# Time Traveling Terry Gross **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 2, 2000, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-traveling-terry-gross/39335 "2000-11-02T01:50:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jb\_farley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9d8465/32.png) [@jb\_farley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jb_farley)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2000, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-traveling-terry-gross/39335/1 "2000-11-02T01:50:52Z")
Okay, here’s the deal. I know for a fact that this shouldn’t be happening, but it is. Repeatedly. One example- I am walking to the beer store and listening to NPR. Fresh Air, w/ Terry Gross is on, and she’s interviewing Tim Meadows. There is some time-delayed echo-y shit going on, as well. It’s bugging me out, but I figure it my imagination or my crappy walkman. A-HA! As the show comes back from station break, I _ **distinctly** _ here “This is”, quickly overlapped by a louder “This is Fresh Air”. Only the “This is” of the quiet pre-echo was audible, what with the latter being drowned out. I have definitely heard this pre-echo at least three times, and oddly enough I think they have all been during Fresh Air. I know the signals can’t be getting to my headphones quicker than the speed of light. I know that Sony hasn’t cornered the market in tachyon receivers. I hope to good lord christ that I am not in some type of time warp. What the hell could be causing this? At first I thought it may be some kind of audio equivalent of tv ‘ghost’ images, but I don’t see how the ghosts could be picked up before the main signal. Could it be something on Fresh Air’s side? btw, my walkman really is crapopy. A lot of times I have signal bleed from one station to another, or one frequency will be smeared along a whole range of the fm radio dial. any help? jb ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2000, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-traveling-terry-gross/39335/2 "2000-11-02T02:18:11Z")
Most “live” brodcasts aren’t actually live. There is a small delay put in ~1 to 10secs IIRC. What you hear as pre-ego could be a bleed thru from the actual live feed. Or maybe not. ---
**Author:** ![malden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@malden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/malden)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2000, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-traveling-terry-gross/39335/3 "2000-11-02T02:46:29Z")
Could your radio be picking up two different NPR stations, both of which are airing the same show? Differences in how each station does its studio-to-transmitter link could create an effect like the one you describe. Maybe there’s a nearby station at 90.1 MHz and one fifty miles away at 89.9 MHz and you are picking up both. I know there are FCC regulations about overlap like this but I bet it sometimes occurs anyway. Does this only happen with NPR? And does it only happen with Fresh Air? This would help eliminate possible explanations. ---
**Author:** ![ubermensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bcef8e/32.png) [@ubermensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ubermensch)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2000, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-traveling-terry-gross/39335/4 "2000-11-02T06:06:58Z")
they also could be recording it on a bad DAT tape for playback but then again it could be your headphones. when i got a really good signal from a really close station, i got some hissing, especially if i had the DX button on. it’d sit around some day and listen to it on a home based radio and headphones at the same time.