I Miss WRVO

It's been a slow news week in Rensselaer, NY, so I think I'll indulge in the luxury of a small rant... It's pledge drive time at WAMC, which I find intolerable. The clumsy, rapid-fire, repetitive "pledge patter" that they seem to think is so exciting and motivational just causes me major anxiety. Life is stressful enough - nobody needs to listen to that. (I'd find it much more entertaining if they actually did learn to talk like auctioneers.)

Anyway, I went back to streaming my NPR and rediscovered WRVO, which is a terrific station in Central NY. They are NOT having an on-air pledge drive now, in case you want to check them out. (In Syracuse its "Foneless February", where you get to pledge without having to listen to the constant nonsense). WRVO has two online streams with different programming. You can get BBC News without sleep deprivation, and with two choices you'll never have to listen to another call-in show. They have some very cool stuff on the second stream (check out Tech Nation and Science Friday).

I really, really miss WRVO's fantastic signal coverage. I could drive all over the greater Syracuse metropolitan area with no static at all, and I never had to change the station while driving 15 minutes to work. Here, I'm constantly swapping back and forth in the car to see which station has the least crummy signal. And I usually get good reception in my house only if I stand within 2 feet of the radio (I guess I'm a good antenna).

Yes, I'll pledge later, when its all over. But I'll split my donation between both stations (and maybe some for WXPN in Philadelphia, to support my music fix).