Chiba / Tokyo FM Bandscan + Audio

[cckadlec]

For a brief 10-minute rundown of this bandscan's audio, scroll to the bottom of this post.

Over the weekend I had a stopover in Narita (about 30 miles east of Tokyo) while heading home for Thanksgiving. Of course, as any dedicated fellow DXer would likely do, I printed off a list of possible stations from fmscan.org prior to my arrival and brought along the trusty MP3 player tuner for what would turn out to be a rough few hours with a delayed flight and a crowd of waiting passengers watching the sumo wrestling match on TV.

Thinking that usually the data on FM Scan is rather flawed for international radio stations (and believe me, it can be), I figured the short list of stations would only be a fraction of what was available, but I was mistaken. Due to government regulations and a smaller FM band, there truly are few stations available. This bandscan is more or less the same as the Tokyo metro area, although some low power stations are available in the city that otherwise are not heard outside localized areas. Signals really take a beating from the skyscrapers. Tokyo Sky Tree, the tallest building in the world at over 2,000 feet, will open next year and host some of the current signals, improving reception for much of the area.

In the meantime, here are the twelve available stations in this area. Aside from these twelve, there was no hint of any other signals on the dial. Click the station names to visit their websites. For the location of Narita itself, see here.

NARITA-SHI, CHIBA-KEN, JAPAN FM BANDSCAN
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2011 1445-1715PM JST
65°F with heavy rain and wind
CHRIS KADLEC / www.beaglebass.com/dx

Freq. + Calls / Location / Station Name / ERP / Distance / Reception Quality

_76.1 JODW-FM / Tokyo Tower / InterFM / 11.5kw / 37 mi. WSW / very good
*77.1 JOUD-FM / Tokyo Tower / Open Univ. of Japan / 38kw / 37 mi. WSW / perfect
*78.0 JOGV-FM / Chiba / Bay FM 78 / 23kw / 19 mi. WSW / perfect
_78.6 JOCV-FM / Mt. Mitutouge / FM-FUJI / 2.6kw / 90 mi. W / good to v. good
*79.5 JODV-FM / Saitama / FM Nack5 / 37kw / 44 mi. W / perfect
*80.0 JOAU-FM / Tokyo Tower / 80.Love Tokyo FM / 44kw WSW / perfect
*80.7 JOMP-FM / Chiba / NHK Chiba / 25kw / 19 mi. WSW / perfect
*81.3 JOAV-FM / Tokyo Tower / J-Wave / 44kw / 37 mi. WSW / perfect
_81.9 JOGP-FM / Yokohama / NHK Yokohama / 19kw / 52 mi. WSW / good to v. good
*82.5 JOAK-FM / Tokyo Tower / NHK Tokyo / 44kw / 37 mi. WSW / perfect
*83.2 JOEP-FM / Mito / NHK Ibaraki / 5.8kw / 40 mi. NNW / perfect
_84.7 JOTU-FM / Yokohama / FM Yokohama / 21kw / 52 mi. WSW / very good

* Station was received on seek. 78.6 FM-FUJI was occasionally received on seek as well, albeit weaker.



[ NOTES ]

- NHK stations are generally parallel to each other, aside from any local programming.
- FM-FUJI regular broadcast hours: Monday-Friday 0500-0214, Saturday 0500-0130, Sunday 0430-0000
- Both 81.3 and 82.5 have been approved to move from their current Tokyo Tower (1,093 ft.) site to Tokyo Sky Tree (2,080 ft.) in 2012.

[ TRANSMITTER SITE INFORMATION ]

Click the coordinate links to view the location in Google Maps or cut and paste the coordinates into Google Earth. Be sure to click the "Satellite" option - if not already selected - to view the tower. This area has some impressive towers. If anyone would like me to link to photos of these towers, just say the words!!

Tower Site Name / Exact Coordinates

Chiba Tower Site / 35°42'30.79"N 140°03'10.79"E
Mito Mount Kaba Tower Site / 36°18'20.38"N 140°08'37.29"E
Mount Mitutouge (5,856 ft) / 35°32'57.84"N 138°48'33.12"E
Saitama Tower Site / 35°51'09.67"N 139°36'54.17"E
Tokyo Tower (1,093 ft) / 35°39'30.50"N 139°44'43.66"E
Tokyo Sky Tree (2,080 ft) / 35°42'35.78"N 139°48'39.03"E
Yokohama Isogo Tower Site / 35°21'36.85"N 139°35'45.91"E

[ STATION AUDIO ]

Clips are cut to no more than 3 1/2 minutes each due to the forum size limit. The original audio recordings totalled 90 minutes, later cut down to 60 minutes. Anyone who wants the 39 individual files (60 minutes), just let me know and I can upload them elsewhere. There's some interesting stuff.

Kanto Region FM Clip 1 (3:32) includes 76.1, 77.1, 78.0, 78.6, 79.5, and 80.0.
Kanto Region FM Clip 2 (3:17) includes 80.7, 81.3, 81.9, and 82.5.
Kanto Region FM Clip 3 (3:28) includes 83.2 and 84.7.

