Here's another part 15 station I came across about a year ago and have been meaning to feature.
The Montana State University's School of Film and Photography had posted "Small Town Documentary:
The Candy Shop".
It's about.. you guessed it, a candy store located on a main street in the small town of Red Lodge, Montana.
Of note; Red Lodge Montana is right there in the same vicinity of Butte, Billings, and especially Yellowstone.. Which so happens to be the primary locations directly involved with the creation and implication of the first Part 15 whip and mast type transmitters in the late 1960s and their expansion beginning in the 1970s. It was around these areas the initial rise of wide spread part 15AM use across the continental U.S. originated- In fact, that research is what indirectly led me to stumble across his part 15 station in Montana to begin with!
But let's get back to the present..
In that article it talks about the candy shop, but also mentions the following about the owner:
"..Interestingly, Mike also runs his own AM radio station: “Retro Radio” (1490AM), out of his office in the back of the store. It began when he purchased some old radios for the antique shop, and he realized there really wasn’t anything to be played on them. Now a huge hobby, Mike runs adobe software to organize his music and even makes his own jingles that are reminiscent of retro radio stations of years past. Mike in his office, otherwise known as Retro Radio headquarters. The station’s reach is within the town of Red Lodge and plays a little bit of everything from a classic era, including big band, country, rock, lounge, etc..." --Small Town Documentary: The Candy Shop
Well this intrigued me cause I knew it had to be part 15, so I googled but found no radio station website for it, but did find the Red Lodge Candy Europium main site:
https://montanacandyemporium.net, but no mention of the station. Also went to their
Facebook page and found that it made no mention of the station either!...
The 'Small Town Documentary' article above had been published in June of 2017.. Could it be the station no longer existed? This "Retro Radio AM" station, if still operating, is only a local attraction of his town (naturally), but with no online presence at all to find out more. Perhaps I'll just ask..
On February 7, (2018) I used Facebook messenger to make a brief inquiry about the station:
I'm curious about your "Retro Radio" station. I'm a bit of a "part 15 AM" enthusiast, which is what I suspect your station is, and I'd like to hear a little bit of what your doing, I can't find a webpage for your station - Just curious. Hope to hear from you..
The next day received a response from someone only identifying himself as the "tech guy":
"Hi Richard- I hired on for Mike Majerus as his tech guy for his stores, Montana Candy Emporium and Red Lodge Antique Mall and Gun Room. Mike has a career history in broadcasting, and that AM station is a low-powered computer automated system in the back of the candy store. We are going to get it streaming online, as well as get web pages back up and going for the stores, that's why they brought me on. It will probably be a couple months until everything is up and going, partly due to Mike's schedule and traveling. Thank you for asking about it, I think it's pretty cool myself."
I was happy to have received a reply. Ok, so I discovered Mike, the station owner was a veteran career broadcaster who now owned an candy store, an antique shop and gun shop, but the message really didn't reveal much I didn't know, but at least indicating it still in operation with plans expanding to the internet soon.
I browsed through the town of Red Lodge other websites looking for another mention.. Found one at The Cruiser Racer Car Show and Nostalgic Drag Races site which showed Retro Radio AM 1490 as one of their 2018 sponsors, then from there, via the internet archive I found Retro Radio had also been a sponsor in 2016 and 2017, but not in 2015 (although the candy shop did). This led me to surmise the station probably began in 2016..
It was an interesting find, but as time passed forgot about them, until when in late November noticed a post on their Facebook from a couple months prior (I seldom go to Facebook):
"Our radio station website is now up www.retroradio1490am.com Please enjoy!".
Someone replied that it was great and if it would be broadcasting from towers, to which he replied:
"you can listen to it anywhere anytime now. It's on the above website, and the Montana Candy Emporium Website, and the Red Lodge Antique Mall website. And it's still broadcasting low power in the downtown Red Lodge area.".
Upon contacting him again via email he also replied to me:
"..the station has been up and streaming consistently. We play it all day in both retail stores every day. We have tested them across all types of devices including Apple, Windows, and Android. It does stream and broadcast 24 hours a day, 7 days a week..."
From that point on I found myself tuning into his station quite frequently. It has a vast mix of music and genres with vintage commercials and movie clips inserted here and there.. it's cool.
When I had first began listening it was the holiday season, so there was rather consistent, though not constant Christmas music going on, just enough to keep the spirit without it getting monotonous. I like the way he's doing his programming. I still tune in on an almost daily basis. You should really check it out. You can play it right from their website page:
RetroRadio1490am.com , but I prefer using the free and elegant
Radyo app, in which case this link:
Radyo Retro Radio Link will load the station in the player.
Bill Defelice of
HobbyBroadcaster.net commented:
"Definitely well executed and the programming certainly doesn't make it easy to tune out. It's obvious they've taken care in their programming choices." HB member Dave Richards mentioned:
"Sounds like a neat station! - and 20 minutes later, I'm still listening. I recommend any readers of this thread to have a listen too. Very enjoyable station."
I had several rather sporadic email correspondences with the station but never really knew who I was talking to. Then a few days before Christmas received an email from Dave Hurst, Manager, Red Lodge Antique Mall: (Dave holding the giant gun, and Mike in cowboy hat):
"Our employee Shannon has been corresponding with you regarding our part 15 AM station. He has a computer, electronics & office equipment background, and has been very enthusiastic about learning the automation and other aspects of broadcasting. Looks like he has addressed your technical questions, but I wanted to give you some of the background information about the station's origins.
I have a background in the commercial radio broadcasting industry, having worked for many media groups in Salt Lake City and Denver, as well as smaller Montana markets. Mostly management positions such as Program Director, Music director but I Also, traveling the country in a 40 foot mobile rig doing on-site event radio coverage was part of my experience with a production company. Celebrity talent field management was also in my job description, so interviews with professional sports athletes, TV personalities, race drivers, movie actors, politicians and the like was all part of the day to day duty.
We more recently put the Part 15 station on the air in Red Lodge so that we would have a close, local signal to show that vintage radios we have for sale in the Antique Mall are fully functional. Weak AM signals from Billings stations that barley come through on 1940's era (or earlier) tube radios could leave the impression with a potential buyer that the unit does not work properly.
The automated studio in our candy store is less than a block away.. Obviously we have world wide reach now that we added modern streaming, as you have discovered. But the 10 to 15 antique radios we have for sale at any given time in the store still need a traditional AM broadcast signal to show that they are operational. We found an estate source of a long time collector/restorer of radios from the 1920's on up, who had been that kind of hobbyist for over 50 years.
We bought over 200 radios from his family, so that was the basis for creating the Retro Radio Part 15 station here. Since older radios only go up to a dial position of 1500, we chose the available 1490 so that you can easily run the knob up to the top and back it down just a bit to find our signal quickly.
That, in a nutshell is our origin story."
I found it a bit difficult to maintain communications with him, but he did send several pictures. Also found out he broadcast with a premium certified part 15 transmitter; the Chez Radio Procaster. I'm glad to have across Retro Radio 1490 AM, and enjoyed his story as I do his station.
I suspect there's more part 15 stations out there than we know of, those who never visit forums, nor have an online presence at all.. and it is those, like this one, I attempt to seek out. Mostly because I just like to see how they're using their stations. Retro Radio is creative with their music station. It's high on my favorites list for sure.
Don't forget to tune them in.. If you don't fancy what's playing, either give it time or come back later, it'll grab ya!
