Tuning in to 92.7 FM
Updated: Jul 3
Cool!
Blue Monday by New Order.
That instantly recognizable staccato drumbeat kicks in…
Five seconds later: STATIC!!
Ugh.
My best friend and I absolutely loved the totally mint format of 92.7 FM, WLIR*.
What we didn’t love was the intermittent static that turned New Wave masterpieces into sonic frustration. Just tuning into 92.7 was a task!
And we weren’t even driving through an underpass.
Like every other desperate 92.7 FM, WLIR* fan on Long Island, that lived on the effective range of it glorius broadcast, we started inventing ways to boost the signal.
Mind you, we had absolutely no idea that actual FM signal boosters existed and were probably sitting on a shelf at RadioShack inside the Sunrise Mall. Not that we could afford them anyway.
Nope.
Instead, we moved radios around our bedrooms like lunatics, wrapped aluminum foil around antennas, adjusted knobs with surgical precision, and prayed to the radio gods.
But the method that worked best involved my garage door tracks.
Yes. Really.
Out of pure frustration and desperation to hear Blue Monday without static, I grabbed an old lamp cord from another era — dirty brown and definitely filthy.
Using a blade, I stripped the insulation off one end and wrapped the bare wire around the radio antenna.
Then I stretched the cord across the garage rafters, stripped the other end, and twisted it directly onto the galvanized steel garage door tracks.
Ta-da.
Engineered access to culture and an instant dance club.
Suddenly, the signal came blasting through my little speakers like I had personally engineered a NASA communications system using garbage and teenage determination.
Congratulations, Latchkey, you mastered the art of building a radio antenna out of junk.
That was part of the magic of the era.
We didn’t just consume music.
We worked for it.
— Latchkey Boys
*WLIR: Red Apple Media
What did you do to pull in the 92.7 FM signal from Garden City?
Added aluminum foil to the antenna.
Used old speaker wire attached to the antenna.
I was lucky to have a roof antenna.
I was lucky to have a clear signal (ha, ha!).
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So true. I had to work to get a clear signal from 92.7 FM.