't horrible for $8 at Home Depot though. I replaced it with a Coby $30 digital model that's worked almost flawlessly. (ObTopic: That's a 12V car model though, and I don't sleep in my car. )