Intercepted Russian radio communications

The New York Times analyzed Russian radio communications near Kyiv. The unencrypted transmissions, which anyone with a ham radio could record and even interject in, seem to suggest logistical mistakes early on.

The mixed media piece, driven primarily by audio, adds another dimension to the wideout map views of the invasion.

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Geography of FM radio

So get this. There are these things called radio stations that broadcast music using frequency modulation. They call it “FM radio.” You don’t download or stream the music, and you don’t get to choose what songs you want to hear right away, but sometimes you can call locally and request a song you like. It’s also free to listen to if you have this thing called a “radio.” In exchange, you have to listen to “commercials” sometimes where someone tries to sell you stuff. Seems like a fair exchange.

Anyways, Erin Davis mapped these radio stations and their coverage, based on FCC data. She joined the data with radio-locator.com data, which provides music genre. This allowed for the splits above.

Technology is amazing.

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Posted by in maps, Music, radio

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Listen to radio around the globe

Here’s a fun piece called Radio Garden. It’s exactly what the title says. Pan the globe and listen to live radio at all the green dots.

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Posted by in globe, maps, radio

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Radio station frequencies, by genre

Radio station frequencies

In most areas in the United States, lower FM frequencies are reserved for non-commercial educational broadcasting, and the rest is for commercial broadcasting. (And suddenly, radio music availability during long drives makes sense to me.) Upon this trivia nugget, Bob Baxley wondered what the distribution of frequencies looked like across various genres. With a quick scrape and a plot, here’s what he got. [Thanks, Bob]

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