Last week I had some work done on my car that involved removing the battery, so I lost the programming for my radio buttons. Rather than trying to remember or look up all of the frequencies, I'm experimenting with a new system - natural selection.

Here's how it works:

There are six buttons. The last button never changes because I'm too aware that 107.9 "The End" is the best station in Sacramento for a compromise between my tastes, what I can tolerate, and the crap that actually gets played, and since it's really the last station before it cycles around, it makes sense to keep it the last button. It's been there for years, and it just feels like "home."

The other five buttons are completely flexible - if they play something I hate, or they talk too long, or too many DJ's are talking at once, I just hit scan until I hear something I like and I reprogram that button. I don't even try to determine what the station is or whether it already exists on another button.

Using this system, I've already been pleasantly surprised a couple of times by what came up. One day in a freak accident, I actually programmed a button for the local Christian Rock station, but that was quickly corrected by stations higher up the food chain. By the way, I don't think "Christian Rock" is an oxymoron. People like Phil Keaggy and Larry Norman have done some really fantastic stuff.

posted by Chris at 9:50 PM Permalink