OJ on 87.7

[Mickazee]

Over at Something Awful forums, this thread was posted:

Does your radio go all the way down to 87.7? Most don’t - they stop at 87.9. My last two car radios did, however, and I’ve been privileged to hear something rather strange.

Since moving to Kansas City seven years ago, I’ve been able to turn my dial to this mystery station and hear:

http://members.optushome.com.au/pennellum/radiooj.mp3

This is Morse code for “OJ.” It has been repeating endlessly for seven years.

I’m at a loss to figure out why - there’s nothing famous with the initials “OJ” nearby, and if this was a station dedicated to OJ Simpson you’d think they would get a little more creative.

The strangest thing is that this signal seems to come in flawlessly all around town. Whether in the inner city or out in the most distant suburbs, Radio OJ is always there.

WHY? Why would someone go to the effort of setting up an extremely powerful broadcast station just to send out “OJ” every four seconds?

Inquiring minds want to know what this is!

[Beastal]

If this guy lives in Kansas, how can he be an OptusHome member, an Australian company?

[Mickazee]

It’s my webspace.

[Beastal]

*Originally posted by Mickazee *
**It’s my webspace. **

Well I guess that would explain it.

[kniz]

Why don’t you call a local radio station and ask them? Or the FCC? Someone in Kansas City would know better than anyone on this board.

[Una_Persson]

*Originally posted by kniz *
**Why don’t you call a local radio station and ask them? Or the FCC? Someone in Kansas City would know better than anyone on this board. **

Umm…yeah. What about someone on this Board from Kansas City? Listening to the sounds right now?

Which there are none I can hear. I’m using my 400-channel scanner, and scanning from 87.0 to 88.0 MHz, going on Wide FM, Narrow FM, and AM, and I can’t hear any codes or numbers stations.

That having been said - these codes and numbers stations serve many, many purposes - aviation and aircraft related, data, bugs (some old-style bugs operate just at the bottom end of the FM Radio dial), and some of them completely unknown to the general public.

[KeithT]

Located just below the end of the commercial FM radio spectrum (88-108 MHz), 87.7 MHz, is the audio portion of VHF TV channel 6 in the United States. The Fox affiliate in Milwaukee has even advertised this, as a way to listen to the TV news during your morning commute.

From these two links:
http://www.news365.com/Missouri/tv_stations/
http://www.news365.com/Kansas/tv_stations/
you can see that the nearest Channel 6 is a PBS station broadcasting out of Warrensburg, MO, some 50 miles to the east. However, it seems rather unlikely that a public tlelevision station would broadcast all OJ, all the time.

I listened to the recording, and the tone and timing of the morse code pulses sounded a lot like the audio identification of an aeronautical navigation beacon. Since VORs, localizers, and navigational NDBs all use three letter identifiers, that left the two-letter compass locators that often identify the outer markers for ILS approaches.

A google search for “OJ marker beacon” brought up this page:
http://www.airnav.com/airport/OJC/ils/18

Apparently, the outer marker for the Runway 18 instrument approach at Johnson County (KS) Executive Airport, just outside the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, uses a compass locator beacon that identifies itself as “OJ”, and broadcasts at 526 KHz… just below the end of the AM commercial broadcasting frequencies (535-1700 KHz).

It’s likely, especially if these were older radios with analog tuners, that the radios somehow were somehow switched from FM to AM, and with a tuner adjusted to below the end of the broadcast radio spectrum, would pick up a 526 KHz radio signal that does nothing but broadcast “OJ”, 24 hours a day.

[edit on preview: Anthracite, thanks for refuting the premise that anything is being broadcast at 87.7 MHz. Does your scanner pick up frequencies near the AM band? Can you hear anything at 526 khZ?]

[Una_Persson]

*Originally posted by KeithT *
**[edit on preview: Anthracite, thanks for refuting the premise that anything is being broadcast at 87.7 MHz. Does your scanner pick up frequencies near the AM band? Can you hear anything at 526 khZ?] **

At about that frequency, there is a

BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP-BEEP…BEEP…BEEP

3 long, 1 short, and 3 long is what is sounds like, but I don’t know Morse code…

[ScoobyTX]

— .— is “OJ”

(I don’t know morse code either, but it is on KeithT’s link above)

[Una_Persson]

Looks like Scooby and the gang solved another one!

[Truth_Seeker]

*Originally posted by kniz *
**Why don’t you call a local radio station and ask them? Or the FCC? Someone in Kansas City would know better than anyone on this board. **

kniz, kniz, kniz, you ought to know better than that by now!

posted by KeithT in Wisconsin no less **Apparently, the outer marker for the Runway 18 instrument approach at Johnson County (KS) Executive Airport, just outside the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, uses a compass locator beacon that identifies itself as “OJ” . . .

**
This place never fails to amaze me!