Fund raising and Car Talk

The "new" episode these days seem to be put together from questions and puzzlers that aired previously and, some believe, material that already aired.

I missed the start of Saturday's episode, but as I was going home from the grocery it was definitely time for The Puzzler and nothing was said about it. Eventually we were told how to help our local station, so I knew what was going on.

Sometimes, but not this past Saturday, an episode airs that is "live" while other stations do the fund raiser episode. It is obvious that the fund raiser episode is not "live", so how was it done?

Of course, the episodes were never live, as I know now.

Sunday the episode that was supposed to air did air on my NPR station. I never listen to the credits since they're the same every week and I missed the last "Even though ... this is NPR", but I don't like to be that close to being late for church. I wasn't able to listen to the ending on Saturday as I normally do because something happened that has never happened before. All three NPR stations I can pick up at home were doing the fund raiser episode.

It's not that I wouldn't have liked to hear that one, but I had already missed so much of it and would miss even more since I normally get the groceries out of the car during the breaks. Well, actually they would have breaks in a fund raiser episode, I guess.

I'm pretty sure you can hear the most recent episodes online. I'm usually at work when Car Talk airs on my local NPR stations, so listening "live" isn't really an option for me.

They're podcasts and that's not normally an option for me. I have a cousin who can do this, but she doesn't live around here. I have to listen to podcasts of Mike Huckabee when she visits if there are any 8:30 or 3:05 broadcasts I missed, but this doesn't work with "Car Talk".

No, my question is how do they put the fund-raising episodes together--although given what they've done since retirement I think we already know the answer.

There are several rotating "stock" fund-raiser episodes of Car Talk I've heard over the past few years; I believe that individual stations or state networks play them off CDS or some kind of recording in place of the network feed. Being in an area served by two overlapping state networks, one network's spring fund raiser and the other's fall one sometimes repeat each other's episodes.

It might be nice to hear one of those "stock" episodes. I was late getting in the car and couldn't hear it all and knowing I wouldn't get a second chance with the regular episode being the one to air Sunday, I didn't try to hear the rest. There was some funny material, like the guys giving three correct answers in a row and something about "headquarters" and "Where is headquarters?"

How are podcasts not an option for you?

There are several free podcast clients available for Windows or Mac desktops and for iOS, Android and other smartphones.

Here is the URL for the Car Talk podcast: http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510208

If I am at a library, I don't know how podcasts work. No one has ever been able to explain it to me.

My cousin has the ability to do it.

If it means having software on my computer, I don't have speakers and I want to avoid anything that complicates what I do at home.

The name of the program is being changed to "The Best of Car Talk," according to the show's producer in an interview this week on "Fresh Air from WHYY." This should end any confusion for those who don't realize the show is archival.

Podcasts are not difficult. All you need is a podcast client app. Enter "car talk" and it will find the show for you. All you have to do is set it to update at least once a week or manually update and download the latest episode. On a desktop, just to go the show's webpage.
http://www.cartalk.com/
Click on "listen to full show."

Unregistered said:

Podcasts are not difficult. All you need is a podcast client app.

Click to expand...

I'm sure that's easy for the rest of the world. For now, I'm relying on my cousin.