My gain

This afternoon I had to go out to attend to some errands and felt in the mood for some classical music. I punched the button on the radio that’s tuned to WCRB at 102.5 FM and the strains of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer came belting out. That was a moment of befuddlement. I poked the button again and Grandma was still getting run over by a reindeer. Well, that was appalling. Another classical music station replaced by a country station?

As soon as I came home I looked on the web to see what was up. Apparently, the station was sold some time back and the new owners decided to change the station’s frequency to 99.5, with a weaker signal transmitted from Andover, and reassign 102.5 to their primo country station. That occurred on December 1st. Nice.

That meant finding the new station on the radio in the house and setting that button, too. And whad’ya know. The signal comes in as clear and crisp as can be, unlike the old frequency which never came in as clearly in the house as it did in the car. For some reason I have difficulty receiving even the largest Boston stations in the house. Now it comes in as clear as a bell in both places. I wonder if people in Boston can pick it up as clearly now...since it’s supposed to be Boston’s Classical Station.

Still, it’s a sad commentary on the state of classical music on the airwaves. One of the very few remaining classical stations with any juice at all gets shoved off to a weaker frequency while the country station gets a stronger one. At least they didn’t yank it off the air altogether.