Some stations include two clips. Stations are separated by a static sound and are in order.

[DX Grrl]

Those clips are awesome! I was very surprised to hear IDs, and some other things, in English. Do you have the whole Michael Jackson mega-mix, on cut 3? I would love a copy.

[cckadlec]

Sadly, no I don't have a copy of the megamix. I recorded only bits and pieces of each station and my top priority was to get as much ID material and a general feel for local radio as I could, especially the unique parts of it. Because I didn't consider Michael Jackson very unique these days (Japanese and Koreans tend to be overly obsessed with him since he died), I stopped the recording shortly after the segment you hear. I was also concerned about my MP3 player battery, which just loves to drain itself quickly while tuning FM stations. I was also surprised to hear IDs in English. Actually, the InterFM English ID was heard no more than 30 seconds after I first turned on my radio to listen.

[cd637299]

"80.Love"??? They don't carry tennis on the radio, do they??

Anyway, I plan to check these out as well. BTW Chris, J-Wave 81.3 has been online ever since I started online 15 years ago, but I don't think they have a "listen live" link. They used to have part of a page in Billboard magazine (US) weekly.....As I cannot read Japanese, do you or anybody know *if* there is a live link? (If not, man, you'd think after 15 years.....)

cd

[pjdyer]

I'm sure that some of these must propagate via the n-s nighttime TE, but I can't recall seeing (m)any reports of them. That "non-standard" (88-108) FM band is not the hurdle in obtaining things outside of Japan to tune for that it once was. Fact is, the reason that freq range was available is that long ago when Japan started its NTSC service (one of the few countries outside of the Western Hemisphere that decided on that system) they well knew from their own propagation studies (before, during, and after WW2) that what would become US Ch A2-A6 (54-88 MHz) was so affected in that region by intense Es (and F2/TE) that they "bumped" their own 6-MHz wide low-VHF channels up to the 90-MHz range to (somewhat) avoid all the intense CCI that'd be there much of the time (that region has 2-3 times as much Es as N. America due to the strong horizontal component of the geomagnetic field there*). So, when their FM broadcast service came along those lower freqs were utilized (which, with the FM capture ratio effect, would not have the most-prominent of video CCI effects, carrier beat bars - aka venetian blinds, that AM NTSC does).

* that, along with the correspondingly-low field and rare Es over S. Africa, was a large, if not the largest, factor in developing the wind shear theory of Es to explain

73, Pat - WA5IYX

[cckadlec]

"80.Love"??? They don't carry tennis on the radio, do they??

Anyway, I plan to check these out as well. BTW Chris, J-Wave 81.3 has been online ever since I started online 15 years ago, but I don't think they have a "listen live" link. They used to have part of a page in Billboard magazine (US) weekly.....As I cannot read Japanese, do you or anybody know *if* there is a live link? (If not, man, you'd think after 15 years.....)

cd

Ha ha. I do appreciate the IDs in English though. Gosh that made things even easier than expected! J-Wave does have a Listen Live option for sure. Go to the website and click on that big blue "LISTEN LIVE" link, written in English right at the top . I prefer Bay FM though.

That had to be the easiest bandscan I've ever done, even with extra time to listen! However, these stations don't seem to propagate well in the Japanese band. I have never before received Japanese radio at my location in Korea, only 300 miles away. The signals never seem to get out very far and even in the local areas still have static interference when they're being heard on strongly on seek. Even 19 miles from some of these stations, I was getting static on them. When I heard a Japanese station from the airplane 1 1/2 years ago (the *only* FM I heard; the others were in the TV band), it sounded quite the same. But some radio is better than none!

[cd637299]

Hi

For 81.3 there is a "Listen Now" which I clicked, and it brought up another page which said something like "Unknown United States". and would not play, even when I copied-and-pasted the URL into Media Player. I went to an English site, and they play a recorded 47:38-long clip. It's possible that this is for Japan-only. Oh well.....not worth it.

cd

[DX Grrl]

I'm still curious & astounded there was as much English spoken, especially for the IDs. I checked out a few of the sites, and which seem to use the same on-line streaming radio service, "radiko".
I think their servers seem to be limited, connection-wise, to Japan & the geographic area near by. Too bad.

[cckadlec]

Not even the geographic area nearby. Back here in Korea, I also get the same page. Even translating the Japanese doesn't give me a reason why.

[DX Grrl]

Wow! What are they hiding?

[Tom Sanders]

English on Japanese radio

After the earthquake last March, I wrote this article on streaming radio from Japan, with Japanese ex-pats who have friends in family in Japan in mind. I noted that, even though English is a required subject for kids through middle school, there was very little spoken English on the stations I heard streaming. The jingles / station positioners / 99 pct of the songs were in English, but the announcers spoke all Japanese except for a few English loanwords that have worked their way into everyday Japanese. And the stream of Inter FM that I wanted to hear because its morning show is bi-lingual Japanese / English was geo-blocked on the Internet to everyone outside Japan.

http://voices.yahoo.com/how-find-liv...26.html?cat=15