It appears KZOK finally repaired whatever was causing the horrid audio, now it’s just back to the normal clipped and overly compressed audio those of us who live in the Seattle market are used to.

I’ve never really understood what it is with this region of the country, the obsession with being “loud” is extreme.  I understand the need on AM where the signal to noise ratio is bad unless you live next to the antenna, but on FM it makes no sense.

One notable exception is KMCQ, 104.5, one of the few stations in the Seattle market that isn’t badly clipped.  It’s nice to hear percussion instruments actually sound like the instrument instead of gated white noise.  Kudos…  I’m not real fond of the format, not that I have anything against oldies, but I don’t really care for the sedate, and I don’t like automation and the total lack of audience interaction, that’s just me, but I do appreciate good clean audio.

Some day I have to string up a shortwave antenna and see if I can receive anything beside computer hash.  The built-in antenna on my little SW receiver is completely useless in this house.