I paid a visit to Bill Cooper at KBPS today while he was finishing the editing on the station’s Christmas music program. I got to hear a little bit of it, and just like last year, I was really impressed. This show consists of Christmas music performed by Portland area elementary, middle, and high school music departments. Before you start rolling your eyes, the performances are amazing. It’s hard to believe they are all kids. All of the on site recording was done by long time Portland radio newsman/engineer Tom Cauthers, who also did the narration. It’s good to hear Tom’s voice on the radio again!

The whole show is four hours long and will run non-stop from 6am Saturday until 2am Tuesday on 1450 AM. I heard most of last year’s show, listening in the car at various times over Christmas and found it a pleasant change from the same old tired Christmas fare served up by almost everyone else on the dial. Give it a listen. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

I love this program.

Thanks go to Bill for producing this wonderful program. I recorded many performances last year and plan to do the same this one too!

Thanks for the mention Scott...and thanks for listening Doug. I think you'll like this year's program. I'm glad we're able to give these talented students the exposure their music deserves.

This just in from one of the AM Stereo threads:

> Turns out one of the HD Radio recievers sold at Radio Shack happens to
> be able to recieve C-QUAM analog AM stereo as well as HD Radio right
> out of the box! It is the Accurian reciever sold at Radio Shack with
> the model number 12-1686. It does act a little strange as it switches
> to stereo though some sort of DSP will kick in giving a hollow sound
> for a few seconds then the audio will blend to stereo. As I type this
> I am listening to CKMX 1060 from Calgary in full stereo using this
> particular reciever.

Sweet! In addition to the many in-car capable AM Stereo radios, this one is on the market today.

Soapbox mode 1

Not every AM is gonna do well as an IBOC AM. Having both capabilities in the receiver allows broadcasters to make choices given their market, topology and finances. I'm extremely pleased about this development --opengeek readers know why, so I'll not consume any more bandwidth here.

Let's just say this will be my HD Radio purchase, along with a letter of thanks to the manufacturer and some notes sent to broadcasters in support of this development.

Soap box mode 0

Now you've got a receiver to point people to Bill!

It's a great program this year too. I miss this more than anything from my early school times. Choral music is moving because you get to listen and be part of it at the same time!

How do you get your recordings? Do teachers submit them?

Does anyone have one of the Radio Shake units yet?
There are also reports that the new Sangean HD radio will do Analog Cquam AM Stereo also.

All of the on site recording was done by long time Portland radio newsman/engineer Tom Cauthers, who also did the narration. It’s good to hear Tom’s voice on the radio again!

Never mind...

Had the program on most of the day...very enjoyable ! I had never heard Tom Cauthers voice on the *other* side of the microphone before, he did a great job of recording and narration ! Thanks to Tom and Bill and the folks at KBPS-AM for putting together this Christmas treat.

Thanks for the kind comments about our Musical Greeting Card program. Yes, Tom Cauthers records the students' performances and does a great job voicing the program. Tom has made friends of many of the music teachers and they go out of their way to put together quality performances for us. We couldn't do what we do without both the teachers and the students participation! Thanks!

I just wanted to say how much of a treat this program was for me. I found it by accident while searching for something decent to listen to, and I was not disappointed: It completed my Christmas!
The standard Christmas recordings that get overplayed every year do not compare to this locally performed and produced group ensemble music. Never mind the fact that it was being broadcast over AM.. because the magic of Christmas was bursting out of my radio yesterday.
Even the non-holliday music was fantastic! This stuff deserves to be on the air all year round.

As mentioned above in a previous post, I too miss this type of music from my high school and even middle school days.

Usually this time of year if i'm lucky, I might get to hear a high school choir perform a few songs in a mall, but with this program, I - and kbps - really hit the jackpot! There's so much talent in our schools & it deserves to be heard in the community.

Thank you for your efforts Bill and Tom!

Dave

There are several musical events during the year, which could be broadcast. The all northwest choir, music in may, and the state music competitions all feature some excellent programs.

I listened to parts of in with my AM Stereo receiver. Audio sounded great. Certainly different than usual programming. Only neg comment is I think that I was hearing that some instruments were a bit out of tune(?) or something which made some numbers seem flat. Other than that the performances were well done. Did any have vocal solos? I might have missed that.
Part of the program (sunday?) was interrupted by some rap "music" (mono -kpsu?) which caused me to flip to other stations.

Sorry about the KPSU switch Sunday. There was a glitch in the programming of the switcher that toggles between KBPS and KPSU. As for a few instruments being a bit flat...well, these are youngsters who are still learning their musical craft. Glad you thought the AM stereo audio sounded good. We have a temporary processer online. The big windstorm, which caused a number of power "hits" at the KBPS studios damaged our old one. It also burned out a couple of modules in our Nautel transmitter that we had to replace. We were on our old tube Bauer backup transmitter for about a week.

I'm certain KBPS-AM would be pleased to air other local schools music. The key word is *local*. At less than 1 KW out the tower it doesn't make a lot of sense airing a program not focused on Portland-area schools. I'd love to record choirs at, say, Beaverton, Rex Putnam, Barlow, Vancouver schools. But the performers wouldn't hear their work. And the engineers here will agree trying to explain and apologize to people who can't receive the signal is simply too much grief for the station. A woman in Wilsonville filed a lawsuit against KBPS-AM about seven years ago, because we denied her the opportunity to hear the Cinnamon (sp) Bear. The FCC even investigated that one. Thanks for the nice words about the program. I enjoy visiting the schools every year for this.
Tom Cauthers

Are you saying she filed a lawsuit because she was too far away from the station to hear it?

Congrats on delivering a QUALITY L-O-C-A-L product!

62kgw wrote
"Does anyone have one of the Radio Shake units yet?"

I have the Accurian reciever in fact I am the one who originally posted that on the Yahoo groups AM stereo forum! it works well and will get analog AM stereo. I cannot recieve KBPS 1450 where I am too much interference from other stations but have recieved both KDZR 1640 and CKMX 1060 in stereo

Let's not forget about the local sports coverage that KBPS covers too!

[/shameless promotion]