Welby gets a message from God (Maybe)

Over the past few years, God has been sending me a message. Either that, or the clock radio I’ve had since I was a kid is finally dying. I’ll let you guys jusdge for yourself.

Facts:

This morning, I awoke to the sound of a preacher on the radio telling me that I am a sinner, must accept God for forgiveness, etc. etc. fill-in-the-blank preaching. I was mortified. This is not the first time this has happened.

Both Welbywife and I like to awaken in the morning to the soft sounds of classical music. Accordingly, I set the clock radio to awaken us from music from a classical station. Unfortunately, after a few weeks of listening to a classical station in the morning, the radio will suddenly awaken us with the sound of a preacher telling us we’re sinners, or that God loves us, or whatever.

I guess it’s possible that I’m bumping the station knob, but highly unlikely. The only time the clock ever gets touched is when I hit the snooze button. After that, the music (or preaching) starts again and we let it play as we get dressed. The clock has a timer that turns off the radio and resets the alarm after an hour, so just as we’re leaving the house the alarm resets itself.

The snooze button is located on the top of the clock, and covers the largest area button-wise of any other button. The radio dial sits on the opposite end, on the side of the clock, and generally out of reach. It is recessed to prevent accidental changing of the station when you’re setting the alarm.

There is nothing near it on the nightstand, because it sits on top of a wooden box in order to elevate it enough so that Welbywife can see the time when we’re in bed.

Nevertheless, every few weeks we wake up litening to messages from God instead of Classical music. Initially we thought it was funny, especially because it only happened every three or four months. Now it’s happening every few weeks, sometimes every few days. And it’s spooky. If we leave it alone, which we tried for about 6 months, it never changes the station again.

Now comes the really freaky part. I tried an experiment and attempted to locate the religious station that resides on the dial near the classical station on my own, and can’t find it. Ever. According to the call numbers announced on the station, I should at least be near it, but I’ve never picked it up on my own. The station selector isn’t digital, so there is a possible of error, but I tried edging it up and down the entire half of the dial and still couldn’t find it.

And even freakier: We figured the clock behavior would pass when we moved from Daytona Beach to Northern Virginia. It hasn’t. The name of the religious station has changed, but the above behavior hasn’t.

Theories:

God is sending messages and Welby and Welbywife had better sell it all and become missionaries.

The clock is possesed by the devil, and is biding its time until it has enough power to rise from the ngihtstand and terrorize the community at large.

The clock is getting old and there’s something wrong with the tuner that causes it to go out of whack.

Any theories from the Dopers?

To be honest you’ll probably find that even if you bought a new clock radio it would still happen. This sounds like a classic case of Celestial Silly Buggers.

Let me give you some background on this phenomenon…

Recent history has witnessed the rise of Trade Unions as powerful bodies - as workers group together to exercise their power against higher management and strict/unfair practices within companies.

What a lot of people don’t realise is that just as the Trade Union movement was developing on earth, a similar system of representation was gaining favour in heaven.

You have to remember that whilst the life of an angel is incredibly rewarding - what with the whole “salvation” thing and all - it is also inherently dull (since you can do any of the fun evil stuff).

It was discontent with the “evil-ban” section of their contract that led to the infamous Angel Strike of 1977 which witnessed the biggest mass walk out of angelic staff since Lucifer’s division had split off and gone solo back at the dawn of time.

The strike caused serious disruption to salvation services (i still remember reading all the headlines in the papers about “Souls building up in piles on the streets”) and eventually the Almighty was forced to make concessions - the infamous “Right to Occasional Silliness” clause was added to Angelic Contracts.

Basically once a month or so Angels are now allowed to indulge in one of the following activities:

  1. CD Scratching

  2. Removing non-diet drinks from Coke Machines

  3. Sock-stealing (probably the most commonly activity)

or… (and this is where you come in)

  1. Fake messages from God - BUT they must be easily distinguishable from the real thing (i.e. - no burning bushes).

The rules clearly state that no angel can pick on the same mortal on more than three occasions within their lifetime, but unfortunately sometimes Guardian Angels forget this and get carried away - always playing tricks on their Guardee.

Fortunately the solution is simple, if you’d care to contact me through prayer with your name, address and the name of your Guardian Angel i’ll sort this out straight away for you.

Peace be with you.

Archangel Garius,
Head of Angelic Complaints, Investigations and Enforcement (CIE)
Kingdom of God

Some religious radio stations use very powerful transmitters to beam over of wide area, and if the atmospheric conditions are just right these signals can swamp a weaker but more local signal on the same frequrency especially when dealing with the relatively unsophisticated and somewhat imprecise analog tuners in a clock radio.

This swamping signal would tend to come and go as you describe and as atmospheric conditons permit.

At the other end of the power spectrum it is not unknown for pirate FM programmers to broadcast (or rebroadcast) a low power signal with limited range that could possibly overpower your normal signal on the dial if it was close enough. Pirate broadcasters tend toward more alternative music however, and a fire and brimstone sermon is unlikely to be coming from one of them.

It’s God. Send in the money, if you know what is good for you.

Regards,
Shodan

Unless you’re receiving these broadcasts while the radio’s unplugged, you got to go with astro.

Still…you’ve got to wonder about

What will you trade me for the radio? I’ve got paintings, more paintings, and some pictures of nekkid ladies (also painted.)

I want to see if it works here. And I want to wake up with God…

He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy…

Are either yourself or Welbywife prone to changing alarms in your sleep? I’ve been known a time or two to turn off alarms or change radio stations in my sleep, and well, maybe it’s a subconscious thing. (Crazier ideas have been proposed!)

Try this:

  1. make sure the radio is tuned to the station you want. Try listening to it at other times of the day; later in the morning or late afternoon or night.

  2. Check to see if the station has changed it programming for the early morning. Many stations will put on “different” programming when their regular listeners are asleep or not listening.

  3. make sure the station hasn’t completely changed it’s format and now brings you “All God, All the Time!!” programming.

  4. if all of this fails, hire an exorcist. I happen to do this type of work and my rates are very competitive!

Hmm… either God is trying to tell you something or else you have gremlins in your house.

It’s all yours Jin. Now let’s talking about paintings of naked ladies…

lel - as far as we know, no, and the thing is actually sort of a pain in the ass to get to, so that I’ll have to move a little to hit the snooze.

Freyer - thanks for the tips, but I tend to listen to the Classical station in the machine on the way to work also, and haven’t ever had the same problem. Could you send me a price list?

I think you are another one being affected by the “Evil Alliance of electrical goods” and their vendetta against the human race. I was once assaulted by the toaster during one of my bath time toasty snacks.
I think its time to take the fight to the enemy, throw the alarm clock out the window.

egg

The wife and I have formulated a plan. She’ll distract it from the front, and I’m gonna get it with a hammer.

That’ll teach the damn thing to do around witnessing for God when I’m trying to wake up.

Does the station mention anything about you building a boat?

I could be worse, it could tell you to kill your first born.

egg

Get the dial set to the appropriate station then use a bit if tape to hold the knob in place. This will ensure you don’t accidentally change the station during the night.

::calls under-the-bed-monsters, informs them of additional wrinkle in their little game::

Um, do you have a cat? A cat who fears for your soul enough to learn how to operate the dial-changing knob?

I’m betting that god just doesn’t want you listening to classical music, and if you tuned the radio to a higher powered rock and roll station, you’d find that you would stop getting messages from him.

-lv