Top Free Internet Radio Stations
When you’re a world away, maybe fighting in a land you’d never otherwise find yourself in, or on a vacation and missing home, the power of the internet can always satisfy that bit of lonliness with the boom of internet and HD radio stations. The internet has provided us with a way to communicate, to reach old friends and lost loved ones It has given us games and information and education. Now, gaining slowly in popularity, the internet gives us the music that makes our lives complete.
I’ve lived and grown up around the world. My father was in the army and that meant transfer orders and packing up the family and moving on to a new adventure, in a new place. It was always hard being the new kid in town. Leaving behind the old, and entering the new always has it’s prospects of lonliness attached.
That was then, this is now………….. I can think of so many things that would be different due to a seemingly insignificant advancement in technology. Internet Radio. In 1984, I would never have thought to turn on the radio, while living in Germany to listen to music from Ft. Belvoir, Virginia. For that matter, from my original hometown of Romulus, Michigan.
However, it is now the year 2006 and the internet has been merged into our lives as tho it were a necessary transfusion. I had recently moved to Houston, Texas. I will admit that at that time, even tho I was familiar with internet radio, I was oblivious to it’s power, it’s diversity, and it’s necessity.
Until I had found The Buzz, 94.5FM New Rock Alternative. It is a local Houston station, and a genre of music I love to listen to…but what I really loved about the station was how much it reminded me of the New Rock/Alternative station back home in Romulus. The DJ’s were different, the music the same, but something tinged home about it. And then, during a break in music, I heard a station sponsered commerical advertising Clear Channel Broadcasting.
Ahhh………home. 89X (89.7FM) was my station back home, and it was indeed produced by Clear Channel Broadcasting. It put a smile on my face, and a slight need for home was eased. Woeful was my ignorance, for I had not realized the true meaning of what I learned that day.
Memorial Day, 2006. I was happily engaging in the daily event that was driving Houstons expressways, listening to The Buzz…Leah, one of the fabulous 94.5 DJ’s, was talking on the air about Memorial Day and our soldiers overseas. A call came in, and was put on the air. It was a soldier calling from Iraq. He was crying with tears of joy mixed with homesickness. He had just heard his wife call into the radio station in Houston to give a dedication to her husband and to tell them that their babygirl had been born.
It may not be the same as being there for the birth of your child, but thanks to the power of the internet and HD Radio, that soldier would not have known of his new daughter for at least a few more days, if not longer. Being a Memorial Day service, I heard call after call from homebound families and homesick soldiers. These were all made possible thru internet radio.
The power and diversity of Internet and HD Radio can not be dismissed. From the MIT Program on Internet & Telecoms Convergence For the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference in October 2001, “Studies gather and analyze empirical evidence that provides support for the point of view that Internet radio is adding substantial diversity to the radio broadcasting industry. Diversity here is characterized as the vareity for program formats and the number of radio stations available to listeners under unrelated ownership. Uimately it finds that, by delivering diverse programming to a significant portion of the market, Internet radio broadcasters complement traditional radio and provide more overall diversity to audiences.”
What this means in english, is that the radio broadcasts that we hear everyday, in our car or in our homes, have been enhanced and even helped by internet radio. Internet Radio provides a way for hometown radio to broadcast to a larger audience. This means when your soldier is over there, you’re just a radio signal away.
This article was supposed to be about the Top Free (Genre) Internet Radio Stations, but I could not write about that. One reason being that my tastes are varied. I love Rock/Alternative as much as I love Country. I listen to the oldies and dance around when my dad is listening to his music. I could very easily do a google search and tell you what the top rated internet radio stations are today. However, I feel there is a more important point to be made about Internet Radio…….
There is no place like home. And Dorothy, you dont have to worry………just turn on your computer.
