Meet Edwin Howard Armstrong

Let me begin my tale with apologies to the Burl Ives snowman at the beginning of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.

“Huh, could it be that some of you are not acquainted with the story of Edwin Armstrong? Well, pull up an ice block and lend an ear.”

Of course you (probably) haven’t heard of Edwin Howard Armstrong. It’s a name you only are familiar with if, like me, you squandered a small fortune in order to get a completely worthless Communications Degree (Go Duhawks!). Armstrong is the guy who INVENTED FM radio. His wikipedia page says he was “the most prolific and influential inventor in radio history”. It also says according to his wishes he was buried wearing a Dracula cape. My guess is some joker added the Dracula stuff but can you imagine: inventing FM radio? Bet the guy was some sort of super billionaire, right? Nope. He invented the FM band, got a patent for it in 1933 and spent the rest of his life fighting RCA in court over who invented FM. He removed his window mounted air conditioner and jumped out of a 13th story window in 1954. He would never see (or hear) the golden age of FM radio or see it surpass AM. Bummer.

Imagine what a pain in the ass it would be to try and listen to FM radio when he invented it in 1933. Imagine it’s forty years later and people are just starting to get FM receivers in their homes and cars to listen to it. FM in the 70s was run by hippies who played whatever they wanted for whoever was able to hear it. By the early 80s, FM was king and the hippies got kicked out of the studios for slicker more commercially viable (safe) programming.

We understand that for many of you the ideal situation would have been for us to find a home on the FM dial here in town. Let’s agree that would have been a lot simpler for all of us. This is better. For all of us.

And you already have all the equipment you need to hear any of our streams and podcasts. You’re reading this aren’t you? I could bore you with paragraph upon paragraph of reasons why Nacho Radio really is the best case scenario for all of us but I think if you’re willing to listen to Solid, Planet ALT or our new podcast, you’ll hear what you’ve been missing all this time. Thanks for checking out the site and the stations. We spent a ton of time building this for you because it’s really the kind of content you deserve.

Mr. Armstrong’s wonderful FM band can’t deliver the variety or content we’re excited about beaming into your smart phones, laptops, televisions and tablets. With Nacho Radio we can, and we look forward to working with you to make all of our stations something you’ll be proud to listen to.